About:

Stephen Anthony Puahi Badger began his photography career as a young boy who always had a camera in his hand. He inherited his photographic eye from his mother who was a professional photographer, and several of her photographs were featured on magazine covers. Stephen is a self-taught photographer, who learned by experimenting with different camera settings at an early age, and built his skills from numerous failures while attempting to achieve what he wanted.

Stephen, also known as Puahi, is a fifth generation Hawaiian who moved to the mainland United States in 1994 as a small boy.  But it was when he moved to Bend, Oregon in 2010 as a young man that he was really inspired to photograph the beautiful landscape of Oregon.  This passion matched up perfectly with his college studies at Central Oregon Community College where he naturally became the photo editor for the COCC college newspaper. As photo editor, he assisted reporters by providing visual coverage of college and local events, and processed photographs with Adobe Creative software for publishing.  In this position, he not only collaborated with news team to publish before weekly deadlines, he managed other photographers and monitored their progress on photo assignments.

Puahi graduated from Oregon State University (OSU) in June 2017 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Natural Resources.  This degree matched up perfectly with his love of the outdoors and desire to photograph the endless beauty of mother nature. While studying for his degree he completed internships in places like Coast Rica and Crater Lake where again he captured the natural beauty of these locations like no one else.  Let the magic of his photographs transport you to these special places.​