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A Blue Voice

In the moments after the Sea-Space Summit at Google ended in 2012, and some fantastic work had initiated, Charlotte Vick, who heads up the Sylvia Earle Alliance (and so much more) approached me and posed a very direct question. “David, what exactly is it that you do?” Ever meet one of those people, who as soon as you connect, the recognition that you are of the same tribe becomes apparent in an innate manner? That was how Charlotte struck me. What she really wanted to know however, is who I was. Hers was a very direct question. In fact,

Talking Story

When I was very young, my Father explained to me how history was documented in Hawaii. He told me that it was passed along from Father to Son, and that if the chain was ever broken, that the family History could be lost as time passed. So I grew up with the concept of the story being a relatively sacred thing. As my career in imaging grew, it was based on the telling of stories in the context of my image creation. I would always, no matter how surreal the work became in expression, root the piece in aspects

An Earthen Chalice

I sometimes ponder the connection we humans have to the land. The bond is a deep one for us all. Some are more cognizant of that than others. I think the reason for this is rooted in specifics related to culture. Recently I connected with a woman on Facebook. In a series of e mails we found out that we were related, as we traced our knowledge of family history back to the Big Island of Hawaii. I recalled a visit I had made awhile back to a Heiau there. Temples are very sacred places for Hawaiians. As I strode

Surfing Is

The motivation for this piece began with the publication of the following story in the WSJ, to which I contributed an image of my girlfriend Donna Von Hoesslin. Read the comment section, post story, and you will see a diversity of opinions (including mine) that are quite revelatory about each person’s point of view regarding surfing. Those statements reveal everything about those people’s depth of involvement with the ocean. The commentary engaged me. I have always been a surfer. At four years of age I knew that goal was what my life would be about. To know the ocean, (and

What is Surfing: Fifty Views

Each day lately, begins with me wading though the e mail file. Today I opened a newsletter from an organization which I support, by lending them usage of some of my images. The subject header was “International Surfing Day”. A “Cool, we have our own day” impulse when I pressed the “read” icon, rapidly transitioned to less than kind post read thoughts. The newsletter yielded the cyber floor to a new surf magazine editor from Orange County who I had never heard of, and who communicated his chronologically and geologically biased adolescent view of what Surfing is. But it occurred

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