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The Value of Story: Mavericks

I am just back from witnessing the spectacle which is the Mavericks Invitational big wave event at Pillar Point, Half Moon Bay, Ca. There are a huge number of stories surrounding this event, and I must select a few, and share those in Editorial. I worked this event with Deniece Watkins Smith who is a budding Photographer, sage Silicon Valley Real Estate Agent and wife to Cary Smith of the Pillar Point Harbor Patrol. We shot the event together. It was a lot of fun, challenge, and rich with story! Here is a great piece on the value of Story.

Risk Perception

The image above was shot during the 2010 Maverick’s Challenge where I worked as support and Photographer for K38 Rescue, who ran Event Ocean Safety and in process was in charge of training a cadre of local watermen to be a Rescue team. That local team was headed up by Vince Broglio. It was a big and perfect day. Possibly the biggest, best surf, ever paddled into for a competitive event. The quote is something Shawn said in one of our project groups this week. And I immediately turned it into an Oceanlovers Blue Note. Blue Notes are wisdom gleaned

BMX

I had been immersed in a swimwear shoot and building more imagery was the last thing on my list of things to do. But Hans call came on the heels of a 16 hour day on the computer and the passage of a cold front which left a rather dramatic sky. So I made my way out to Chez Rathje, and their private custom BMX track which somehow, had not only survived the torrential rains here on the coast, but now had a couple new ramps as well. With Spring in full bloom we managed a quick shoot with the

Cameraless

I was cameraless this week. It was great. Sort of. Okay, maybe not completely cameraless. I still had four 35mm stills film bodies, three mini DV cameras, and five high speed film motion cameras, all sitting on the shelf, along with the water housings for those. But I loaned my Canon 5DM2 system out and sold my Rebel T1i, in preparation for buying the new RebelT2i. (Wow, that Rebel was so new it had only seen 3000 frames before the new one was released.) Canon (along with Apple) has been blowing my mind the past few years. We spoke, they

Swell Five and the Marathon Man

It was o dark thirty on the second day of swell event number five on the Gold Coast, in the middle of the El Nino 2009-2010 season. I was gingerly working my way down the spiral stairway which leads down from the aerie which is the loft bedroom that overlooks one of the beaches I shoot all of the time. Under my left arm was my Macbook Pro. In my right hand my cel phone. Quietly, carefully, I padded down the bamboo shod steps, and my right hand exploded in song. Deftly I snapped the cel phone open. Chuck Patterson

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The Value of Story: Mavericks

I am just back from witnessing the spectacle which is the Mavericks Invitational big wave event at Pillar Point, Half Moon Bay, Ca. There are a huge number of stories surrounding this event, and I must select a few, and

Risk Perception

The image above was shot during the 2010 Maverick’s Challenge where I worked as support and Photographer for K38 Rescue, who ran Event Ocean Safety and in process was in charge of training a cadre of local watermen to be

BMX

I had been immersed in a swimwear shoot and building more imagery was the last thing on my list of things to do. But Hans call came on the heels of a 16 hour day on the computer and the

Cameraless

I was cameraless this week. It was great. Sort of. Okay, maybe not completely cameraless. I still had four 35mm stills film bodies, three mini DV cameras, and five high speed film motion cameras, all sitting on the shelf, along

Swell Five and the Marathon Man

It was o dark thirty on the second day of swell event number five on the Gold Coast, in the middle of the El Nino 2009-2010 season. I was gingerly working my way down the spiral stairway which leads down