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Jam

I have a lot of friends who are into music. They all range in experience, depth, scope, and level of monetization. Music is one of the High Arts of course. How a person begins in any Art germinates in a fascination with it. I remember mine. Getting to play my Hawaiian Grandfathers Zither. I must have been about 6 or 7. Guitar lessons at 8. Then on to the Arts in school, where I took choir, learned to sing in church, band practice, learning to read and write music. It was part of the education process in America at the

The Significance of Mermaids

In running through an edit the other day for a magazine feature, I happened to stumble upon a file titled “Lost Mermaid” In it were some large scan images of Hannah Fraser performing as a mermaid which I had shot in the Maldives quite some time ago. The scans had apparently been put in a back file and forgotten. When I had run across them eventually, I had finished my post production work, sent them out into the netherworld of global editorial submission, and once again sort of forgotten them. Flicking through thousands of images deftly , when I opened

Sea Within

I once met a man who inspired me greatly. At his encouragement, I went on to accomplish all manner of things in the ocean. Of course it was not by his urging alone, but for some reason, he was my catalyst, and the reaction which occurred as a result of his input, wed my life to the sea. Many years later, as I sat with a writer pal of mine at the man’s home on the sand near Santa Barbara, he recounted his life before the Multiple Sclerosis morphed him into a creature who could do no exploits. “I lived

The Zuri Files: Westside Ventura

I have a unique job, in that most of the time, I am drawn to subjects and they to me, not unlike a moon to a planet. I have never been able to figure out who is what in that constellation. But it probably does not matter. This week saw a LOT of computer time as I worked on wrapping my commercial work for the year. As I plowed the pixel fields of my hard drive borne library, I came across a project I had shot with Zuri Star as a collaboration of sorts. Zuri is a pretty remarkable recording

The Lineup

The image above is a tight shot of the crowd in the lineup at Pipeline one day a few seasons back. Pipe is located on the North Shore of the Island of Oahu. Generally, a lineup is a pretty near perfect example of a social and cultural hierarchy, and how those tend to stratify according to ability, dominance, and-or reputation. So surf breaks in a manner of speaking, are analogous to society at large in many ways. And just like in land based cultures, someone always seems to come along that no one gives credence to, who through persistence, talent

The Shift

American culture is at a turning point. By and large, and in spite of generalizations being just that, we don’t make much in this country any more. I say that from the perspective of being a Californian, and a former manufacturer, retailer, turned artist. To build anything in California today one must overcome great odds, and many of those are indigenously repressive due to a morass of regulations meant to make things “better” when they were originally concepted. But no one really considered the cost to those supposed benefits. Those laws and regulations, implemented in a time of growth and

Fear Anger Hope

Fear, anger, hope. These three things are very inter-related and part of the process of progress. I find myself falling into fear, that entities which we have entrusted, like Government, Industry, and aspects of modern culture, such as certain Environmental PACS, have totally failed the Earth, as evidenced in the recent potential Global killer, that is the Platform Horizon Wellhead Blowout. The fear generated by this realization leads to an intense burning anger. That anger causes a hell of a lot of introspection of myself, what I stand for, and a VERY close look at the things I am able

Crazy Is

as crazy does. But sometimes it is really all just a part of the ebb and flow of the creative process. What appears to be madness on the surface or at the least, just a bad idea, is often the seed of something quite remarkable. I have learned to always have my ear to the wind. The song it sings may carry that which I seek. My friend Kara Block, who is about to receive her Master of Fine Arts degree from Brooks Institute, had stopped by for a visit and to contribute to the planning of an expedition that

Is That Real? An Authentic View

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

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