Maldivian Blue
I get asked this question a lot. When I have finished answering in the affirmative, the second response which has been repeated with enough frequency that I no longer take offense comes: “Is that Photoshopped?”
The line of query says a lot about our over stimulated, content crammed, media saturated world, as it exists today. If one were to slip into the dusty cobweb strewn dark recesses of what passes for my mind, you would hear the little bitch echo of a voice I spend a lifetime trying to stifle, saying in a soft clear tone: “Um, get out much?” (Bad Dave, bad, down boy)
But instead of that, you get this blog. Some of you are laughing right now and some have left the room with a click of the red button on your browser. I understand both tacts. But here is the deal. My frame of reference is unique and different than that of the person who poses these questions. My job as an artist and communicator is a simple one: I point to the source. Frequently the source is alien to that person.
So in this process I have found myself a cheerleader for real, first hand experiences. Go, breathe, run, swim, surf, ride, jump, fall, sing, dance, love, taste, smell, feel, listen, struggle, lose, win, live. Turn off the computer, put down the I phone, kill your television, go be that experience today. Then come back and tell us about it in your own voice, not the media’s. Do something. A world could use that joy you find.
I just read a great book called “Ignore Everybody and 39 other Keys to Creativity” It is reviewed here on B&H’s site. It has keys that resonated with me and made me laugh, as I realized that the writer and I do exactly the same things. Thanks to Seth Godin for pointing it’s existence out to me. I needed the reminders in this book. You may also.
A quirky blog that really communicates the value of first hand experience is right here by Seth Godin
Being a virtuoso at anything requires authenticity and pureness of intent, but beyond that, a commitment to engage your passion and then to share the results. Jake Shimabukuro demonstrates all of that here as he shares something amazing: his authenticity.
Authenticity. Yep, that photo is real, I know what it tastes, feels and sounds like as well as how it appears when I show up at the right moment with a camera. If you experience any incredulity at all, well then, I am doing my job.
Please click on the images in the gallery to read the back stories. The meat of this subject is in there if you would like a taste.
Dan Malloy, Red Dawn
Spinner Fantasy
Cotton Candy Floor
Solitude
Ventura Pier
Two Trees Dawn
Definition
Westside Rainbow Bridge
Orange Diaper
Oop
Rincon Sunset
Green Dream
Vapor
Tiare, Going
Consequences
The Gallery: Backstories show when clicking on imagery below
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- Maldivian Blue
Have a Mermaid swim with you every day in the Maldives. Hannah Fraser Rastovich, being real.
-
- Dan Malloy, Red Dawn
Dan and I made more great images this day in two hours than many will have done in two years. Being there. Getting out and doing something. It is vital if you want to have something to give. Being authentic is a choice. Being a shadow of someone else is as well.
Authenticity is always a good choice where personal growth is concerned.
-
- Spinner Fantasy
Jim Birdsoul and Sierra Partridge off Kona Hawaii. Yea, you can do this, and it is real. Fantasy becomes reality only if you do something about it. Turn off your computer. Put down your I phone and go. The world has something to tell you.
-
- Cotton Candy Floor
From LaCumbre Peak high above Santa Barbara. I would ride my bike up here a few times a week ostensibly for training. The reality was I sought the other worldliness that a short 8 mile climb could give my life. I did something. The rewards were various and often dramatic like this sunset evening view. Below was all grey marine layer mire.
-
- Solitude
This lone surfer went. I had been the only human out this day. I experience it a lot because I choose to go. So did this person paddling out. You can too. Should you?
-
- Ventura Pier
I have had a lot of people copy this image. I actually appreciate that on some levels. Yes it is real. But the actual experience, was far more heady being there. More dramatic. I did not notice at the time that the reflection-light field extended so far up the beach, an element that the people who duplicated this image failed to communicate. We all shoot the same things. Some are just more authentic than others.
-
- Two Trees Dawn
2 trees in Ventura, a cherished landmark. There used to be five I believe. Pretty morning with fresh snow on the Sespe made more real by the Canon5DM2 and Lightroom2. I am sort of surprised that no one has snuck up there and planted a new one. Yea, authenticity can have that affect on our world.
-
- Definition
What occurs when one focuses on communicating a thing by moderating the view with artistic intent. But to do so, requires one to ignore everything else.
