Spotlight on Art 107B: Introductory Photography (Black & White Darkroom)
November 9– November 30, 2025
THE COMMONS GALLERY, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
This course introduces photography as a medium of art and storytelling through black-and-white film exposure, darkroom practice, critique, and research to explore creative and narrative structures of photographic language.
Assignment
Students were invited to explore architecture as a subject of photographic practice during a visit to the Liljestrand House, a heritage building located on Tantalus Drive in Honolulu. Considered a shining example of architect Vladimir Ossipoff’s mid-twentieth-century Hawaiian Modernist architecture, today the house is open to the public for tours and for charitable, cultural, and educational activities.
Method
Equipped with 35mm cameras loaded with a fresh roll of B&W film, a few tripods, and careful notes about indoor and outdoor exposure, students visited the Liljestrand House to learn about its design and history, and to photograph the house, inside and out, in its marvelous mountaintop setting.
Students then photographed a different architectural site of their own choosing with a second roll of film. Building upon the fundamentals of film development & darkroom printing, they produced finished prints of both sites for exhibition here.
It may be more than a coincidence that the 35mm film camera and the style of architecture of the Liljestrand House both enjoyed their heyday around the same time, or that they each continue to enthrall new generations.
Acknowledgements
We thank the Liljestrand Foundation staff for their generous hospitality in welcoming our intrepid art students to explore and document the airy and lucid Liljestrand House.
Gallery Opening
Location: Commons Gallery, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM)
Date: November 9, 2025, Sunday, 2:00–4:00 PM
THE COMMONS GALLERY is located on the ground floor of The Art Building. From Dole Street, take East-West Road, turn left to Correa Road, and then turn right for the Art Building.
Hours & Admission
Tuesday–Friday, & Sunday, 12–4 p.m.
Closed Saturdays, Mondays, spring break (March 18-22), and state holidays.
Free admission. Donations are appreciated.
Parking is free on Sundays. Parking fees may apply during weekdays.
For more information, please contact 808.956.6888 and gallery@hawaii.edu