Making Whine From Water

Well, I hate being a broken record, but I feel like it was another lackluster winter condition-wise. Whether super flat or super rainy, at some point I gave up and just scoured the lineups at my usual spots at random times just to keep my photo senses moving. First off, I still get photo boners when a good lineup presents itself no matter where it is. I really am a good lineup lover. In other aspects of photography I’m just not as interested. I think that’s why I don’t pursue commercial stuff or whoring out prints or anything—because I don’t want those things to ruin my love for using a camera where it’s meaningful. I need to keep that photo boner. I want to be adventurous and try new places, I want the thrill of numerous factors coming together for a special moment that shows my creative side. And the only way to do all that is to keep hunting—with my boner.

Winters Wonderous Walls

Winters Wonderous Walls

Well, I think that every year I say the same thing at this time: winter’s over and now it’s time for spring’s ugliness. Sure, the flowers bloom and the weather warms up, but so do the shit winds. Northern and west swells diminish and the Southern Hemisphere basically yawns til’ June leaving me to focus on other things like painting. Anyway, there were a couple memorable days this winter and I did my best to catch them, but it wasn’t all-time. The way things stand it may be months, and I mean MONTHS, until I get more days under my belt. Here’s to sitting at my easel!

Read More

Enjoying Fall Magic

For nine months of the year, the light, the waves, and the winds rarely come together to make magic. The other three months that do are basically the Fall months and the specialness of that season never fails as the elements combine to create a beautiful symphony of light and water. Santa Anas kick in, sunsets pop, and swell directions mix for a recipe that makes surf photography do delicious. Below is the first batch from October that I hope keeps going on the rest of the year.

New Ways Of Imagining My Images

So, I’ve lived in San Clemente for roughly eight years and rarely venture away to shoot anywhere else. There’s so much photogenic beauty here that if I see a swell coming I don’t really need to go anywhere else and end up documenting it all. On the other end, I’ve found there’s only so much I can shoot here angle-wise from San Onofre to the Pier so it can also be redundant. To challenge that boredom, and to challenge my graphic design skills, I decided to take different aspects of every one of these breaks and stir them up into a pot of individual poster-sized screen prints (that I haven’t printed yet, haha).

Random Photos From A Random Winter

As I sit here and type it’s still raining. It’s been that way for a week which in other places isn’t a big deal—it is here. The current El Niño conditions make for waves as well, but I feel like it’s always messy and isn’t conducive to Santa Anas. That’s why this post is random in my opinion. I got random images from random moments and wasn’t super motivated otherwise. If there’s one good thing from this it’s that the next post will probably be a Spring blowout gallery of flowers in the foreground. Yay.

Dipping Into The Contest Archives

For 13 years of my career, I worked anywhere from an editor to photo editor position at the late, great TransWorld SURF. In that role I attended quite a few contests and documented quite a few contests. I don’t know why but I got a hankering to dive into those archives and came out with these. As you’ll notice, most of them come from Pipeline as the others were like any other contest and not that pretty.

Setting Up The Spring Season With Seea

Since the beginning, I’ve always had a close relationship with Seea—a women’s surf brand built with an inclusive, fun community in mind. The Founder, Amanda Greer, has a talented and unique crew behind it that make it a special place to work and play. Their latest campaign is really cool and I was lucky enough to help with some of the photography leading up to the current season. If you haven’t seen it or the brand please go check them out at theseea.com.

19 Reasons (Photos) Why Fall In Southern California Rules!

As summer in Southern California fades and the nights gets a slight chill in the air, the offshore Santa Anas kick in, North and West swells enter the picture, and life simply gets better. Winter’s okay, spring sucks, and summer is whatever—fall is always the greatest when it comes to photographic conditions and a big reason I love it so much. Below are 19 photos from a few recent months with hopefully a few more left in the tank.

A Little Summer And Spring Collection

This year has been a strange year weather-wise. Instead of the occasional glassy, warm, high-pressure days we’re know for here in Southern California, we’ve been getting June Gloom. As I write this, we’re in what is typically our best time of year and guess what? It’s gloomy. With that being said, it’s been tough to get the type of imagery I look for weather-wise. The one saving grace was that the famous Southern California bioluminescence came back so I was able to get a few creepy nights out on the beaches attempting to capture the glowing waves locally.

Recent Work With Smith Optics And The Coffin Brothers

It’s not often you get to work with rad friends from the past, but last Spring I had the great opportunity to shoot a campaign featuring some of Smith’s featured surf athletes including Conner and Parker Coffin, Zoe McDougall, and Yadin Nicol. Part of their summer marketing launch, the campaign included sunglass and Rx pieces and revolved around the Coffins and their story from growing up in Santa Barbara to the path that led them to where they are today. Big thanks to Nina and Franz at Smith as well as Conner and Parker and everyone else who made the week in Santa Barbara special.

Fresh Flower Project Leftovers

A few months ago I basically retired the film camera that provided me the thousands of Flower Project images that I’ve been working on for years. The good news is there are thousands of leftover that I haven’t posted or shown. As always these were taken on a variety of films with no photoshop after.

New Work With Stance X Sawyer Linblad

Recently, I was given the incredible opportunity to do a shoot to help announce Stance’s newest Punk and Poet Sawyer Linblad. Sawyer lives here in San Clemente, has a stellar contest resume already, and comes from a very rich surfing bloodline that includes her brother Taj and dad Marc who are incredible surfers themselves. Stance is a company that has been very good to my family and I and is filled with a lot of people I know and love. Here are some examples from it.

February Rain Brings Winter Blooms

With all the rain we’ve been getting, it’s created some beautiful scenery here for me locally. When it wasn’t cloudy, the offshores kicked in and the flowers were greeting us early this year. This gallery is a combination of those glorious conditions and some in-the-water testing of a new housing.

New Seea Swimwear Shoot

Since their beginning I’ve always been attracted to the creativity and uniqueness that is the Seea brand. In a world where surf brand culture isn’t a priority, they pride themselves on being culturally and socially active in the women’s surf world. This is from a recent shoot locally. Instead of a studio, they prefer the scenery that San Clemente offers for basic e-comm and catalog imagery.

Super Santa Anas In Orange County

Like a rare bird for a bird watcher, Santa Ana winds are my endangered species. I don't know why but I feel like they don't happen as much as they used to. When I saw conditions on the chart previous to this day I became excited 'cause not only was it all day, but there were actually waves with it (which is rare). That's why instead of a Snowy Owl, I got pillows of spray out the back of waves which as a surf photo hobbyist (these days) makes me happy. Yay.

A Captain Fin X Seea Collaboration

Last year I had the great opportunity to shoot a super cool collaboration between Captain Fin and Seea at San Onofre. Amanda, who’s the founder and creative genius behind the awesomeness that is Seea, invited me to partake with a couple of their ambassadors to shoot the collab that features some groovy patterns/colorways on both their line and a few fins with Captain Fin. I’m a huge fan of everything Seea does and if you’re not familiar check them out at theseea.com.

Fall Explorations

Fall is my favorite time of year. The light, the winds, and the waves all seem to have a party and I love being invited. It’s also a great time to travel. In 2013, I was married in a beautiful place called V6 Ranch in Parkfield, Calfornia. It’s a proper working ranch owned by an amazing family called the Varian's who we absolutely love. It’s a special place for my family and I. We try to visit it every year to enjoy the simplicity and beauty it offers as well as their famous burgers in the cafe. This year, we took our annual pilgrimage to the ranch and followed it with some time out on the coast for Thanksgiving. The following is the culmination of what came to be a sweet November.