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For God and Ocean: A National Prerogative.

In watching the Platform Horizon Wellhead Blowout event, and our Organizational response to it, I was at once impressed and appalled by the dual scopes illustrated. At the time, and to this day, I see the event as a diatribe against an innate inefficiency and possibly abject failure of our Philosophy of Regulatory Control, where we politicize and adversarilize items of great National and Environmental interest, and thereby ask and answer the wrong questions. In effect, we are endeavoring to solve problems using the same line of reasoning and thought, which created those problems. I could illustrate it in great

Letter to a Friend

Sometimes waking moments are comprised of a tap on the shoulder regarding someone I care about. The note below, is as a result of one of those mornings. The person I sent it to, is someone who I respect as a visionary human being. The images here, are what occurred when the ocean reined over first consciousness, and I rose to meet it. “Found myself thinking about you today. Just a note to say hi, and that I hope everything is going well, where ever you are, when this finds you. Been dealing with incredibly smart and compassionate human beings

Waging Peace: A Memorial Day March

In the course of time, mankind has gotten more efficient in the act of waging war. As technology has blossomed, the business of the Military Industrial Complex has embraced the tactical advantages of tech, and implemented it to great effect in terms of kill yield. Think about that. Tech makes for a better, more efficient visit of the Grim Reaper upon our adversaries. But that comes at great expense, monetarily, and in other ways. Never think that anyone escapes reaping what has been sowed. No one does. Not individuals, not Nations. We all can lose sight of our goals. It

The Beauty of Story

I stepped out of a marriage of over 22 years into an odd situation at the age of 44. Having been married for most of my adult life, and walked a less than conventional path, the roadmap of memories and tales was rather, um, let’s say: convoluted. I had done a lot of things which when examined from our cultural perception of “normal”, were far from any definition of the term. That, surfaced immediately, when I began to ply the dating seas. I learned early on that it was best to not really talk about what I had done in

Significant Presence

In my morning rush to ply the pixel seas today, I ran across a notable piece of reading from Seth Godin. It gave me pause, as I looked at the laundry list of crazily diverse imagery in front of me. He writes about “Hard Work on the Right Things“. I highly recommend it, for a number of reasons. Principle one being, that the world at large, will endeavor to convince an Artist, that they have chosen poorly, and what is produced, will never be of any real significance. It does that with good cause and to appropriate affect: to weed

The Collaborative Effect

Years ago, Larry Moore, aka Flame, my Photo Editor at Surfing, took me aside and told me to do something. “Find people who you like to be with, who will work with you, and together, you guys concentrate on building new work. That is how great work comes” Because of that conversation, I never became a Surf Photographer per se. I became a collaborator. The image above is a piece of Art I finished today. The surfer in it is Sean Tully. Sean is a highly developed student of Surfing and in particular, the heritage of that lifestyle driven avocation.

Bluebirds

Bluebirds are moments in time when the magical intersects with the mortal, and in process, one’s grasp of one’s ability, is re-defined. A Bluebird moment is about education, preparation, trial and conquest. I have had a few of these in my lifetime. Here is an account of one of them. I began my pilgrimages to the North Shore of Oahu late in my Surfing life. As a young Pro, it was basically part of the ritual of a Surfing Education, that you go there and test your ability. Though I always sort of sucked at tests in school, I seem

Going Deeper

My colleague and friend, Dr Andrea Neal, of Blue Ocean Sciences, sent me this very cool piece on Tom’s Shoes (who I really admire) today. It is very in theme for this blog series. Many of us are looking at ethics and architecture these days. It is essential if one really wants to make an accurate difference. In surfing, being accurate is 90 percent of the battle in being competent and thriving. (I frequently relate everything back to the oceans) To be there and successful in surfing you need to know the Architecture of the Earth and have skill. If

Pick a Lane

In life and in our Western Cultural assessment of what will inevitably amount to a rather short term existence on this blue ball, we are constantly encouraged by the status quo, to “pick a lane” for ourselves. Or at least, this was the method employed till this latest socio-economic meltdown. The concept was to attend school, move in to a field that would best suit our fiscal goals, and supply the road to our own future happiness. Each day, you were to arrive at that job, and park right between the lines. Never vary that. Or face severe retribution

Rocking Antipathetic

The image above is of Becky Gordon (Miss Nascar, as I like to call her). She is the sister of Jeff Gordon, champion Nascar driver. I shot this image in Mexico. The surfboard was Dave Hopkins’. The suit was one of a grip of wardrobe suits I brought along. The time frame, was approximately six months, post 9-11. Pretty girl, American flag board, suit, and smile while representing a very American sport as a job and avocation. Yep I really went to Mexico and did this. Why? antipathy |anˈtipəθē| noun ( pl. -thies) a deep-seated feeling of dislike; aversion :

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