-
- Westside Rainbow Bridge
My clumsy attempt to communicate something surreal in its reality.
These moments call to me. Pull me up and out of a warm bed. I almost always go. But I an always listening, or try to at least, and then I go. Canon5D M2 and Lightroom 2 helping me make the most of my one dimensional medium. The smell of the rain, the chill of the morning offshore, the taste of the sagebrush, the sound of the surf and freeway below as people scampered into the day. Being there is MUCH better. I am glad that I was.
-
- Orange Diaper
Emma Wood, low tide, fires burning, Santa Ana winter conditions, days end. Locals sarcastically call the place the diaper due it it frequently being shitty, but we love the place anyway and it gives us a lot back.
-
- Oops
Nope not Photoshop. This makes me smile because I know how close this guy came to going over the falls in front of me. He went that day and so did I. The memory is better than the image. Smells taste, exercise, communion
-
- Consequences
A true "what were you thinking moment" by this guy who in a quest for camera and media generated glory at Backdoor Pipe thought better of his plan to pull into the heaving barrel. Now he walks the front line of a disaster. But hey, at least he went. Maybe next time his wave selection will be better and his attack more aggressive. I learned the hard way that often the safest place is right in the middle of the chaos. I am there a lot. Makes me smile, when I realize what this implies about me.
-
- Rincon Sunset
The memory of this was captured by an infinite number of my friends and colleagues. We all went this evening and were ready when the show started, waiting poised.
-
- Green Dream
A Santa Ynez Dreamscape. Real for about a month. Always changing, nature amazes me in it's pure and authentic creative potential
-
- Vapor
Tina came with me this day to a site sacred to the Hawaiian people and we saw and experienced this so remarkable I generally never bother to write about them. Most would only utter: "Is that real"
I have too much respect for what happened this day to share it broadly but I have shown the imagery. Some of it anyway.Vapor is what we are. It is also what we become.
-
- Tiare, Going
Rocky Point Evening. This one really does say a lot. But it reminds me of how it felt being there: better.
Is That Real? An Authentic View
Sunday, June 28th, 2009I get asked this question a lot. When I have finished answering in the affirmative, the second response which has been repeated with enough frequency that I no longer take offense comes: “Is that Photoshopped?”
The line of query says a lot about our over stimulated, content crammed, media saturated world, as it exists today. If one were to slip into the dusty cobweb strewn dark recesses of what passes for my mind, you would hear the little bitch echo of a voice I spend a lifetime trying to stifle, saying in a soft clear tone: “Um, get out much?” (Bad Dave, bad, down boy)
But instead of that, you get this blog. Some of you are laughing right now and some have left the room with a click of the red button on your browser. I understand both tacts. But here is the deal. My frame of reference is unique and different than that of the person who poses these questions. My job as an artist and communicator is a simple one: I point to the source. Frequently the source is alien to that person.
So in this process I have found myself a cheerleader for real, first hand experiences. Go, breathe, run, swim, surf, ride, jump, fall, sing, dance, love, taste, smell, feel, listen, struggle, lose, win, live. Turn off the computer, put down the I phone, kill your television, go be that experience today. Then come back and tell us about it in your own voice, not the media’s. Do something. A world could use that joy you find.
I just read a great book called “Ignore Everybody and 39 other Keys to Creativity” It is reviewed here on B&H’s site. It has keys that resonated with me and made me laugh, as I realized that the writer and I do exactly the same things. Thanks to Seth Godin for pointing it’s existence out to me. I needed the reminders in this book. You may also.
A quirky blog that really communicates the value of first hand experience is right here by Seth Godin
Being a virtuoso at anything requires authenticity and pureness of intent, but beyond that, a commitment to engage your passion and then to share the results. Jake Shimabukuro demonstrates all of that here as he shares something amazing: his authenticity.
Authenticity. Yep, that photo is real, I know what it tastes, feels and sounds like as well as how it appears when I show up at the right moment with a camera. If you experience any incredulity at all, well then, I am doing my job.
Please click on the images in the gallery to read the back stories. The meat of this subject is in there if you would like a taste.
