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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

The Ties That Bind.

Been awhile since I have been able to write here. We have had an intense last few weeks. Deaths, Industrial espionage, amazing shooting days, Birthdays, you know: life. I have been thinking on this the past two weeks, likely due to the betrayal experienced in the espionage. (I was serious) Question I asked myself: What is the difference between a Colleague and a Competitor? A Competitor will grab your hand so they can pull you close, which facilitates a stab in the back. A Colleague grabs your hand and pulls you up, so that together you may form a community.

The Percolative Effect of Mike de Gruy

“Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Oft times I will awake with my soul in what could be described as a jumble. Ever use one of those old percolating coffee pots? The type which, when the water boils, it spews forth, on to fresh dark ground coffee, and the rich aroma of it will fill an abode with such a heady fragrance, that it pulls you from sleep? Well of course you have. That is where the social axiom arose from: “Wake up, and smell the coffee.” Well my position, is that our soul

A California Opus

Chapter 5 in the California Series. I have not always lived in California. My Dad was going to college on the GI Bill in Milwaukee Wisconsin, at Marquette University. I had never asked him why, being from Hawaii, he chose the Mid West. He met my Mother there. That was where my two Brothers and I were born. We were sick a lot as infants. The family pediatrician had told my parents that our Hawaiian genetics may have been to blame, as we did not tolerate the cold of hard, Midwestern Winter very well. In fact, I ended up in

Surf Session

It is actually sort of rare for me to shoot surfing centric images. Often what is required to make a great image is even more complex than what is necessary to make a great break fire on all cylinders. So having everything line up: talent, weather, swell, tide, attitude, schedule, is pretty rare. But when it happens. The quantity and bar of the work produced is mind blowing. This week has been session after session. This was yesterday. Perfect day for what I do, when I finally focus on surf. Hans Rathje is the surfer. One of those guys who

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

Earth Angel

angel |ˈānjəl| noun 1. a spiritual being believed to act as an attendant, agent, or messenger of God. “So let the Earth give testimony.” I was raised in Santa Barbara. Most of my earliest and therefore strongest influences, were based on my native Hawaiian Culture’s perception of man’s place in the world, and the catch all of SB culture’s budding eco consciousness, and the science based tenets of our University and College. But one of the most basic of principals, and something upon which my work is founded, came not from my social and cultural mores, it actually was planted

Swell 4

The latest in our wave makers arrived innocuously enough with a soft and barely perceptible pulse arriving late in the evening. I had watched the shoulder high lines stacking up at California Street at last light, under yet another masterpiece sunset. Yet not much pulse showed on the weather buoys. The next morning at 3 am saw the East Channel buoy climb 3 feet in the interim before dawn. A straight West swell, and not too big. It was the proverbial Goldilocks and the Three Bears storybook combination of swell angle, size and weather for the Gold Coast’s multiple breaks.

Rinse and Repeat

I have had to watch weather a bit more closely than I usually would this season, because Garrett MacNamara, K38 Rescue, and a few other pals of mine are involved in big wave events and have sort of sucked me into the preparation that goes into being in the right place on the right day. We are in the midst of an El Nino season. No doubt about that now. So when the murmers about a potential swell maker began to filter through, I forced myself to take a close look at available weather telemetry and began my process of

A Fall Fantasy

Nothing deep to share. Or is there? The past weeks have allowed me a lot of time and effort to delve into what many consider to be my forte, which is shooting surfing, nature, beach culture and lifestyle. So this blog is devoted to showing a few of the sights seen this last several weeks of Fall. It is a teensy sampling of over 1200 final images collected. The culmination of a huge number of commercial, editorial and personal interest projects. Thanks to the beautiful place that I live in, and all my wonderful friends, commercial clients and publications for

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