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Modus: Light and Water

“How many shots did it take to acquire this one?” It is a good question. I hear it a lot. Here is how it works… Learn your craft. Buy the right camera and lens setup. Build-acquire the housing. Figure out optics in water. Watch weather. Select a swell, tide, surf break, weather pattern with the correct potential combination. Wake at 4 am, Prep your gear. Have a little coffee, but not too much because you do not want to pee in your wetsuit during morning feeding hour, and sharks feel the charge from your camera body and sometimes come for

Motivation Song

This shot is of Ventura Surfer Adam Virs. It was taken in Ventura California, just south of the Harbor. You can see Two Trees, a landmark, in the background. If you are from Ventura, this image is pretty cool. It is a frame from the second or third roll of film that I ever shot from the water. The surf was terrible this day. When I came in, I ran into my friend and soon to be colleague, William Sharp. We were both shooting for Surfing Magazine and being edited by legendary lensman and mentor, Larry “Flame” Moore. William laughed,

The Island

A sloop rode astride disparate shades of blue, the ocean looking as if Gauguin had paletted every tone of that color available in the universe. The lone boat sheered through, cutting the briefest of white swaths, which were deftly consumed by azure strokes of the artist’s brush. Wind sung in the lines, with slap of bow and gurgle of wake, a pleasant serenade. There is a vitality that seems to exist at the Equator. Astride the foredeck, with one hand grasping a stainless steel stay, it’s smooth gnurling carried the feel of the wind’s energy, that traveled as a throbbing

Deep

Some of us may have thought that it was an oxymoron to call our locally produced little magazine, Deep. I mean as paper publishing began to spiral, here were a bunch of us doing a locally based magazine called Deep. It had seemed a little bit ironic. The publication was based on one begun in Goleta originally and called Wetsand Magazine. It was soon absorbed by the News Press and was called Blue Edge. As the News Press version tailspun in response to business issues, Deep sprung up, and many if not all of the contributors began to throw in

Sacred Craft 2010: A Cultural Backmarker

This morning I woke up from a nightmare-dream at 3:30 am. In the dream I was glossing boards, and had lost the hot batch of finishing resin. I found it in the nick of time, and was just completing the last board as it went off. I even had the acrid smell of an over catalyzed hot batch in my nostrils as I hopped out of bed and felt my feet hit cool wood floor in the blackness. Yeesh, surfboard subliminals. I built surfboards for about 20 years. They have been on my mind a lot lately, obviously. What makes

Song of the Chumash

We just finished the Ventura Artwalk 2010, in my little town. The entire Downtown of Ventura California was turned into a living canvas for forty eight hours. The event was a benchmark of sorts. benchmark |ˈben ch ˌmärk| noun 1 a standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed : [as adj. ] a benchmark case. 2 a surveyor’s mark cut in a wall, pillar, or building and used as a reference point in measuring altitudes. How did this happen? Not overnight. It was the result of seed sowing by a huge number of artists,

Model Models

Recently, NYC based production company Silent Crow was in Ventura. Two writers with the company happened to have connected with Donna Von Hoesslin of Betty B and learning a little bit about her female inspired Eco Fashion line. They came up with an idea. Producer Matt Bennett showed up to do a little bit of discovery work, and honed a reality show concept that deviated from the norm, in that it endeavors to look at the personalities and lives of the women in both my and Donna’s lives. Silent Crow named the show Bonafide. Donna and I have long exchanged

Intersection

Tyler Swain and I strode arm in arm, lock step, across the pavers in the foyer of the swank, old, Figueroa Hotel. It was a rainy night in Downtown LA. I was just back from some time away with Shawn Alladio in Oregon and Northern California, and being immersed in watery adventure. Tyler was fresh off the set of Jackass 3 where he is engaged as camera. He had just survived being taken out with a twelve inch dildo fired at him down a hallway from a potato cannon. It had struck him mid chest and dropped him. Then there

The Mavericks Challenge: Ready, Aim, Stand

Modus An Operator’s perspective I am just in the door from Maverick’s. We had quite an adventure up there. This trip I was a part of the K38 Mavericks Water Rescue Team. I joined K38 long ago, on the heels of shooting the 2000 Tow Surfing Championships at Jaws. I realized in the course of my process, that I had a debt of responsibility to both my subjects, the sport, and myself, (being a sentient human being) to be prepared and accountable as a responsible participant in documenting and filming surfing. My motivation in seeking out K38 training, was

Swell Five and the Marathon Man

It was o dark thirty on the second day of swell event number five on the Gold Coast, in the middle of the El Nino 2009-2010 season. I was gingerly working my way down the spiral stairway which leads down from the aerie which is the loft bedroom that overlooks one of the beaches I shoot all of the time. Under my left arm was my Macbook Pro. In my right hand my cel phone. Quietly, carefully, I padded down the bamboo shod steps, and my right hand exploded in song. Deftly I snapped the cel phone open. Chuck Patterson

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