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Things You Should Know

I was down at California Street the other night to capture a few images of Malibu Surfer Brooke Carlson, the newest member of “Team Betty” for my wife’s company Bettybelts, when I saw someone headed into the water with what looked like a dive housing and a surfboard. It cracked me up. We call that sort of work where you ride and shoot or film another surfer: “board to board” work. It is tricky at best and amazingly difficult at worst. This image is the guy shooting. Again, hard to do. The lead image in this article is a shot

Ocean Life and the Great White Shark

Ocean Life and the Great White Shark In recent months the reports of white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) activity in California have literally exploded in number, with videos, many of them shot from UAV (Drone) camera platforms, news articles and reports via the ocean community grapevine, indicating with little doubt, we have more of the species appearing in near shore waters than I can ever recall. So what is going on? The CDFW (California Department of Fish and Wildlife) lists the total number of “Incidents” in California waters between humans and the White since 1950 as 101. It is unclear what

Ocean Ohana: Guardianship

The other night my wife and I were at a friend’s home in Ojai. A bunch of us regularly get together and cook for each other. An eclectic mix of artists, musicians, scientists, researchers, doctors and ex or current military operatives, we spend the evening into the night, just enjoying the fok out of each other, and strangely enough, in spite of the laughter, challenges to each other’s knowledge bases, great food (each person is a remarkable chef-cook) and some interesting wines, we actually learn stuff that can be carried with us from that point onward. One such gem which

Imaging Accountability and Authenticity

In the pretense of living in the now, it is not that uncommon for both people and business to overlook the manner in which they are able to affect things on the global stage. The connection culture of today, brings with it, an ever greater demand for accountability. Accountability is one of “those things”. It is a tenet which is (hopefully) acquired at some stage in a person’s life, and (again,hopefully) as they grow, and the scope of the world in which they live enlarges, it scales. If it does not, you really could see some larger scale problems arise.

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

Poli Amo

I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me. – Proverbs 8:17 Everyone should be so fortunate as to pursue and possibly capture the object of their desire. But what is it really, that adds to your life and leaves you in pursuit? Because it is always in the going, that happiness is found, and great work. The above verse was penned by a pretty wise man. King Solomon died after experiencing all that the world itself could give a person, sort of spiritually and emotionally bereft. Yet he had the wisdom to pen the verse

Prologue

Not many could say it better than Seth Godin does in his blog today as we stare down the barrel of the new year and change we must render. So as I round out the holiday season this year it will be by taking a short respite, and then a look at my process as an artist and business owner. Many of us are necessary to implement lasting change and progress. In this year, may we all engage together, more efficiently and with a clear sense of purpose. The storms always pass. Massive Attack

Golden

It is always the scarcity of a thing which imparts value in the perception of a viewing public, so artists tend to withold showing too much of their hand at once. I remember a photographer with whom I worked years ago, who would hoard his work, and release it one image at a time over the period of his career. His fame and fortune wound up being centered on approximately 9 great images. I do not think he saw the time we are in coming, where with new tech, and refined approaches, a higher bar for acquisition and communication than

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

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