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Beauty

One of the linchpins in the success of my imaging career, has been the ability to recognize and communicate beauty. Sounds simple. The reality is far from that. The reason being, is that beauty is a complex subject, and really has little to do with obvious and apparent physical attributes. Take the image above. Pretty girl. I made her prettier with my skills as a photographer. But what makes this beautiful, is understanding. Me taking the time to understand who and what she is, made me want to pursue working with her. Jentry is the daughter of two remarkable

A California Opus

Chapter 5 in the California Series. I have not always lived in California. My Dad was going to college on the GI Bill in Milwaukee Wisconsin, at Marquette University. I had never asked him why, being from Hawaii, he chose the Mid West. He met my Mother there. That was where my two Brothers and I were born. We were sick a lot as infants. The family pediatrician had told my parents that our Hawaiian genetics may have been to blame, as we did not tolerate the cold of hard, Midwestern Winter very well. In fact, I ended up in

Windows of Perception

Perspective is a unique line item for all of us. Our own Point Of View (POV for short) is one that, being our own, may not seem particularly special to us. I find myself overlooking the fact that I can be rather unique. You may tend to do that as well. As a photographer, writer, film maker, I am all about communicating a designated POV. I decide what perspective a subject ought to be examined from, in order to best embrace a particular viewer-audience. This was one heckuva busy week. I shot a music video, BMX, a performance music video

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

Cameraless

I was cameraless this week. It was great. Sort of. Okay, maybe not completely cameraless. I still had four 35mm stills film bodies, three mini DV cameras, and five high speed film motion cameras, all sitting on the shelf, along with the water housings for those. But I loaned my Canon 5DM2 system out and sold my Rebel T1i, in preparation for buying the new RebelT2i. (Wow, that Rebel was so new it had only seen 3000 frames before the new one was released.) Canon (along with Apple) has been blowing my mind the past few years. We spoke, they

A Fall Fantasy

Nothing deep to share. Or is there? The past weeks have allowed me a lot of time and effort to delve into what many consider to be my forte, which is shooting surfing, nature, beach culture and lifestyle. So this blog is devoted to showing a few of the sights seen this last several weeks of Fall. It is a teensy sampling of over 1200 final images collected. The culmination of a huge number of commercial, editorial and personal interest projects. Thanks to the beautiful place that I live in, and all my wonderful friends, commercial clients and publications for

Vulnerability

Everyone must learn to deal with issues involving trust. In our craft, or art, because a certain aspect of photography is subjective and it’s validity may be cheered or denigrated by a viewer, depending on where that viewer hails from morally, spiritually, or sociologically, it is des rigeur to put ourselves out on an emotional limb so to speak, when we share our work. So there is risk involved. On many levels. Is my subject valid, am I good enough technically, am I going to be accepted by enough of the commercial market to get a return on all my

Bali Journal 5: Sacrosanct

Just because something is sacred does not mean that it is exempt from entropy and the physical laws of change. In fact, being sacred may mean that every force in this world is immediately set in motion with the express purpose of subverting that consecrated thing. It is the world’s way. Sacred refers to being set apart for a specific purpose. The dictionary defines it as the state of being connected to God. The word is derived from the Latin word sacrare, which is a verb. That means it denotes action, motion, interaction, etc. But if a thing is truly

A Bali Journal: 2

Another amazing day here on Bali. Fashion and art imaging work followed by carefully choreographed motion picture work. So happy to have Aaron Marcelino on board. He worked his first stint ever as a Director today and did pretty darned well. Spent several hours in Denpassar interviewing East Bali Poverty Project’s David Booth and learned more of the amazing story of redemption of a remote tribe in the mountains of East Bali. One of the more incredible tales I have ever heard, it was hard to keep a clear eye as tears kept wanting to come. I will save the

Organic Reprisal

We leave the troubled shores of the US soon, for the exotic environs of Indonesia where Donna Von Hoesslin’s creative muse lies, on the Isle of Bali. We are a tightly knit crew, who all will donate time and our own efforts in a collaborative endeavor to contribute to something that matters, and in the process, create something beautiful and compelling. The excursion will be a little different than Donna’s usual solo pilgrimage to her mecca of creativity and harmonic bliss. This time she brings along a group of young women whose names have become synonymous with her Ventura based

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