Walking

Cruised around San Francisco last night.  Walked all the way down to Haight.  Really cool experience SF is an amazing place of diversity and humbling situations.  Enjoy the photography.

San Francisco Day 1

I am in San Francisco for the weekend.  This morning I filmed couple buddies surf Ocean Beach Kelly's Cove.  Later this afternoon I am going to surf it clean and decent fun size.  Here is a couple photos from the morning town cruise.  I'll have more photos up later tonight.

Charcoal Pencil

Was bored and did some art today.  The top is a piece of PU foam that I cut out of a board that I snapped a while back.  I planed off the yellow foam to see how the planer works on PU since I have never shaped one before.  I did this in preparation for the next board I will be shaping.  Its going to be a gunned out 6'6" single fin; I have not decided yet if I want to put bonzers on it but I have plenty of time to decide(still have to shape the board and paint/draw on it).  Speaking of painting and drawing.  The above picture is also my test on drawing with charcoal pencil on a surfboard blank. As you can see from above I am happy with how it came out and most likely going to draw a similar pattern on the deck of the 6'6" single.  Excited to continue shaping some boards got ideas for a couple more once that tax return comes in.Though my first priority is buying a plane ticket more about that later though.

This below is a drawing I did in my notebook a while back that I scanned and cleaned up with the help of some Adobe products.  Not sure what I am going to do with it but most likely put it on rice paper and glass it to a board.  From what the words say I think it would be fitting to put on a twin fin. A twin fin is planned for the tax return boards.

Northern California

This past weekend three of my friends and I took a trip up north.  We knew there would be waves we just did not know it would be this good.  I decided to shoot instead of surf due to the fact that I planned to originally and the board I had with me at the time would not have handled too well. Here is just a couple from that day more to come soon.  I shot with a Canon 7D with a 75-300mm lens which unfortunately is a terrible contrast lens at full focal length. Due to this fact I had to do more adjusting then usual in which I use Adobe Lightroom.  I am pleased with how they look just wish I had a nicer lens.

 Lefts were grinding all day.

 The Rights though were long clean walls.

 This one above is of my Friend Jake featured in the first shot.  He is setting up for a nice long right.

Even out of the water the bombs keep rolling in. The conditions were not perfect to start but cleaned up to nearly epic conditions.  It was about 8-12 feet faces with one random set that cleaned everyone up that was pushing 15.

Long Exposed Big Sur

                 

Big sur campgrounds made for some great long exposures. All of these are from my Canon 7d and are around 20-30 minutes. I will have two more from my Kodak Retina that are around 1-3 hours. Enjoy!

                         

                       

Andrew Molera

Just got back from an extremely successful trip to Big Sur.  About three weeks ago I pitched the idea to my friends seen below.  Originally they were on edge but I encouraged them we would score as there was an incoming swell that I had been looking at in the northern Pacific and a definitely swell that would be dying on the date we arrived. Everything ended up nearly perfect for us.  We arrived at Andrew Molera camp grounds at about 11am and by the time everything was set up at the hike on camp site we went straight the River-mouth with our stuff ready to surf.  The first day was pretty fun no one out at all and about 2-3 foot surf at a right point break. The best day was Saturday as shown below a picture of me one of my friends happened to snap while taking a breather on the beach.  It was about 3-5 feet with maybe 10 people out.  We did not end up even checking it on Sunday because we were making our way down the coast that day but the swell had definitely filled in and it was most likely bigger and less closed out. No complaints though a full day of surfing a right hand point break with an non-existent crowd for southern Californians.

 The Boys Trevor, Vince, and Jake standing in front of the river which helps keep the rock and gravel bottom point break.

 A picture Jake took of me while he was cruising on the beach.  In the end I was bummed I didn't shoot because this set-up is unreal.  But we already decided another trip is definitely necessary.

Tristan Cronshaw

This is a little throwback to a couple months ago.  Over summer we had a decent run of swell but the winds were always bad near Newport in the arvo  so we took a bunch of quick trips to Salt Creek and other southern spots along with some northern spots.  This is my buddy Tristan Cronshaw who rides for HippyTree, one of the sickest companies that's fairly new to the scene. This shot is from a short but sweet video we made, well I made he surfed haha. The video can be viewed HERE and helped him get a VZ sponsor.  A new video is in the works titled "Your Life is On Repeat" more about that soon some initial filming has been done.  The video is more of a lifestyle video supported with a few clips. Below is a long exposure of Salt Creek. Followed by Tristan himself.

Working Bench

                               Above is the work beach.  Taken with my canon 7d featuring the tools I have been using as of recently.  These tools are some of the most useful tools for me lately.  Shaping another surfboard right now featured below.  Its not completed but its going to be a 5'6" quad with a weird diamond tail(i might change this to a normal diamond tail but as of now I like how it looks and am interested on its performance).  The camera picture is a 50mm Argus Rangefinder aka the Brick.  Its a cool little 35mm camera though it has no built in light meter so lately I have either carried around an extra camera, usually my 7D, or done my best at guessing a decent exposure.  The aperture range goes 3.5, 4, 5.6, 8,11, 16.  While the shutter speed range from 10-300.  

Its Time to Leave

Need to get out and travel again. Newport has been flat need some more waves. Time to get on a place or in a car to go somewhere new.  Other news I am starting a new video project soon that I have been drawing out some ideas for more information soon.

Bikes

Took a bike ride through the Oregon wilderness.  35mm nikon Fe more photos from the trip to come.

Stained Glass

This is a photo I shot for a school project where the assignment was to shoot a religious leader.  This is my favourite shot from the day.  This shot came to be as almost a mistake I had to readjust some lights that were behind the stain glass and thats when I envisioned this shot

Tower Under the Moon

Long Exposure of a Lifeguard tower in Newport Beach Ca.  The Exposure was approximately 17mins from what I can remember.  It was taken with a Canon 7D at about 10 o'clock at night. the white line right above the sand is the whitewash from waves illuminated so slightly by the moon.  The skyline looks all washed away because it was quite windy out so it is the motion of the clouds moving over the 17 minutes.  The colors are not manipulated at all it is the naturally color created under the moonlight conditions and possibly some tint from the boardwalk lights.

EZ Twin

Photo of Trevor Oosterhof riding his hand shaped twin fin.  This is a part of the Ezekiel team archive I have started to compile from doing a couple shoots for them and the Shop Collective boys.  Always stoked to be able to help out.  Shot with a Canon 7D.

50 Shades of Purple

Every once in a while a Sunset is something you just can not pass up.  Despite some popular belief that a picture of a sunset is a quick one too and that's just what you get this photo would be impossible for your iphone to take unless you have some alternative apps and a lot of time.  Normally the background of this would be over exposed or the foreground just a silhouette. And for you brainiacs out there this isn't 2 photos the tones and exposure would still be off of what i was trying to achieve.

Mr. Ferris

This is from the Orange County Fairgrounds earlier this year.  Taken with my Canon 7D the exposure was about 10 seconds.  This is one of many long exposures I have taken lately as I have been experimenting with them.  I have been doing quite a bit of them with my 35mm camera which can be tricky due to the Reciprocity Law Failure.

Barrel

My Names Luke Dawson and I am a Photographer, Student, Surfer and normal person. Welcome to the beginnings. The Photo above is a shot I took while shooting photos for the Ezekiel surf guys.