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Went on a weird group photo walk of, I don't know where the group was from or who anyone in the group was - I just sorta crashed the party, Griffith park last Sunday. The group was cool though and it was nice environment to force a bit of creativity. Here are some of the pics. If you happen to know how to contact these girls let me cause I didn't get a chance to get there email and I want to send them these photos/ say thanks for posing in old monkey cages while a bunch of rapid photographers gawked and snapped pictures for hours. blah blah blah I a friggin over bloggin. I want to get a motorcycle and side car and travel thru Europe! Yah! However, that is not going to happen so I will settle for a Guinness at lunch.

I was lucky enough to tag along on a photo shoot of the band, The French Semester with O.Hem last Sunday. I held a reflector, cracked some jokes (which everybody laughed at because I am friggin hilarious) and than snapped a photo or two between takes. Olivia got the perfect shots - look for them as well as music from the French Semester in a store near you. My photos are graining and blown out and covered in dust and hair, but I like em. Cause they were fun to take. And someTimez the imperfections are intaresting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah it's a photo of a bunch of girls looking cute - but it's art I swear. I had an art director describe a website as a woman's body the other day and it was amazing. He is gay(not sexually attracted to women like other less evolved men who make choices on a woman's beauty based on lust -lots and lots of lust) but the fact remains, women are beautiful and art or design will always try to emulate that beauty. So check out the curves and subtle graduation of skin tones on the models above or here and than make a website that expresses the same beauty. Ok, I am not making sense - I always get nervous around pretty girls. This post is done.

Oh wait, also pay attention to the unique poses and awesome group lighting techniques.

There is so many little things to pay attention to concerning beautiful girls.

I snapped a couple photos of Luth, Keenan and Sherwin surfing Palisades last night while watching the sunset with my Mom - they were ripping.

Cool marketing concept for the upcoming season of 'Mad Men' and an even cooler behind the scenes video of photographing the campaign with my favorite photographer Frank Okenfels.

Giuliano Bekor has a bunch of real classy photos up on his online portfolio right now. I love the dark blacks and white whites.

What seems like ages ago I had the pleasure of sharing a photography class with Collin Erie. At the time we had very different approaches to the art of photography, I sucked and Collin was a master of the technical and could bring abstract ideas, emotion and whatever to his work in all the clarity you would expect from a master of his craft. I remember a specific project Collin worked on where he shot a local surfboard shaper fine tuning a board. The photos were amazing and while this particular shaper is pretty mediocre I wanted to buy the board being shaped - it just looked so white! I think this ability to shoot photos that are so realistic yet at the same time push the envelope of what the whimsical mind can perceive is a rare trait in a photographer. This rare quality has proven to be very desirable in the market place and Collin is now doing very well shooting photos of some of the largest music acts around, but duh, I knew Collin would be a master from that first class. Check out Collin Erie's photography website.

Why is T. "Lil Todd" Glaser the best surf photographer alive?

1. He has an eye for beauty in unique and unconventional settings. Just check out Todd's latest cover of SURFER Mag featuring Greg Long to see an example of this altered perspective. The typical 15mm fisheye rule of being within 2.5 feet or less of the surfer is thrown out the window leaving a large warped view of a majestically blue wave that seems to curl forever. Greg Long, the surfer in the photo becomes garnish and the meat of the photo is clearly the wave itself. Oh, yeah - I almost forgot - where the F*%$K is this cavernous beast of a wave? Probably some frigid shark infested outpost that required an all night drive and a short prayer before reaching. This is definitely not your picturesque swimming hole with cold beer and medical attention in close proximity. Call me weird but I am not the kinda chum that finds swimming in locations like this fun - or normal.

2. Todd loves photography. I often question how many surf photographers actually like their job. Todd dispelled all my doubts about his love for photography one morning around 3:30am while in Las Vegas by reciting a detailed lists of his photography heroes, inspirations, like and dislikes, technical frustrations, inventive work a rounds, and creative approaches to the art of photography. The boys and I had to stop him mid sentence and remind him that we were in Vegas and there were free drinks, scantily dressed hookers who hate there fathers and life in general, unforeseen riches and all you can eat bacon buffets to be had. I guess what I am saying is that if you love what you do you throw everything into it. For Todd he is passionate about photography and thus spends hours, days or quite possibly every waking moment obsessing over how to be a better photographer.

