Jon Mozo: The Legacy
In the middle of the Pacific ocean between the latitudes of 19 and 29 degrees north rests the Hawaii islands. The main eight islands (with some exception) truly provide endless possibilities professional and amateur photagraphers. Tropical weather all year long encourages many to keep their cameras charged and ready for action when the time arises. Over the years, traffic has gotten worse, the population doubled, cost of living has gone up a hundred million percent and more buildings are popping up out of nowhere disrupting what has been our scenic field of vision.
Like mentioned above, there are an endless amount of people on the islands who call themselves photographers, but there are only a handful who do it the best, and who do it full time for a living and the love. One photographer I would like to comment on is the late Jon Mozo. He perfected his art in all three possible categories here on which we call the Sandwich Islands: air, land and sea.
Jonathan Wayne Mozo or Jon Mozo was local born Filipino to father Reynaldo Mozo of the Philippines and Julia Middleton of Maryland. Due to his fathers military career, him and his three brothers traveled heavily absorbing gods beautiful creation. Upon graduating from college, Jon began to pursuing his love for photography, capturing everything and anything that contained mass. After marrying his beautiful wife Nikki, they both left the island for experience and better opportunities. He was able to gain wisdom from various studios in California, Maryland and Virginia. But that ended shortly after going through island withdrawals. They returned here to reconnect with what they missed. Upon returning, Jon Mozo realized that he wanted to make his passion a full time gig. He shot Weddings, Engagements, Portraits and landscapes.
Already perfected what he did on land, Jon focused his niche shooting natures most forceful objects, the ocean. There were many unexpected dangers that arouse from this new venture of photography that he would undertake: wild sea animals, powerful waves and even the sharp reefs. He took the challenge and gracefully captured what many local people don’t see (in depth). Jon froze beautiful moments of elegant turtles, dolphins, reefs and surfers. In 1993, Jon suffered a brutal bite from a shark resulting in a 100 stitches. Upon falling, we would get up and continue to shoot, even through the minor collisions with surfers and the shark reef. It wasn’t until February of 2005 where Jon would take his last shot doing what he did best. Failing to use his underwater helmet, Jon was hit by a terrible break on the beautiful north shore where the waves brought him to the floor of the ocean, colliding with the razor-sharp reef. After repeated attempts to revive him, Jon died later at Kahuku hospital at the age of 33.
Jon Mozo is one of the local photographers that I truly admire, for his work, and as a person. I was able to meet Jon on several occasions: my aunts wedding and at the canon office where they had his gallery showing prior to his death. I admire him due to the level of difficulty of his work and the story his pictures convey; which shows a more calm/playful side of the ocean that we rarely see. Have to tried being in the ocean, with twenty pounds of camera gear, trying to focus on your subject, capture it, while maintaining your posture without drowning ? I’ve tried it and wasn’t able to do a very good job at it. You can truly see the passion he has in his work; whether it’s capturing playful dolphins and turtles or portraying the sheer emotion of nature.
Posted by: Mark Fiesta