With thoughts of next season’s garden chores and photographs yet to be taken, Paul Marshall Macapia passed at home on Saturday, December 4, in the embrace of his family.

Paul’s parents, Jose and Alice, met at the University of Chicago. They moved to the Philippines, where Paul and his older sister were born. The family was interned there by the Japanese during World War II.

Paul’s youth was spent in Chicago, and he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Science-Anatomy from UChicago. An obligatory stint in the army introduced him to the northwest, and his wife, Sybil, settled in Seattle. At the time of his second marriage, in 1974, to Mary Magnuson, he moved to Vashon with Mary and the three children, Cate, Peter and Ele. The following year they were joined by daughter Celeste.

Paul’s presence was strong on the island. He gave presentations in the schools of his photographic documentation of the Lewis and Clark Trail for the 1976 Bicentennial exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum; mentored students in photography; and contributed his skills to The Past Remembered, an island history. For eight years he served on the Vashon School Board. His photographs were a highlight of the Vashon Allied Arts publication “Arts News” for many years. More recently, he documented events for the Vashon Island Fruit Club, of which he was an ardent member.

Paul’s career as a photographer is legendary. He moved from doing medical photography at the University of Washington, to Harborview Hospital, and then to the Mason Clinic and Virginia Mason Medical Center, where he became Director of Photography and Illustration. His work won national and international awards, including a fellowship in London’s Royal Microscopical Society.

Love of nature drew Paul to the ocean, the mountains, the forests, as ever, with his camera. In 1972, a solo exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, Photographs of Land and Sea, led to his being hired by the museum, where founder Dr. Richard E. Fuller still walked the halls. He dedicated his acute skills to the arts for the next three decades. His masterful images fill dozens of exhibit catalogs, many of which received national and state awards. His great gift was to sense and inhabit the soul of an object, and through the manipulation of light and optics, capture its essence. His photographs of people and places were also sensitive and revealing.

Paul and Mary toured Greece in May in honor of their 35 years of marriage. Paul celebrated his 75th birthday on November 14. Paul is survived by his wife Mary; his sister Alice Zimring; Cate and Kevin Oyama and their daughters Nora and Lily; Peter Macapia and Marissa Brown and their daughters Amelia, Abril and Coco; Ele Macapia; and Celeste Macapia and Alok Lathi.

A memorial service will be held Sunday, December 20 at 1 p.m. at Camp Burton, with potluck luncheon following. Please visit our online guest book at www.islandfuneral.com