3. As mentioned above T. Diddy is not afraid to share. While you are not going to get any secret surf spots out of the guy, even though he did tell a good friend of mind a certain spot we had been looking into in Africa is easier to get to them we think (fuck you Surfing Magazine - I had been looking at that wave for years and you didn't even invite me on your trip. Oh yeah, i suck at surfing. OK sorry). Any question about surf photography or photography in general Todd is quick to answer and share his vast knowledge with all. For this reason other more experienced photographers are likely to extend this same courtesy to Todd. In the end all photographers and the art of photography benefits.

There are a bunch of other reasons why Todd Glaser is the best surf photographer alive but I am tired of writing and starting to feel a bit like Chris Cote(A Hype Machine) so I will stop here and leave you with a couplle links to Todd's work I found on Google. Todd Glaser's Photography Website | A Short Todd Glaser video bio | Video Part 2

So uhm, the waves were really fun the last couple days. I am very surfed out and can barely move my body right now it is so sore. Anyways, I snapped a couple photos in between going over the falls, doing half turns and not coming out of perfect tubes. Check Em.

Here is a short rant about the proposed breakaway tour. I know it does not make sense.

Judging from past mainstream media packages with corporate sponsorship and television broadcast I don’t really believe in the credibility or longevity of a break away tour by ESPN. Quik, Billabong, and Ripcurl, the main backers behind the current dream tour are core surfing brands with a vested interest in surfing’s image. ESPN and non endemic sponsors (Coca Cola, Suzuki, Anhieser Bush – all sponsors back when the tour was less than a dream) have no interest in furthering the sport of surfing or maintaining surfing’s image. Past examples of poor decision making by corporate sponsors in the surf world include scheduling contests in Europe in the summer, contests in Japan, contests at Narrabean, having Pat Parnell and PT announce and the longboard world tour. (Yes, there is a longboard world tour which back in the day, when sponsored by Oxbow, was quite lucrative.) It is my opinion that ESPN and a couple large corporate sponsors will throw around an attractive amount of prize money for surfing competitions that represent products that have nothing to do with surfing. If surf fans were like NASCAR fans everything would be great – Dane may even get to slap a Gibson Guitars or Penguin Books sticker on his board (that was a joke about all surfers wanting to be musicians or poets), and I am sure Jamie O would love to have a Vaseline logo spread all over the ass of his trunks (that was a joke about Jamie Obrien being gay) – but surf fans are a little more sophisticated than your typical NASCAR fan and as soon as the surfing contests on this new tour start to loose their appeal because poor decisions are being made to sell more female hygiene products and less surfing viewer will rapidly decline. The sponsors will then pull out and surfing will be left far worse than it is now.

However, I am sure Slater would be stoked off a couple 750 grand first place checks before he retires.

Good luck getting a job as a surfing sports manager if your clients perspective revenue deals comes from companies with no involvement in the surf industry and your expertise is solely in the surf industry.

Just a guess but I don’t think Coca Cola is trying to be a core surf brand and probably would have no interest in hiring people to market them as such.

I have been pretty wiped out from work lately and have not had a lot of time to shoot photo - or really do anything for that matter. However, I did force myself to snap a couple photos the other night before I went to bed. The photos above are of the smoke from my extinguished candles.

I shot 4 photos at the Bu the other day. Here are 2 of the for mentioned photos. Pictured surfing is 1 Anthony Petruso on a wave where he did a number of turns.

I would not usually waste wine by throwing it all over the ground, but I was a little drunk and wanted to shoot some photos soooo...the photos above depict what happened.

It is true that there is no greater pleasure than snapping photographs. It is also true that after long periods of repetitive activity such as years of pressing the trigger and hearing ,"Click!", shutter sounds in your ear you can go a bit nuts. Some photographers get bored, hang up the camera, kick over their light stands and move on to another hobby. Others end up in mental institutions muttering insanities about Paris Hilton and screaming to imaginary assistants, "Where is the 400? Give me the 400!." While others like Joe McNally climb really tall buildings in the heart of New York without a harness thus taking there photography to a whole new level.

Thanks to Ben Clark's awesome photos of Yo Gabba Gabba I am now a fan of a TV show made for kids. This kinda makes me mad because I hate the commercials on Nickelodeon more than I hate anything at all. I am getting over it though and will probably be tuning in often to catch all the hip music acts, like MGMT pictured above, that appear on the show.