so long, california

well,

my attempted move to california didn't work out quite as i had hoped, so i'll be packing up to go back to the east coast for the holidays. after that...i could end up anywhere...we'll see.

i'll probably put up a portfolio of the my favorite photos from my time out here, but i need to get a roll of film developed first.

Until then, here are a couple logging photos from a surf session yesterday morning.

sea walk

in general, i haven't been too interested in going south of LA to surf. i think, since the waves down there are so overexposed in magazines, that I just got tired of them before even checking them out.

i was definitely missing out. i just spent a couple days down there with christian wach. we surfed very good waves with hardly anyone out...for both of the sessions. the first session was overcast and foggy, so i just surfed.

the waves were much better during that session than the waves in the session that i did end up shooting, but here are a few shots from the second day, of christian riding his new log and a borrowed alaia.

it's a rare thing for a surf photographer to get to surf when the waves are at their best...so even though the shots aren't as good as they could have been if it was sunny that first day, i'll take the waves instead of the photos this time.

good waves/bad vibes

sorry for the lack of posts all month... i haven't had the internet at home and it makes it tougher to post things on here. i'll try to catch up a bit when i have enough time on the internet to do so.

for now, here is a little rant about my home wave. i've had great sessions there on the days that the swell isn't supposed to be epic. Then, when a proper swell finally came, it got crazy. This is just some thoughts on the craziness.

sorry, also, if reading it bums you out a bit...but i think it's important to realise how much bad vibes effect everyone's session...so next time you feel like someone is invading "your" spot, give them a chance to respect you before you ruin the session.

good waves/bad vibes (maybe i'm just naive)

i'm really bummed that i can't feel comfortable shooting photos at the waves by my home, just because the sandbars happen to be really good. i can see the purpose behind "locals" not wanting "their" spot to become publicized--the whole "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot" theme applies. but...there is already a parking lot here...and although the wave is very fun and fairly un-well-known, it is hardly paradise. that time is long gone here.

i wasn't going to name names and post the photos all over the internet and in mags, etc. anyway. i understand the principles behind keeping semi-secret spots semi-secret, and was just trying to shoot some photos for some friends. i wasn't going to even shoot at the main peak. i just enjoy shooting barrel shots from the water, and shooting at the closeout down the beach would have been just fine. it would have been soooo fun for that.

but, it didn't matter what the purpose of my having a camera was, apparently...it wasn't worth the risk of losing the equipment that i would have had to have left in the car, just in case there was some truth in the warning that "there would be trouble".

i now don't really care about posting a few of the shots i got from the beach that day. not like that many people read this anyway, and i'm still not going to name the spot out of respect (not respect for the aggressive "locals"...i have no respect for their bad vibes...but just out of respect for the general code of conduct for spots like this, which i would have followed anyway.

at least my friends who paddled out had a really fun session, and friends in FL, etc. will probably appreciate seeing a few photos of quality waves.

we ended up going up the coast to get some photos for my friend jesse. We got great waves with a proper, mellow vibe at the other spot. it definitely wasn't uncrowded, but everyone got along fine and caught plenty of waves to themselves.

that same evening I went for a surf with my friend daniel back at the wave by my home. upon suiting up near the wave, someone driving by yelled "go home!" to whom I simply replied "I am home!". we then went out and had a fun session at the beach break, eventually moving over to the main peak right before dark when the crowd subsided. The few waves I caught there had the best shape of any i've caught in a long time, and I'm pretty sure daniel was stoked on the session too.

but, daniel took two boards down to the beach, and unfortunately only left with one. someone thought that the board should be theirs instead of his, I suppose. I'm positive that Daniel wouldn't have agreed...he was pretty fond of the board. If someone asked to check it out, use it, borrow it, etc., i'm sure he would have happily offered it to them...but stealing it is different, and it is the ultimate sign of disrespect.how can people who spend so much energy trying to scare people out of doing what they enjoy be able to sustain a positive feeling when participating in the activity themselves? It would be a shame to feel so alert/protective/aggressive all the time.

all surfers like to have waves to themselves, and it's normal, i think, to feel like it would be better with a few less people in the water. there has to be a better solution though. As long as respect is shown by everyone for everyone, in the spirit of mutual stoke, there is no reason why everyone can't have a fun session. besides the obvious signs of respect such as not dropping in on someone, not taking too many waves, waiting your turn for a set wave, etc. I also mean not paddling out to a spot that is already overcrowded, not naming names of sensitive surf spots in photos/articles, potentially saying hi and being friendly--actually enjoying the company of the people around you, not trying to threaten people out of the water or off of the beach--and of course, not stealing a board from someone.)

the land of mountains, pointbreaks, and groundswell

i've been back for a little bit, but haven't really shot many photos yet. here are a few from the swell that welcomed me back. it was a fun morning with only friends out...not epic waves, but definitely not bad at all.

go west.

i'm currently packing to move back to california-- tomorrow... i'm not sure what i'm going to do when i get there, but i'll work something out. if anyone knows of good jobs between malibu and santa barbara, please let me know.

plenty of photos to come from the west coast i'm sure--both film and digital.

