Twitter

Driftwood Photography Studios is now on Twitter (DriftwoodPhoto)!!! Be sure to check us out and follow our Tweets!

O'Neill press center

Driftwood Photography Studios was just approved/accepted into the O'Neill press center! What does that mean? Access to inside info on events, team members, the works!

Analog surf team and other Newport Beach locals rip huge barrels at 52nd Street!

Check out the HUGE barrels the Analog team riders and other Newport Beach locals were pulling today at 52nd Street!!! Click here link to the Driftwood Photography Studios gallery and Driftwood-Photography.com

Newport Beach and the Analog surf team goes off!

Wow, what a week of surf we've had here in Newport!

Had a great session with local surfer Shane Wisdom on Wednesday, and shot over 400 frames with the Analog Surf Team + friends today! Be on the lookout for the latest galleries on Driftwood-Photography.com!

Submissions

Just finished uploading high resolution surf photos from today's swell at the Wedge in Newport Beach, CA: 6-8 foot faces, some 10-12 foot standouts!

Be sure to check them out at Driftwood Photography Studios (driftwood-photography.com), keep checking back for word on publications, and keep checking the DWP Image Galleries as well as the FACEBOOK Fan Page!

Magazine Submissions

It's truly amazing that in this digital age there are still major magazines out there that only take printed submissions for portfolio reviews! I can compose a nice layout. Not really an issue. But it is so much simpler and time efficient to package everything up as a PDF then email it. This 2009, right?

I suppose it can be an initial test to see who is serious about submissions to the particular magazine, and who is just your average, run of the mill person running around with a camera in their spare time.

So, looks as though Driftwood Photography Studios will be creating some portfolios, mailers, printing, and sending.

Burning the Midnight Oil

Still working hard to get the latest and greatest formatted and posted up on Driftwood-Photography.com, online home of Driftwood Photography Studios!

On tap for this week: pray for surf! Looking to meet up with some of the Analog surf team riders Thursday morning. It'd be nice to have some bigger surf to take photos of them riding!

Starting Up

Who would have thought starting up Driftwood Photography Studios would entail so much time in front of a computer and so little time behind the lens???

It's actually very rewarding. I'm still taking photos, which always means time on the computer editing/cropping/formatting (I shoot in RAW, higher quality/more options, so I typically have to convert to jpeg's after), but it's getting my website redesigned and running that is now taking up the largest chunk of time.

In order to get the site up I'm learning a ton on web design, something I've truthfully never done before. If you haven't seen the new version of the website check it out here! The general layout/info is pretty straight forward to build, but image galleries are proving an interesting challenge.

I always could load an image viewer, but if I'm custom designing the entire site layout I would like for the gallery to work nicely within it.

Analog

Biked on up to 54th Street this morning and the waves certainly were small. Those that held any size closed out real fast. So no photos today.

But a good morning regardless. Met some of the Analog surf team. Super chill. When your job entails surfing all day life is good, even if there are no waves that day. Driftwood Photography Studios will be out to shoot next time they hit the water for sure.

On an entertaining note my dog is sleeping with his tongue half under his chin and stuck to the floor.

Die-Hards

It's 7am, a little gray out, and the surf is relatively flat. It's also low tide, but unfortunately the rising tide probably won't change much. Yet still there are guys out there surfing- or maybe more accurately trying to catch anything that resembles a wave.

A couple years back I traded my place in the mountains and snow for a beach side apartment. At times I'm amazed at how many people I see paddling out into waves that someone half my size would have trouble catching and riding. They're the die-hards. Out every day regardless of how bad the rest of us might think it is.

Then I think back to my days as a competitive skier. Was I that much different? Fifteen below zero, rain, it didn't matter. I was out there on the slopes, as still are a number of people I know.

Here's to all the die-hards out there. I think I'm going to grab my camera and hope you put on a show. Check back later at Driftwood-Photography.com

Networking

If you haven't gone looking, let me officially tell you there's got to be a million different networking sites out there. And that could be low-balling it. I assure you I've never heard of most of them. It seems, however, that they all get fairly decent traffic, and those individuals that use a particular networking site and/or service are pretty loyal to them.

So what is Driftwood Photography Studios doing?

