Sean Michael Hower Photographs Choice Health Bar for a Philippine Airlines Travel & Lifestyle Feature
Quick Answer: Who Photographed Choice Health Bar for Mabuhay Magazine?
Maui-based photographer Sean Michael Hower photographed Choice Health Bar for an editorial feature published in Mabuhay Magazine, associated with Philippine Airlines. The assignment showcased a local Maui business within travel and lifestyle editorial coverage, bringing together Maui food, entrepreneurship, island culture, and professional editorial photography.
One of the things I enjoy most about editorial photography is never knowing exactly where an image might travel.
A photograph can begin with a local Maui business and ultimately find an audience thousands of miles away.
That was the case when Sean Michael Hower’s photography of Choice Health Bar was published in Mabuhay Magazine as part of editorial coverage highlighting Maui’s food, culture, and island lifestyle.
The publication’s connection with Philippine Airlines gave the Maui story an opportunity to reach travelers well beyond Hawaii.
For a photographer, that’s one of the great things about publication work.
You make the photograph here.
The story travels.
Photographing Choice Health Bar for an Editorial Story
Editorial business photography should do more than identify a company. Strong imagery gives readers visual clues about the people, food, environment, personality, and experience behind the business while supporting the larger story being told by the publication.
For this assignment, the subject was Maui’s Choice Health Bar.
Learn more about Choice Health Bar and follow @choicehealthbar on Instagram.
When photographing a local business for an editorial feature, the goal isn’t to make the images feel like conventional advertising.
The photographs need to help a reader experience the story.
That can mean concentrating on food and ingredients in one frame, people and personality in another, then stepping back to show the environment and give the business a sense of place.
Together, those images provide more information than a single polished product photograph ever could.
Published in Mabuhay Magazine
Magazine photography has to work together with written storytelling and editorial design. Images need to be visually engaging while giving editors flexibility for page layouts, captions, cropping, typography, and sequencing within the finished feature.
Seeing the Choice Health Bar imagery published in Mabuhay Magazine gave this Maui assignment an entirely different context.
Readers weren’t simply looking at a photograph of a local business.
They were discovering a piece of Maui through the pages of a travel and lifestyle publication.
Learn more about Mabuhay Magazine and follow @mabuhaymagazineofficial on Instagram.
That’s an important distinction in travel editorial photography.
A photograph of a restaurant, chef, artist, hotel, or local business can become part of the way someone who has never visited Maui begins to understand the island.
Connecting Maui With Philippine Airlines Readers
Travel editorial photography can introduce readers to the businesses, food, people, and experiences that define a destination. When published through an airline-affiliated travel publication, those photographs can connect destination storytelling with an audience already interested in travel and discovering new places.
The relationship with Philippine Airlines made this an especially interesting publication opportunity.
Visit Philippine Airlines and follow @flypal on Instagram.
Airline and travel publications have a unique visual responsibility.
Readers aren’t only looking for information.
They’re imagining destinations.
The photography needs to give them a reason to stop on the page and become curious about the people and places being featured.
For this story, a Maui business became part of that larger destination narrative.
What Is Editorial Photography?
Editorial photography is imagery created to help tell a story in a magazine, newspaper, website, travel publication, or other editorial format. Unlike straightforward advertising, editorial photographs typically work alongside written content to provide context, personality, atmosphere, information, and a visual sense of place.
That distinction changes the way we photograph.
An advertisement generally begins with a specific marketing message.
An editorial assignment begins with a story.
Our job as photographers is to understand what the writer and publication are trying to communicate and then find visual moments that add something the words cannot.
Sometimes that’s a portrait.
Sometimes it’s food.
Sometimes it’s a tiny detail that would be easy to overlook.
And sometimes it’s a wider environmental photograph that immediately tells readers:
This is Maui.
Why Does Sense of Place Matter in Maui Editorial Photography?
Maui editorial photography is strongest when the images genuinely communicate something about the island rather than using Hawaii as a generic tropical backdrop. People, businesses, food, landscape, light, culture, and environment can all help establish an authentic sense of place when they’re relevant to the story.
That’s particularly important for travel publications.
Someone reading about Maui from another part of the world isn’t only asking:
What does this business look like?
They’re also asking:
What would it feel like to be there?
Photography can begin answering both questions simultaneously.
That’s where local knowledge becomes useful.
Being based on Maui means understanding the island’s changing light, environments, communities, businesses, weather, and visual character—and recognizing when those elements actually belong in the photograph.
How Do You Photograph a Maui Restaurant or Food Business for a Magazine?
A restaurant or culinary editorial assignment can combine food photography, environmental portraits, interiors, ingredients, preparation, employees, lifestyle moments, and details. The exact approach depends on the publication’s story, but the strongest collection usually provides both specific visual information and a broader sense of the experience.
