"SKIP" featured in this month's issue of "LOVE ISSUE MAGAZINE"

I'm very humbled to be one of the featured artists in this months "LOVE ISSUE MAGAZINE", by Constantin Nimigean.

Intimate, powerful work on family by Tierney Gearon, Aline Smithson and others.

Wild Horses of Summer's Bay, Unalaska

Mare's Gone Wild- Summer's Bay, Unalaska

Rule Number One:

While visiting or living in Unalaska, never ask a local to take you to see "the horses". It's code for, "Wanna go on a date?", and makes you immediately suspect. Same goes for the question, "Hey, wanna go for a hike?" In Unalaska, it's all just a badly concealed come-on.

Summer's Bay- 12/2010

So, if you want to see the wild horses of Summer's Bay, you gotta go by yourself. Unless someone really does just want to see the horses and they ask you first. Either way, go. The drive up Summer's Bay road from the city of Unalaska immediately pitches you into the rugged beauty of the island, and austere collision of velvet, mountain tundra and the dynamic coastlines of the Aleutian peninsula, teeming with marine life.

Looking south toward Dutch Harbor from Summer's Bay 11/2010

The lure of the horses may get you in the car, but, as the saying goes, the journey is the destination. Any free time I had while working on Deadliest Catch was spent exploring the fecund coastline or plodding in my Xtra-Tuff boots over the soft tundra moonscape panning out from the road.

Summer's Bay- lava rocks and steady swell. 12/2010

How the "wild" herd got there is a source of constant debate, and since- as I said- talking about them also seems to qualify as trying to hit on someone, you're not likely to get a straight answer from anyone who really knows, since they're too busy running away from you. But they seem to have arrived within the last 20 years, and they aren't really "wild", just feral. Feral, that is, but desperate for Cliff Bars, granola, apples and anything else you have in your pockets. That being said, approach at your own risk. I took my friend (and boss) Bill Pruitt out there a few weeks ago and his friendly approach to one tempermental mare earned him a swift kick and a Charley horse.

Pretty, but packs a punch. 11/2010

11/2010

1/2011

1/2011

1/2011

12/2010

But in a land where boats set out to fish in frigid, 30 foot seas, remote populations go weeks without oil deliveries and pilots land planes in winds that's whiten even the most weathered welders knuckles, getting kicked by an agitated mare is getting off easy. And, who knows, you might never see them at all, after all, they're wild. Sort of.

1/2011

My last sighting 1/2011

Feb 20, 2011

Chasing Igor

It’s 4:30 am, Sunday morning. September 19, and my surfing sensei, John-O, is singing loudly. I’m still shaking off a very good dream or visions of last night's lobster, courtesy of Arthur and Heidi - John-O's step-father and mother, respectively- and the singing is getting on my nerves. Alas, in one hour the sun will be up and swells from Hurricane Igor will be slamming the coast of New England. Waves make sensei very happy and when sensei happy, sensei sings.

We lash the boards to the roof of the rental car- a flagrant violation of the rental contract- and pull out of his family’s driveway at 5:10, headlights ablaze through winding back-roads under a canopy of huge maples, elms and oaks, flanked by ancient stone walls, bound for heavy water.

“Carrot?”, John-O sings, “apple?”. A mad look in his eyes lets me know he’s already surfing something somewhere as cedar shake homes rip past in the dark.

I wave off the fruit and veggies. Visions of Dunkin’ Donuts’ coffee and glazed crullers drift through my mind. It’s too damn early for carrots. The day before, we had taken a leisurely, midday jaunt in his stepfather Arthur’s gorgeous 28 foot Fortier boat, the “Lagniappe” (which aptly means, “something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure”).

"Sensei" John-O loads the Lagniappe.

We trolled the local islands and cobble channels for striped bass and bluefish, all the while keeping our eyes peeled for distant breakers where, under normal conditions, none would appear, seeking indicators of Igor’s arrival. An hour into our fishing trip, we pulled up outside a narrow channel breaking left and right heavy enough to give local boatmen pause to reconsider. John-O's eyes rolled back in his head. Arthur gamely hung outside, eating his sandwich and downing a beer while John-O made easy work of the solid left ripping through the channel on his quad fish. I managed to drop into a few myself before getting dragged into the impact zone and spanked. I then managed to burn off all remaining pride clawing my way back to Arthur and the good fortune of Lagniappe.

Off an island not near you, John-O spots breakers in the channel...

...and makes for the water.

But today was a different deal. We hit the first break by 6 a.m., the parking lot alive with the sound of boards being waxed and wetsuits being zipped. Along the bluff the silhouettes of surfers in hoodies stare out at the incoming swell as the line-up is calculated, the paddle out assessed. Igor is pounding the bluff with 6-10 foot sets wrapping around the point from the south. It’s a very impressive sight anywhere, but here in New England, it’s a downright revelation.

Solid sets- 6-10 feet- wrap around the local lighthouse. 6 am.

Local bears, stirred from slumbers, prep for the paddle out.

We’re back in the car, in search of more and less at the same time- more breaks, less people. This pattern continues over the next few days, as Igor jacks up, registering at some breaks like small houses12- 15 feet high, or weighing in lean and mean at others, 6-8 feet and breaking fast. At these more intimidating spots, I feel my manhood retreat, leave my board on the car, pull out my camera and stare like the rest of the civilians. Standing on the lawns of families not yet stirring or in front of working class Irish pubs still sleeping off the night before, I bust out my Nikon D700 with a very old 200mm zoom and even older 2x converter and take a whack at documenting this southeast swell and these unheralded breaks (that shall remain, for want of staying alive, nameless).