FACEBOOK has recently broken into the top 3 sites viewed on the web in the US, and is #4 in the world. Thats the entire internet. Wow. So of course you can find Driftwood Photography Studios' FACEBOOK page by searching the site for "Driftwood Photography" or following this link.

Blogger is the current #7 viewed site, so clearly if you're reading this blog you know we've got it covered. Hopefully there are enough links to our sites/profiles throughout our blogs that you'll find yourself on our page.

LinkedIn is becoming ever more popular. And you've got it- we've created a Driftwood Photography Studios profile there too!

Then there's a plethera of local ones out there. Look around, make a game out of seeing where you can find us! Then of course, book a photography session too!

Website Updates

Driftwood Photography Studios has been busy building/updating the website: driftwood-photography.com!

Check out the new format, latest info, and cool links! Most recent/archived images can, as always, be found in their entirety on the DWP FACEBOOK PAGE

Australia

As I alluded to previously, Australia was a milestone for Driftwood Photography Studios. I'm sure I would have come to it eventually, but I happen to like that it was born out of my time over there. If you've never gone, take my advice- pony up the airfare, give yourself two weeks or more, and go check it out.

Whether you're a travel enthusiast, world traveler, foodie, artist, photographer, trekker, surfer, you name it, the land down under has more than you could ask for.

I began my travels on a surf trip from Sydney to Byron Bay, definitely one of the surf meccas of the world. Though there was plenty to point my camera at, I took a lot in that week. Surfed a lot too. After the week was over, I'd already fallen in love with the place.

Ever since my trip on the March I knew I wanted a camera with me to capture what I saw and experienced. Up until this point I'd certainly gotten some fun, "look at me" photos to send back home, but it wasn't until I got stranded in the tiny, isolated town called Rainbow Beach that I truly came to realize I shouldn't be taking the touristy shots. Instead I needed to capture the untouched beauty of the country.

I traveled up the coast to Cairns, stopped off along the way in the breathtaking Whitsunday Islands and Whitehaven Beach (one of the most beautiful places in the world), a detour inland at a cattle ranch, Magnetic Island (which looked like it was taken out of a Corona ad), the Great Barrier Reef via Cairns, Back to Sydney, to Uluru and the Olgas in the Red Center, north to Darwin and Kakadu National Park, Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road, and eventually home by way of New Zealand and Fiji.

I took close to 5,000 pictures.

And fatefully, on that return plane ride State-side, a woman looked over my shoulder from the row behind me, saw me editing/organizing photos from my travels, and wtih one inquiry planted the seed that will now hopefully grow into a flourishing business: Do you have a website or sell your photographs? They're spectacular."

To which I replied, "Not at the moment, no. But I will!"

Random Encounter

It's great when you meet new people, especially when that new person can potentially help further your career...or new start-up!

Met a friend of my roommate's today who works for Ocean and Earth! Chatted it up a bit, got some tips on which surf teams surf where/when. In the end passed along some sample photos and business cards.

Here's to hoping Driftwood Photography Studios gets a gig or two with Ocean and Earth!

Blogging...

There's a lot to think about. A lot to say. Do I make this a blog outlining my progression into photography, leading into the current transition into full time photographer? Do I chronicle my most recent accomplishments or share progress updates? I think it'd be most interesting to have a scattering of it all. The problem comes with trying to detail too much of it at once, with jumping back and forth between back story and recent efforts.

Some authors (novels, short stories, blogs, etc.) are quite accomplished at this. More often then not it just pisses me off. I'm all for a good aside, but some times, damn, just get to the point. I don't know about you but I'm only willing to get jerked around by authors so much, then I just tune out.

I live in an area where 20-somethings drive Porsches, high end Mercedes, Land Rovers, Escalades on 24-inch rims. It's a bit ostentatious. I drive a Ford. It serves me very well. Over the past few years I've put what money I've earned into photography gear and trips. Like my old Nikon N60, my equipment isn't the latest, most expensive gear out there. But it serves me well. I get the shot.

In a world where I see scrawny, tanned 19 year old's who've never done a hard day's work in their life carrying around a $5,000 camera that does everything for them courtesy of daddy, I rely on learned knowledge of what I'm doing. Proficiency in the skills I've used from fully manual 35mm SLR cameras applied to the digital age. And sure, sometimes a bit of luck.

