We were lucky to catch up with FLOYD K. TAKEUCHI recently and have shared our conversation below.

FLOYD K., appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

An overriding concern for me is the discrimination faced by Pacific Islanders, particularly those from the region known as Micronesia. I have seen it in action — dismissive attitudes, the assumption that all islanders must be the same. Of course, they are not. I try to give them dignity and distinctiveness in my photography. I make a conscious effort to make sure their portraits are imbued with quiet pride and dignity.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve been a journalist for a long time. I had my first professional bylines published when I was in college in 1974. That’s a long time ago — it was an era that still required journalism students to pass a typing test, 45 words per minute, on a big, black Underwood typewriter. I went to graduate school at the University of Hawaii on a full-ride scholarship from the East-West Center. I got a MA in Pacific Islands Studies, a degree that I’ve used in some way for almost every job I’ve held since I got out of grad school in 1977.s

I’ve worked on four daily newspapers, running one of them, the Daily Post in Suva, Fiji, as managing editor. Following that post, I was hired by Bloomberg News to be a broadcast reporter in its Tokyo bureau. I eventually ended up back in Hawaii as editor-publisher of one of the oldest regional business magazines in the country. That led to being named president of the magazine company, then president of its holding company, and president of an Asia-Pacific media unit.

By that point, I’d taken our companies through 9-11 and the 2008 financial credit markets meltdown. I was spending all of my time dealing with budgets and human resource issues, and no time on the creative, story telling aspects of journalism that got me into the business. I decided to step out of the corporate life, and working on my own, focus on telling stories again but this time primarily with a camera.

I’d been an avid photographer ever since my parents got me my first camera, a Kodak Brownie Fiesta, for my 10th birthday in 1963. Using photography primarily, and some other skills, I cobbled together a business that kept its nose above water until everything shut down during the pandemic. Thank goodness for a working spouse.

Commissions are coming back, and we can look ahead again. That said, the pandemic has taught us that you just never know what’s around the next corner.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I ended up spending two weeks in hospital in 2018, a traumatic experience for someone who had not spent a night in a hospital his entire life. I had sepsis, and almost didn’t make it out alive. That experience was a game changer.

I came out of the hospital using a cane, thanks to a now bum left leg. I also came out knowing that I needed to focus on projects that matter. I now knew that time was short — when you brush up against death it stays with you — and I didn’t want to waste a second.

I’m more demanding of myself, and I was hard on myself before being hospitalized. I am less patient with everything and everyone, not necessarily a way to make friends and influence people. But I know now that time is fleeting, and I don’t have that much time left in the greater scheme of things.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I do most of my work in the Pacific Islands, where reputation is everything. I find that my previous jobs will usually get me new work, or conversely, raise red flags.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @fktakeuchi
• Facebook: Floyd Takeuchi

Image Credits
All photographs by Floyd Takeuchi. I own all rights to these images