travel
It's been a pretty wildly eye-opening last couple o’ months.
Recently, my virtual reality company, Superswell VR, was blessed with the opportunity to work with Miles Partnership, a marketing company that specializes in the tourism and travel industries. They contracted Superswell VR to shoot 360˚ Google Streetview campaigns for various destinations, including Oklahoma's Chickasaw Nation, the Kentucky State Parks, and Kansas' Visit Wichita.
Read MoreThe last couple of weeks are exactly why I now find myself living in the Pacific Northwest.
Sort of.
So it's no secret that this region of the country has some of the most incredibly beautiful and inspiring fodder for landscape and nature lovers and overall wanderlusters.
If anything, the region is known for its copious amounts of water and incredibly liberal natural display of every shade of green known to man.
It's what I moved up here to explore and embed with.
Between the forests, the waterfalls, the rivers, the coastlines, the almost-religious focus on sustainability and conservation and nature-worship, and perhaps the world's most concentrated populations of tree-huggers on the planet (myself proudly and unapologetically included), it's enough to occupy infinite lifetimes of discovery.
What we didn't see coming (well actually we did) was…
I hate dogs.
I've always hated dogs.
And if you were living with the trauma of being been bit by numerous dogs as a child, you’d hate dogs too.
So when a friend’s friend asked if I wanted to dog and house-sit for her, my immediate internal reaction was ‘NO chance!’
Then she threw a curveball – a Google Images link for ‘Guanajuato.’ This triggered my self-diagnosed compulsive wanderlust disorder (and unreasonable addiction to tacos) and my fingers found themselves frantically replying "YES ME!"
It was beyond my control.
Read MoreBack in September, I was EXTREMELY lucky to have the opportunity to spend a week at Hotel El Ganzo in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. It sits on the other, quieter, more civilized side of the Baja peninsula from Cabo San Lucas and it's no ordinary place. Not only have artists like Thievery Corporation and Telefunkt recorded in their underground recording studio, but they have an artist-in-residence program in which they invite artists of different disciplines to stay in the rooms and decorate them however they please.
Needless to say, we ran into some pretty unique stuffs!!
Read MoreThis one is very very dear to my heart. When I made the choice to move up to the Pacific Northwest a few months ago, I knew that I had to pay homage to the Santa Monica Mountains - the mountains that made me ‘me.’
So I figured during my final weeks living in the Santa Monica Mountains, I’d take along a 360˚ VR video camera on the remainder of my hikes and excursions and cut together my gift back to the mountains…
Read MoreOur National Parks and outdoors spaces have done more for me than I can ever possibly express. I have learned more about myself, more about all of us, and more about what and why matters and drives me and all of humanity in those parks than anywhere and anytime else in my adult life. I cannot think of anything that has helped to heal my psyche over the past decade more than our natural world and outdoors spaces, and while it's absolutely impossible to express all of those sentiments in a blog post, the most appropriate attempt would be to simply rehash some of my favorite scenes and stories that I have been blessed to see with my own eyes and experience with my own being over the years. So below is a gallery of 100 images from within some of our national parks and some links to some of the stories behind those images. Hope You Enjoy.
Read MoreI recently spent an incredible week in the Pacific Northwest, the reason of which will come in a more detailed post next week, but while I was up there, I couldn't help but capture a few scenes of the foliage beginning to turn. Coming from Southern California, it's always a treat to be able to capture some fall colors, and just wanted to share those with you here as a bit of a peaceful meditation. Hope you enjoy.
Read MoreAs I mentioned in the previous post, I just got back from a few weeks in Maine. The main purpose of the trip was to work on a video for Camp Skylemar, one of the most beautiful, efficiently run sleep away summer camps in the country. I’ll post much more about this insanely incredible experience once we’re done with the video in a few weeks, but this post is a quick focus on the 5 days after we were done. Since I had never been to Maine before, I tacked on some extra time at the end of the job to explore the State for a few days.
Read MoreSo this was it. I had 3 more days left before I had to make my way back to Colombo and begin my 36 hour journey back to U.S. soil. I had two choices…I can head down to the beach and just marinate for a few days, or I can continue the cerebral stimulation and head to Kandy, “The Cultural Capital of Sri Lanka.” Against most of humanity’s better judgement, I chose the latter.
Read MoreNot again. No way was I going to miss my ride this time. It was pseudo-palatable to eat the 10 bucks for ticket I bought for the missed train ride they day before, but after not being able to secure another ticket for the next 3 days, if I was to stand any chance of making it to Nuwara Eliya in the highlands, I would be forced to hire a private driver...