For a Maui food or restaurant story, we might photograph:
- Owners, chefs, and team members
- Signature dishes and beverages
- Ingredients
- Food preparation
- Restaurant interiors and exteriors
- Environmental portraits
- Behind-the-scenes moments
- Customer experience
- Branding and details
- Maui surroundings when relevant
- Wider establishing photographs
The idea isn’t to photograph everything simply because it’s there.
It’s to identify the images the story actually needs.
Why Is Photography Important for Travel Publications?
Travel photography allows readers to experience people and places before visiting them. Strong editorial imagery can establish location, introduce personalities, explain experiences, communicate atmosphere, and complement written reporting in ways that help readers better understand a destination.
This is why travel editorial photography is so interesting.
The photographs have to work on multiple levels.
They need to be aesthetically strong enough to stop someone flipping through a magazine.
They need to be informative enough to support the article.
And ideally, they make the reader curious enough to keep going.
A successful photograph doesn’t merely illustrate the sentence beside it.
It contributes something of its own.
What Makes Magazine Photography Different From Brand Photography?
Magazine photography is created around an editorial story and the needs of a publication, while brand photography is generally commissioned to communicate a company’s own marketing message. Both require strong storytelling, but the intended audience, creative direction, usage, image selection, and final presentation may be very different.
Sean works in both environments.
That crossover is useful.
Editorial photography teaches you to search for the story.
Commercial photography teaches you to understand what an image needs to accomplish for a client.
Bringing those disciplines together can produce photographs that are both visually interesting and purposeful.
Supporting Maui Businesses Through Editorial Photography
One of the things we especially appreciate about assignments like the Choice Health Bar feature is the opportunity to photograph businesses that are part of Maui’s community.
Travel stories aren’t only about beaches, sunsets, and resorts.
They’re also about people.
Chefs. Restaurant owners. Farmers. Artists. Entrepreneurs. Musicians. Craftspeople. Guides. Small businesses.
Those people help give a destination its identity.
When a Maui business appears in a publication reaching travelers outside Hawaii, photography becomes one small part of introducing that business—and the island surrounding it—to a much larger audience.
Maui Editorial & Commercial Photography
Sean Michael Hower is a Maui-based photographer and professional drone pilot creating editorial, commercial, hospitality, culinary, lifestyle, and destination imagery throughout the Hawaiian Islands and for assignments worldwide.
Sean’s work includes:
- Editorial photography
- Magazine assignments
- Commercial photography
- Restaurant and culinary photography
- Chef and business portraits
- Lifestyle photography
- Resort and hospitality photography
- Tourism photography
- Corporate photography
- Brand campaigns
- Professional drone photography
- Commercial video production
Whether the client is a Maui business or an international publication, the first question remains the same:
What story does this image need to tell?
Frequently Asked Questions About Maui Editorial Photography
Who photographed Choice Health Bar for Mabuhay Magazine?
Sean Michael Hower, a Maui-based editorial and commercial photographer, photographed Choice Health Bar for the Mabuhay Magazine feature shown in this article.
What is Mabuhay Magazine?
Mabuhay Magazine is associated with Philippine Airlines and has featured travel, destination, culture, food, and lifestyle editorial content. For current publication information, readers should consult the magazine’s or Philippine Airlines’ official channels.
What is Choice Health Bar?
Choice Health Bar is a Maui business featured in the editorial story photographed by Sean Michael Hower. For current locations, menu information, hours, and other details, readers should visit Choice Health Bar’s official website.
Does Sean Michael Hower photograph restaurants and food on Maui?
Yes. Sean’s commercial and editorial work includes restaurants, chefs, culinary subjects, hospitality businesses, resorts, brands, and publications on Maui and throughout Hawaii.
Does Sean Michael Hower photograph for magazines?
Yes. Sean’s editorial work includes magazine and publication assignments featuring people, businesses, food, hospitality, destinations, and other subjects.
Does Sean provide commercial photography as well as editorial photography?
Yes. Sean Michael Hower provides commercial, advertising, hospitality, lifestyle, corporate, architectural, editorial, photography, video, and professional drone services.
Where is Sean Michael Hower based?
Sean Michael Hower is based on Maui, Hawaii, and works throughout the Hawaiian Islands as well as on destination assignments worldwide.
From a Maui Photograph to an International Publication
There’s something special about seeing a local story travel.
This assignment started with Choice Health Bar on Maui.
Through photography and editorial storytelling, that Maui business became part of a feature published in Mabuhay Magazine and connected with the travel audience of Philippine Airlines.
That’s one of the reasons we continue to love editorial photography.
A photograph isn’t limited to the place where it was created.
It can introduce a chef. Support a small business. Tell part of a destination’s story. Give readers a glimpse into a community they’ve never visited.
And sometimes an image created on a small island in the middle of the Pacific gets to travel around the world.
