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Forms

The featured image this week is of my friend, designer Jenny Doll, deep into sword forms. When we endeavor to become at one with Nature, there is far more discipline, and exploration than one would at first glance, ever imagine to be required. We become it. It does not become us. This Winter season I began posting my daily weather homework which I have done for nearly 40 years, on to my Facebook page (David Pu’u Photography-Cinematography) The thing about Weather and Nature for Photographers who rely on the intersection of light atmospherics and ocean for their work, is that

Bali: dispatch 3

It is a curious experience, when you walk down a beach, and have a look around at your surroundings recognizing that it is coming up on the time to leave. The thought dawns: will I be in this place again? It is not an entirely comfortable feeling, this one. Especially when one connects to the place and it’s people. I doubt there is a place on this blue marble where I have explored, that has not left it’s mark on me or left a portion of it’s psychic presence upon my self. This after all, is what life is about:

Samsung NX1: Throttling Up

The past week has been a blur of field trials and digital lab examination of an array of image files produced in a wide range of subjects on the Samsung NX1. Doing this, switching out from my amazingly detailed and efficient Canon system, to neophyte professional imaging contender Samsung, with it’s NX1, is a lot of work (and fun). In the middle of it all, my last shoot on Canon was published, along with a cute little videolog I produced, to illustrate better the texture of our day at the beach here. The feature is titled “Ventura Highway: Three Blondes”

Running and Gunning

Whew, just off a series of e mails with Lorenzo De Stefano, who is Director of the film Hearing is Believing which I am the Director of Cinematography on. The crew will be down at the Blue Whale in LA filming a performance by Rachel and the remarkable Taylor Eigsti for the project Thursday night. I on the other hand, will be on Bali working on some development projects for my wife’s company, and meeting up with a couple film makers there to possibly create something rather exotic. Life is hectic in a good way. This week saw a fantastic

Relevance

Sean Tully dropped me a note the other day, which had me scrambling to find an image file we created awhile back. I could not locate the high res finals, only some low res jpegs. So I referred to the original shot file where the camera raws reside, and had a little look. What I found was a slew of work we had not really put out into editorial at that time. I think maybe two or three from this series had become magazine covers, but the rest, had just not been relevant as far as I could tell. But

The Value of Story: Mavericks

I am just back from witnessing the spectacle which is the Mavericks Invitational big wave event at Pillar Point, Half Moon Bay, Ca. There are a huge number of stories surrounding this event, and I must select a few, and share those in Editorial. I worked this event with Deniece Watkins Smith who is a budding Photographer, sage Silicon Valley Real Estate Agent and wife to Cary Smith of the Pillar Point Harbor Patrol. We shot the event together. It was a lot of fun, challenge, and rich with story! Here is a great piece on the value of Story.

Risk Perception

The image above was shot during the 2010 Maverick’s Challenge where I worked as support and Photographer for K38 Rescue, who ran Event Ocean Safety and in process was in charge of training a cadre of local watermen to be a Rescue team. That local team was headed up by Vince Broglio. It was a big and perfect day. Possibly the biggest, best surf, ever paddled into for a competitive event. The quote is something Shawn said in one of our project groups this week. And I immediately turned it into an Oceanlovers Blue Note. Blue Notes are wisdom gleaned

Airborne

I had planned a nice little piece on Water for this week. A large SW swell had been making it’s way towards Ventura, and the subject seemed rather appropriate. Teahupoo in Tahiti had gotten it earlier in the week. Mass carnage, as surfers turned media whores, went for the liquid hammer that was a pretty much unrideable swell, were it not for jet assist. Cool, and somehow not… I left the office late in the day for a drive down coast, and as I pulled into my normal checkout spot for one of those remote waves that rarely breaks, a

A Day at the Beach

My parents moved to California when I was four. It was at that time when I saw my first surfer gliding to shore on the South Side of the Manhatten Pier. We lived in a walk up a couple blocks from the beach. I have no idea why a four year old would retain such sharp memories. I can only assume he was getting his foundation tutored to him by the land and sea. In the years since, I have seen a LOT of change in this State. My understanding of the place comes from a deep connection to our

GMAC

Garrett MacNamara and I have been perpetually bumping into each other for over a decade now. He and I for many years, just seemed to always be in the same place and time to see the ocean and weather coincide to produce some remarkable moments. He surfed. I shot. AFterwards we both laughed. “Wow, you were there”. We finally exchanged phone numbers a few years back. I will not say that having the digits made things any easier to connect, but it sure makes for an extra few moments to share our very unique lives together. I doubt that

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