Maui Photographer's 'King's Highway' Book Released

A new, crowdfunded photo book documenting the "King's Highway," an ancient Hawaiian road that once served as the main artery for the island of Maui, has just been released.

The book release party for "The Maui Coast: Legacy of the King's Highway" will be held tomorrow at the Paia gallery of its author, Daniel Sullivan. The globetrotting photographer launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish the book in January after walking the entire 220-mile length of the fast fading road, a segment of which is known today as the Hoapili Trail.

Sullivan wanted to raise $8,000. Nearly 400 backers pledged more than $39,000. Despite the spectacular fundraising success, though, it still took nearly a year before the book could be put in people's hands.

The layout was set by May, with Sullivan beginning to submit it to publishing houses. Although he initially planned to work with Hawaii-based Mutual Publishing, they wanted to reduce the size of the book to a smaller format and cut more than 80 pages. He ended up finding a specialty publisher in San Francisco, but this pushed back the planned fall release.

Sullivan and graphic designer Nicole Skillern finalized the book in August, with "The Maui Coast" weighing in at 204 pages (printed in full-color on special, 180-gram silk paper). The books finally arrived earlier this week.

To celebrate, Sullivan is hosting a book release party at Indigo Paia (149 Hana Highway) tomorrow, Saturday, Dec. 19, at 5 p.m. The next day, Sunday, Dec. 20, he will hold a book signing at the Maui Ocean Center (192 Maalea Road) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. And on Wednesday, Dec. 23, he will be at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea. (3900 Wailea Alanui Drive).

Sullivan opened the Indigo Paia gallery in 2005, featuring tribal arts, antiques and rugs, among other boutique items. And his work has been featured by galleries in Hawaii, Idaho, Wyoming, and even London. But his ten years on Maui, much of it spent with his wife and two kids, are only the latest chapter in his journey, which has taken him and his camera around the world. From Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa, he's spent two decades documenting river tribes in Ethiopia, refugees in Afghanistan, and hunters in Mongolia.

"I photograph the patterns of ancient culture through the beauty of their customs, rituals and ceremonies... my themes are born of my fascination for history, architecture and belief systems," Sullivan writes on his website. "I travel off the beaten path to those small hamlets of culture where the layers of tribe, belief and ritual still remain strong."

To learn more about Sullivan and his book, visit DanielSullivanPhotography.com or IndigoPaia.com. You can also listen to an interview Sullivan did with the Photo Brigade podcast:

http://traffic.libsyn.com/photobrigade/078_-_Daniel_Sullivan_-_Photo_Brigade_Podcast.mp3