Read MoreIt was over. The main reason I found myself in Sri Lanka was all over. Here we sit at the train station waiting for our ride back to Colombo, reflecting upon the events of the past two weeks, and quietly wondering how we’d say goodbye to each other. After all, we had become family over the past few weeks and bonds had certainly been formed. And here we were, in the middle of Sri Lanka, in a village that none of us may very well ever see again, and wondering if we’d ever even get to see each other again.
Read MoreSo I had this crazy dream last weekend. A dream where I was sent to Hawaii to go whale watching off the shore of Kona with Chris Robinson, the Editor-In-Chief of Outdoor Photographer Magazine. A dream where I found myself taking a helicopter tour over the big island with Chris Gampat, founder of The Phoblographer, marveling over Hi’ilawe Falls, one of the United State’s tallest waterfalls, and where I imagined myself zip-lining through a rainforest canopy of Koa and sycamore trees with Videomaker’s Editor-In-Chief Mike Wilhelm and Big Picture Big Sound’s Editor-In-Chief Chris Boylan.
Read MoreSo I just threw one of the images I made in Sri Lanka on my mobile phone as the background. Kinda dug it. Figured I’d share it.
Read MoreIt was the most meaningful and rewarding work I’ve ever done.
Bold statement for a man well into his thirties? Perhaps. But I’ll start from the beginning. I received an email from a friend that simply said “What are you doing the first two weeks of February.” Mind you, this was closing in on the last week of January. 48 hours later, a round trip ticket to Colombo, Sri Lanka in my name arrived in my email box.
Read Morehe next few days in Big Sur were nothing short of magical. We woke up the following morning, our first in Big Sur, and figured the most logical thing to do would be to hit the beach. And, well, who are we to argue logic? The universe led us down the 3/4 or so mile hiking path from the campsite, through a covered canopy of trees that straddles the Big Sur River, all the way down to the quaint cove that makes up Andrew Molera State Beach. We spent several hours here sunning, swimming, playing, fighting off the seagulls that boldly flew off with half our food, and watching the surfers slowly but surely converge at Molera Point as they anticipated the swells from Hurricane Marie, the category 4 that had hit Baja California earlier that day, to come ashore any moment. And boy did they!
Read More
“A Smooth Sea Never Made A Skillful Sailor.” -English Proverb ** There it is - This Week's Motivational Kick In The Yahoo! ** Ahoy!
So after the kayak melee in Morro Bay, it was time for Stephen Chiang, the photographer I was assisting, and I to drive up north to San Francisco for the job the next morning. Put two photographers in a car, give them the choice between A. a straight and direct, but boring route, and B. a windy, curvy, 2-hours-longer scenic route through Big Sur, and, well, you can guess which one they’re going to choose 11 times out of 10. So up the curvy Pacific Coast Highway we went, absolutely one of the most beautiful and scenic drives in the country.
Read MoreIt began as a work trip. Well, sort of. I’m finding more and more and more these days I’ll fish for any excuse to leave Los Angeles...just the thought alone gets me excited. So when Stephen Chiang, a photographer friend that I occasionally assist mentioned he needed an assistant for a gig in San Francisco, I jumped at it. When he mentioned it would begin with a night of camping in Morro Bay State Park, and end with 4 nights of camping in Big Sur, that wasn’t just the icing on the cake, that WAS the cake.
Read MoreIf you’ve ever gone on an extended hike or backpacking trip, you know that every single ounce of weight counts. An extra strip of beef jerky may not seem like a lot sitting in your pocket at home, but you WILL notice and feel every single gram of it as the sun-scorched miles move beneath your boots. So when you're packing for such a trip, weight and consideration and bare essentials are a constantly compromised necessity, and, obviously, for photographers, food and clean socks come in a distant second to camera gear. Lucky for us photographers, the new breed of mirrorless systems has changed EVERYTHING. Gone are the days of having to trudge 10-15 pounds of DSLR gear and lenses to get solid professional high-quality images. Now you can make top-shelf images AND pack an entire bag of beef jerky.
Read More
Figured in light of Colby Brown's impromptu brave decision to head down to the Philippines to help with the aftermath of this month's insanely devastating typhoon, this was a good time to re-share this. It’s an article I wrote about his philanthropic photographic organization, The Giving Lens. It originally appeared on Kotori Magazine, but his dedication to using his craft and his heart to lead his humanitarian-heavy path is freshly demonstrated with his recent move, so it seemed a good time to rehash it for those that may have missed it.
Follow his exploits on his Facebook page, his Google+ page, his Twitter feed, and definitely check into his organization, The Giving Lens, at www.TheGivingLens.com
And click here for the article from earlier this year, The Giving Lens Gets Focused. Trust me, you're going to want to know about these guys if you don't already. These are the sorts of stories that restore hope in humanity's future.