Dan Malloy, Red Dawn
Spinner Fantasy
Cotton Candy Floor
Solitude
Ventura Pier
Two Trees Dawn
Definition
Westside Rainbow Bridge
Orange Diaper
Oop
Rincon Sunset
Green Dream
Vapor
Tiare, Going
Consequences
The Gallery: Backstories show when clicking on imagery below
Have a Mermaid swim with you every day in the Maldives. Hannah Fraser Rastovich, being real.
Dan and I made more great images this day in two hours than many will have done in two years. Being there. Getting out and doing something. It is vital if you want to have something to give. Being authentic is a choice. Being a shadow of someone else is as well. Authenticity is always a good choice where personal growth is concerned.
Jim Birdsoul and Sierra Partridge off Kona Hawaii. Yea, you can do this, and it is real. Fantasy becomes reality only if you do something about it. Turn off your computer. Put down your I phone and go. The world has something to tell you.
From LaCumbre Peak high above Santa Barbara. I would ride my bike up here a few times a week ostensibly for training. The reality was I sought the other worldliness that a short 8 mile climb could give my life. I did something. The rewards were various and often dramatic like this sunset evening view. Below was all grey marine layer mire.
This lone surfer went. I had been the only human out this day. I experience it a lot because I choose to go. So did this person paddling out. You can too. Should you?
I have had a lot of people copy this image. I actually appreciate that on some levels. Yes it is real. But the actual experience, was far more heady being there. More dramatic. I did not notice at the time that the reflection-light field extended so far up the beach, an element that the people who duplicated this image failed to communicate. We all shoot the same things. Some are just more authentic than others.
2 trees in Ventura, a cherished landmark. There used to be five I believe. Pretty morning with fresh snow on the Sespe made more real by the Canon5DM2 and Lightroom2. I am sort of surprised that no one has snuck up there and planted a new one. Yea, authenticity can have that affect on our world.
What occurs when one focuses on communicating a thing by moderating the view with artistic intent. But to do so, requires one to ignore everything else.
My clumsy attempt to communicate something surreal in its reality. These moments call to me. Pull me up and out of a warm bed. I almost always go. But I an always listening, or try to at least, and then I go. Canon5D M2 and Lightroom 2 helping me make the most of my one dimensional medium. The smell of the rain, the chill of the morning offshore, the taste of the sagebrush, the sound of the surf and freeway below as people scampered into the day. Being there is MUCH better. I am glad that I was.
Emma Wood, low tide, fires burning, Santa Ana winter conditions, days end. Locals sarcastically call the place the diaper due it it frequently being shitty, but we love the place anyway and it gives us a lot back.
Nope not Photoshop. This makes me smile because I know how close this guy came to going over the falls in front of me. He went that day and so did I. The memory is better than the image. Smells taste, exercise, communion
A true "what were you thinking moment" by this guy who in a quest for camera and media generated glory at Backdoor Pipe thought better of his plan to pull into the heaving barrel. Now he walks the front line of a disaster. But hey, at least he went. Maybe next time his wave selection will be better and his attack more aggressive. I learned the hard way that often the safest place is right in the middle of the chaos. I am there a lot. Makes me smile, when I realize what this implies about me.
The memory of this was captured by an infinite number of my friends and colleagues. We all went this evening and were ready when the show started, waiting poised.
A Santa Ynez Dreamscape. Real for about a month. Always changing, nature amazes me in it's pure and authentic creative potential
Tina came with me this day to a site sacred to the Hawaiian people and we saw and experienced this so remarkable I generally never bother to write about them. Most would only utter: "Is that real" I have too much respect for what happened this day to share it broadly but I have shown the imagery. Some of it anyway.Vapor is what we are. It is also what we become.
Rocky Point Evening. This one really does say a lot. But it reminds me of how it felt being there: better.
Tags: Authentic, authenticity, B&H, Canon 5D Mark 2, cultural commentary, Dan Malloy, David Pu'u, david pu'u photography, Hailey Partridge, Hannah Frasier Rastovich, Hobie, Hugh MacLeod, Ignore everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, Jake Shimabakuro, Jim Birdsoule, Lightroom2, LR2, Maldives, Mermaids, native culture, nature, ocean, ocean art, Real?, redemption, renewal, restoration, Santa Barbara, Seth Godin, spinner dolphins, the real california, ukelele virtuoso, ventura, Ventura surfers, while my guitar gently weeps
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