Too big and too fast, but otherwise perfect. 8-10 foot sets, steady offshore winds, lefts and rights for days.

Unknown local at an undisclosed break makes the drop into a very fast 10' barrel.

John Wingate- Dropping in.

Geo Quiz: The ferry is going where?

7 am. A local surveys the lineup.

Casual under pressure, a local tucks in.

Up...

..but not over.

The working class before clocking in.

8 am. Sunday. The Dawn Patrol Checks Out.

In a crowded parking lot, seasoned local shows up California style...

...Inside and out. On Monday, that same local was spotted ripping into several overhead lefts and rights.

A fast right past the rocks, somewhere below the mansions of Newport.

Monday, September 20th, our last day. Tomorrow, we'll be back in Southern California, to a very flat sea. After a surfing and shooting a stellar dawn session 40 minutes to the south, we stand on the bluffs of this remote Rhode Island rivermouth, and watch it all go off, big, chunky and steady. 12-15 foots sets pound the rocky shore all day long while the winds blow strong offshore, holding all but the strongest paddlers off the wave. The two riders below had the joint wired, and dropped into most of the heaviest bombs.

Goodbye New England, local style:

Reinvention In Water

Been plundering archives from 2007 and 2008 today, and realized my wife would be an incredible muse, if only she'd stop trying to grab the camera from me. Such is life when you marry a writer/director. Still, these images, shot at a very talented friend's pool reminded me of the transformational effect water has on both human form and behavior. Cool, I think, how we re-imagine ourselves when we're both swaddled and weightless in water. And though the terrain has been explored with staggering success by folks like Mark Mawson, I'm thinking today that I just might have to revisit this project, just to say I was there...

Ascension- 2007


Descension - 2007

Maine, Pt. One: Full Moon Over Penobscott Bay

The Big House- Maine, August 2010

I just returned from vacation with my wife and in-laws on an island off the coast of Maine. As a surfer, I'm loathe to talk about great places that few people know about, so I'll skip names here. The coast of Maine is a labyrinth of inlets and islands and the island in question was bought by a family back in the 1800's and became the summer home and wellspring of not one but two, now famous, 20th Century artists.

To this day, the place is essentially unchanged; water is pumped into the house via a well 30 yards away, no heat except for the fireplace in the great room, electricity is scarce thanks to a single solar panel and fickle Maine weather, and hot water is generated in the same manner as all cooking: on an old wood stove in the changeless kitchen. Bedrooms are located at either end of the "Big House" and the center of the building is a vast, open great room, it's ceiling adorned with dragons, painted by the talented father of the talented artists some 100 years ago. A “momma” dragon stares down from one wall, three baby dragons upon her back, and the papa dragon keeps an eye out on the opposite wall. Off the front and back of the house are two long porches. The back porch is more of a work porch and the painters and sculptors in our group congregate there to work after coffee and wood-oven baked breads. Everyone in this group can cook, it turns out.

How I ended up there is a matter of pure luck. I have the good fortune of being married to the lovely and talented Sian Heder, whose godfather, the wonderful painter Joel Janowitz was invited to stay on the island some 15 years ago, and he now extends his fine fortune to his coterie of old friends and artists, including my intimidatingly talented parents-in-law and sister-in-law.

During the day, the collective divides its time between creating art, making meals and exploring the coast and inland trails around the island. Great meals are improvised, tiny coves plundered by kayaks, moss covered paths are ascended to granite summits, and bodies steel themselves for freezing dips in icy waters.

Evening meals, largely planned but always collaborative, take place at the huge fir table on the front porch overlooking Penobscott Bay. Usually raucous affairs conducted by 12 or more highly opinionated people, interrupted by the soulful calls of loons and the last of the evening light firing up over the water, dinner takes the day into night. Dish teams boil water and tackle the ancient china, fires bloom in the great room, books crack open, teams are divided up for games of "Celebrity" and people launch themselves into vibrant displays of jack-assery all in pursuit of victory.

At night, the world come largely to a standstill. The loons keep up for a while but then go quiet, buoys clang, and the small family of island deer crunch and snort in the dark before settling down in the tall grass. On our last night, after everyone went to bed, I wrestled with my own inability to shoot all week by taking a stroll with my Nikon under the nearly full-moon. I circled the house, stalked it, and sat on the huge screened-in porch, squinting in the dark. As my eyes adjusted, the pale blue light of the moonlight revealed itself, intersecting with the amber light of the lamps on the dining room table. These images- shot at ISO 800, F.11 in 3-minute exposures, were what I came away with.

Lamplight and Full Moon. August, 2010

Moonlight on Penobscott Bay. August, 2010

Hammock. August, 2010

Screen-door and Moonlight. August, 2010

Family Meals. August, 2010

"Gone"- A Teaser

"Gone" is a work in progress about the fastest eroding land mass in the world: Southern Louisiana. A place of profound cultural importance, an estuary that feeds millions and yet also the victim of it's own rampant development, local and federal politics and the siren song of Big Oil. While the BP spill dominated the public eye, the ongoing story of a vital, delicate part of the world remains untold....

David Newsom Photography Featured in "Through The Lens"

Very honored to be featured this week in Kate Pollard's excellent blog "Through-The-Lens"...
...including writings and images chronicling the strange, harrowing journey of my dad's mysterious descent into illness, exhaustion, and the past; all there in the confines of his condo down in Florida, where the jungle outside still has teeth.