It’s no secret that I got my start with photography in and around the Santa Cruz area in California. I think it is fair to say that sometimes a place can have just as much influence on a person’s artistic expression as anything else. Had I been born in New York or Paris or the wilderness of Australia my photography would be an entirely different thing today. The salty sea air and long stretches of highway hugging the Pacific Ocean were back in my youth an early source of inspiration and they very much still are today. Not much has changed there. It is still a place filled with the sound of sea birds and populated by people looking to ride a wave, write poetry in the sand, or just experience some silence while looking at the great expanding sea.
Photographed with a Sony A7iii.
At the beginning of this past summer I took a trip back to my roots, exploring the coastline up and down California Highway One (California State Highway 1 technically). It felt really good going back there and making images with the eyes I have today, as opposed to the eyes of my much younger self. I definitely see the world much differently now. A little less whimsical, and yet also little more optimistic if that makes any sense at all. I was also very fortunate that one of my favorite collaborators, Vivian Cove, loves the California coast as much as I do. Spending a day hiking among the rocks and cliffs, marching on dry sand, and dodging potential onlookers is a lot more exhausting than one might think.
Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford Delta 120 film.
I won’t deny I was feeling slightly overwhelmed when these images were made. There is just so much to see and visit there and only so much film I can carry with me. I brought my digital camera with me as well as a backup for when my film stock ran dry but I wanted to capture the bulk of the work I did that day on film. After all, digital cameras didn’t really exist in any sort of quality form back when I was learning the ropes of photography in the California Bay Area studying at UC Santa Cruz and Foothill College. I don’t even think the first DSLR had been produced yet in any sort of form that was affordable to the average person.
Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford Delta 120 film.
Every so often I contemplate moving back to the Santa Cruz area. It’s a place that has never really left me and continues to influence who I am as a person today. More than likely that will never happen and perhaps that is for the best. After all, it is far healthier to look to the future rather than linger forever in the past. Still, it is fun to visit sometimes and even more fun when I have the opportunity to make photographs while doing so.