But it's my background and experience that truly gives me an edge. I've got quite varied and eclectic past experiences. As a freestyle skier, surfer, kayaker, rock climber, and just general thrill junkie I've got a good handle on the world of action sports. I played Division 1 college football, some baseball and lacrosse growing up too. I've laid it on the lines with the best. They've beat me and at times I've beat them; the fact that it's weighted more so toward them is because, well, their the best.

Being the best is about perseverance. You have to have talent and ability. But not all of the most talented always suceed. Some of the more talented athletes I've ever met burned out of the sport, decided competition wasn't for them, or found their passions outside of the sports world and left to purse them. Talking about sports, you have to be able to pick yourself up when you fall down, bounce back from injury, all while actually finding a way to survive in the real world. Outside of sports the world is fairly similar...though mostly without the injuries.

This brings me to sports photography. It's one thing to take pictures of something cool you see. It's quite another to understand the sport or mentatilty associated with the sports from experience.

My internet has cut out twice now while writing this. Quite annoying.

I hold my degree in Landscape Architecture. I've worked for years at top-notch architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and civil engineering offices. Conceptual design through permitting, construction documents, and on-site construction administration. How many architectural photographer's start out designing and building the things they're taking pictures of?

Practical experience. It's key.

Driftwood Photography Studios

Welcome to Driftwood Photography Studios blog! This is to be the first of hopefully many blog entries as I work to progress my hobby/sporadic freelancing to a full time, professional photography service. I'll keep you up on how I got into this all, what I'm doing, inroads I'm making, notable contacts, publication, and in the end hopefully a success story!

Why switch career paths to photography, one might ask? The simple reason: it's my passion. Who wants to have just a job when your job can be what you chose to do in your spare time?

The Story:
For years I've loved photography. First using little point-and-shoot cameras as a kid, up until I was given my first SLR as a bar-mitzvah present by my uncle. He always had the best camera gear. All the new film cameras as the came out. The Nikon N90, then very soon after the N90s. Of course at the same time he also had the pro level cameras: the Nikon F1, selling and trading as the came out through the F5. Talk about a cool cameras. Lenses, filters, he had it all.

It was a Nikon N60. Not the fanciest camera in the world, but a solid camera nonetheless. 14 years later I still have it and it works as good as the day I opened the package! That's gotta say something.

One of the things that first really turned me onto photography was double exposures. Stand on the right side of the car, he told me one passover. Click. Ok, now go stand on the other. Click. An hour later we got the film back, and sure enough, there I was on both sides of the car! Blew me away.

So I had my N60 and a couple of cheap lenses. It was always a fun hobby. We'd go on family vacations and I'd have my camera to take pictures with. Thanks initially to my uncle and then further from my father I learned about shutter speeds, aperture pushing the iso, over exposing on the beach, filters, all the basics.

Flash forward to my senior year of high school. I went on a Holocaust remembrance trip: the March of the Living. 6,000 Jewish teens from around the globe converge on Poland, tour the work/death camps, hold a memorial service at Auschwitz/Birkenau, leave Poland as witnesses to the worst that man can do, then celebrate life for a week in Israel. Pretty emotional.

I lived behind my camera; my father's N90s, actually (formerly my uncle's, he'd sold it to my father and purchased the latest and greatest), capturing raw emotion, scenic vistas, and the evidence of death and murder. Quite a combination.

For me the trip was also my senior project, meaning that I researched the Holocaust, gave a presentation to my "March" group at on the history of Lodz, Poland while we were there, and kept a photo journal of the trip. In exchange I got to drop all my courses (save English) for the second semester of my senior year.

Two weeks, 25 rolls of film, one hell of a collection of journals. From then on I carried some sort of camera with me nearly all the time, least I miss something.

It wasn't until years 5 years later, in 2005 when I was on my way home from living abroad in Australia that the next big leap came. I was editing photos on my laptop at 30,000 feet (maybe it was 35,000 feet...either way, we were way high up crossing the Pacific), when the woman behind me tapped my shoulder. Those are amazing. Do you have a website or sell those?

And that was it, seed planted.