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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

Relevance

Sean Tully dropped me a note the other day, which had me scrambling to find an image file we created awhile back. I could not locate the high res finals, only some low res jpegs. So I referred to the original shot file where the camera raws reside, and had a little look. What I found was a slew of work we had not really put out into editorial at that time. I think maybe two or three from this series had become magazine covers, but the rest, had just not been relevant as far as I could tell. But

Holy Water: A Christmas History

Christmas began for me around 6 am on Dec 25th in 1955, when I was born. My Mother had been on her way to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve in Milwaukee Wisconsin. She had stumbled on the steps leading up to the church and labor began. I like to think it was me who pushed her. That somehow, I knew Christmas and I, we would need to become acquainted. “Let me out!” I can imagine the look on my Mom’s face as she realized she would not be in church that day, Catholicism being what it was at that

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,

Being Clear

I ran into a friend the other day, who brought up an interesting point about some of my work. In essence, this is what he said. “Do you realize that you often leave it to us, to figure out what you are trying to communicate? That can be really frustrating, as so many of us are busy with other things, and we want to get it. But there is no time to track through all the links and study it all out. You may want to consider just telling us the answer.” It really is a good point that he

Respect for the Subject

Respect narrowly defined, is examined here in this Wiki link. One of the key elements for a creative in a study of any sort, is respect of subject. But here is the twist. One has to respect one’s self first. If that aspect is not nailed to the floor of a soul, the oft times hidden elements of a subject, may never reveal themselves to an artist. But once those things do become apparent, it is self knowledge that allows for us to pick accurate lanes whereby we may expose, illuminate, and from where I stand as a human being,

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

Collateral Damage

I was 23 years old and saying a tearful goodbye to my wife of one month in LAX departures. As I slunk back in my seat moments later, and heard the soft thunk of the cabin door closing, I noticed Shaun Tomson sitting a few seats away. Dane Kealoha was nearby, and behind him I saw Mark Richards. We were all headed for Hawaii and what would be my first travel leg of the then IPS world tour. The next ten years or so of my life consisted of moments like that: traveling alone, or with some

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