My journey in photography started when I was 13 years old and my mom bought me a GoPro. My family is from Oahu; because of this, the ocean has always been ingrained in my life. What started as swimming in one-foot shorebreak waves in Hawaii quickly turned into a full-blown obsession with the Northern California coast.
I was born and raised in Marin County, and I have always had a large fascination with my surrounding area. The ocean, the landscape and the local surf community that we have in the Bay Area is among the best in the world. I have had the opportunity to travel to a lot of beautiful places throughout the world with my camera, but each time I am reminded that there is nowhere truly as unique as the San Francisco Bay Area. Through photography, I am able to show how I see our beautiful region that we are so lucky to call our home.
Shortly into my photography career (roughly two years), I had the honor of having one of my photos selected as the Marin Magazine “photo of the month” on Instagram. At the time, that was the biggest deal in the world to me. I grew up with a Marin Magazine on my coffee table year-round, so to be recognized by the staff was incredible to me. I can honestly say it was one of the first moments when I felt “accomplished” as an artist. That was a major motivator for me to continue with my photography career.
The project A California Winter originally started as a challenge to showcase the beautiful winters of surf we get here in the Bay Area. It quickly turned into a five-book project that sold out each year. It is incredibly humbling and still a shock to me how much people appreciated this project and I am so grateful for everyone that supported it. Each year I would get so much positive feedback that it pushed me to create more and more. One of the hardest decisions each year when making the book was choosing the cover. To me, it was not about being the best photo I took that year, but rather a photo that encapsulated the winter as a whole. I hope to continue doing book projects in the future, including a hard copy “best of the best” from the five editions of A California Winter, so keep an eye out for that.