new york gallery

i've been shooting a lot of photos this week...baseball, portraits, and architecture. (i'm not sure if i'll post any of these recent shoots on here)

but, now that i'm done with those i finally had time to put the a gallery of images on my site from new york. http://www.fluidmotionphoto.com/ they are organized by general location... rural, urban, and suburban. long island is quite a diverse place.


you should check out rob kuliesk's film shots from the trip too. he got some epic portrait/lifestyle/scenic shots. go to http://www.robkuliesk.com/, and click to see images from picaresque. he shot this one of me, gerry, and mikey. i'll be putting up links to friend's blogs soon, including rob's, gerry's and mikey's... they are all very talented at what they do and it's definitely worth checking out their work.

a few more photos from new york

i'm back from new york now, and im in the process choosing my favorite photos, etc.

since only photos from the biggest day are up so far, i'll show a few logging photos now. sometime next week i'll put a gallery on my main site with a portfolio of the whole trip.

seek and ye shall find

to follow up on the last post... we found the right combination of swell, wind, tide, and sandbar that we were looking for. it just happened to be on the western end of long island, right by where we had surfed the night before. the problem was that we had driven 2.5 hours out east the night before. after spending the morning conducting an exhaustive search of the points around the eastern end of the island, the decision was to drive all the way back to the western beachbreaks.















the waves that we pulled up to were well worth the drive. what we found obviously wasn't proper logging waves, but the guys charged on their lighter longboards (and alec on his fish). mikey's boards were a little too light for the heavy conditions... two of them snapped before he called it a day. he was obviously bummed about that, but still stoked on the waves, photos, and footage.

i'll post more photos from this day later in the portfolio from the whole trip...

searching for waves in the northeast

i've been in new york since friday to shoot some surf photos. i'll have some samples to show pretty soon. i haven't had much time or access to the internet to update anything on here.

this trip is the epitome of the east coast surfing life. constant monitoring of changing swell and wind forecasts, a lot of driving and looking for waves, and then finally getting to surf some fun waves, and/or making the best of the waves that there are. there have been some fun logging sessions...

there is plenty of swell right now, but we haven't found the right wind yet... there's an epic session waiting for us to find it later today hopefully.

i'm still beautiful

last week, i spent some time with my sister in nashville. for several months, she has been organizing a benefit concert/fashion show to raise money for the organization "i'm too young for this". the purpose of the organization is to provide a network of support for young people with cancer. cancer is not just a disease that older people get. many people, including doctors, sometimes seem to forget that. "i'm too young for this" provides much needed support to get people through tough times, and to show that they are not alone in going through what they are experiencing. they show how it is very possible to still live productive, happy, normal lives, even while experiencing tough times.

the event that she organized, named "i'm still beautiful", was a lot of fun and it was very successful. I shot some photos of the bands...here are a few of my favorite band photos from the event, including photos of the following local nashville bands: the worsties, david condos, gone city, the good wolves, and lindsey jones. The music ranged from mellow acoustic to rock, and some in between. an 80's cover band named bueller played as well, but i like photos from the other bands better.

first post

i figure it's about time to have a site to supplement my actual photography website. by trying to keep the photo website as clean and simple as possible, there are a lot of photos that get left out, and recent work often isn't shown. this is a place to show and discuss that work. additionally, this gives me a place to write a little bit about the stories behind the photos if i feel that anyone might be interested in reading about it.

i will begin with some recent work (which actually is on the main site...but not all trips will be), but will also pull photos from the archives at times to show/discuss photos from the past couple years.

i'll do my best to update relatively often.

ok...now to talk about some recent work...

a few months ago, i came across a post on the messageboard of the surf station's website (a surf shop in st. augustine, FL). It was posted by local filmmaker dustin miller (http://www.fleshprofitsnothing.com/), presenting a trailer for a surf film he and mikey detemple are working on called picaresque. i was blown away by the trailer and it made me so stoked on surfing, longboarding, film making, travelling, and the potential for epic photography to accompany the moving film being shot. I contacted dustin back in april i believe, and we met to discuss the film, the business/art/styles of surf photography, etc.

Five months later (part of what dustin and i discussed is the need for patience and persistence in surf photography), I found myself on a plane to france with him where we would meet up with mikey, christian wach, justin hugron, and matt chojnacki to see what we could come up with.

i'm not going to go through and tell the story of the whole trip, because hopefully over the next several months you'll be able to read that in some magazines, but i'll show a few photos here (up at the top.), and i'll do other posts in the future where i choose certain single image from the trip to talk about them some.

i feel that the first two photos are best viewed together...showing the ultimate contrast between land and water. both can show beauty, harmony, power, etc...just in very different ways. i don't feel like getting too philosophical right now...but i think there's a reason that both are nice photos when looked at alone, but way better together.

the third photo is one of my favorites from the trip...it's of matt in a perfect little barrel. he's on the right board for that wave. i doubt he would be in that position on the wave with enough speed to make it out if he were on a shortboard. there's just not enough room to pump for speed, and a shortboard wouldn't allow for the same effortless trim. plus, a barrel on a shortboard on a wave that size would seem a bit insignificant, but on a longboard, it makes you (at least it makes me) want to be there.

the last photo is of the whole crew after a session at biarritz. from left to right: justin, mikey, christian, matty, and behind the camera on the far right is dustin. thanks for a great trip guys.