2015 East Coast Surfing Championships

The 2015 Coastal Edge ECSC completed on Sunday with the crowning of the pro champions.

A huge congratulations to Kanoa Igarashi for taking the VANS Pro championship. Kano jumped out to an early lead with a 7.67 point ride. After Noah Schweizer, who placed second, closed the gap with 7.23; Kanoa  threw down a 7.77 for a winning 2 wave total of 15.44. Noah made a late charge but came up short at 13.43, followed by Beyrisk De Vries and Oney Anwar.

 Kona Igarashi, USA, 2015 ECSC VANS Pro Champion

In the Vans Jr Pro championship, congratulations goes to Seth Moniz, who held off Griffin Colapinto, Gabriel Farias, and Stevie Pittman for the win. It is really cool to witness the future of competitive surfing putting on a show in your own backyard.

Seth Moniz, Hawaii, 2015 VANS Jr Pro Champion

I had the pleasure of photographing the 2nd oldest running surf contest in the world again this year. It is a contest that I have been attending since I was a little grommet. More post will come showing some of my favorite shots from the week.

Balloons in the Mist

Since I arrived in Charlottesville, one of the photographs that was high on my list was of hot air balloons. They are fairly common yet elusive in this area. On 4 occasions I have spotted them floating lazily on the horizon but either the time of day was wrong or the location did not work. About a week ago I wasn't pleasantly surprised when Conner came flying downstairs yelling my name and pointing to the sliding glass door. I was surprised to see a half dozen balloons drifting over our backyard. There was a thick fog covering the pasture. My vision of balloon photos was that of big colorful designs pressed against a beautiful backdrop. The circumstances of the event led me down a more muted path to a photo that I really love. I have a couple of other images with multiple balloons but I preferred the added dynamic of the hawks flying in from the left and a touch of lens flare on this one.

Backyard Balloons

ISO 100 - 78mm - f/22 - 1/1600 sec

ECSC 2014 - What an Event

Between media deadlines, photo processing, social media, and shooting; I missed updating the blog. ECSC this year got off to a lackluster start. There was great surfing in what amounted to minuscule surf. On Friday morning, it looked like you could practically skate across the ocean.

ECSC 2014 - Longboard

A change occurred on Saturday, though, with a wind-driven swell bringing surf in the morning that picked up throughout the day. The Vans Pro and Vans Pro Jr heats were on with excellent surfing by all. It was only a precursor for Sunday which greeted contestants with a heavy wind-swell breaking outside of the jetty. All of the big names began lighting it up - Patrick Gudauskas, Luke Davis, Tristan Guilbald, Nathaniel Curran, and Tanner Gudauskas.

ECSC 2014 Vans Pro - Patrick Gudauskas

ECSC 2014 Vans Pro - Raphael Seixas

At the end of the weekend, the unimaginable happened. Michael Dunphy dropped into a bomb of a wave, fired off the bottom, and snapped a cutback that sent water pluming thirty feet in the air. He disappeared from view for a moment behind another swell only to violently hit the lip with another powerful snap. The crowd went crazy sensing something special.

ECSC 2014 Vans Pro - Michael Dunphy

As the time wound down, Dunphy's 2-score total held, making him the first VB-local to win the East Coast Surfing Championships since Wes Laine did it 33-years ago. What an awesome way to finish the weekend.

ECSC 2104 Vans Pro Champion Michael Dunphy

As I write this, Michael just won the WRV Outer Banks Pro to make this an August that he will not soon forget. Congratulations Michael!

ECSC 2014 - Thursday, August 24

It was a beautiful if you are a seascape photographer; however if you are a surfer, you probably have another description for it. Storm clouds to the north and rainbow over Rudee Inlet greeted us as we trickled into the parking lot. Both dissipated later in the day as the contestants struggled through small, sporadic wind chop.

The Men's Vans Pro round of 96 and the Women's Hi-Fi Pro were completed despite the lack of surf. An occasional gem would connect from the outside in. Tough day to be a competitor.

Cody Thompson, Vans Pro

Tomorrow is supposed to be even flatter so I'll be surprised if the Van's Jr Pro goes off. Luckily, Surfline is calling for some waves this weekend. Pray for surf.

ECSC 2014 Wednesday, Aug 20

Today we were greeted with a beautiful sunrise and some small but contestable surf. I'm always amazed at what these kids can do with minimal conditions. Asher Nolan won the Tautog's Pro receiving a spot in the Van's Pro and a check for $2k.

Asher Nolan - Taugtog's Pro Winner

Both the Junior Van's Pro and the Van's Pro first round heats were completed. The heat sheets and results will be posted at the United States Surfing Federation site. My favorite shot from yesterday was Gabriel Farias airing out over some gulls.  Incredible.

Gabriel Farias - Round 1 Heat 8 Van's Pro

More action from yesterday can be seen on ECSC360. Remember to follow me on Twitter @TravisOwney or on Facebook for updates.

ECSC - Preparation and Gear List

Finally the day is here. Shooting with ECSC360 is the most anticipated week of the year of me. It is one of long days starting at 4:30 a.m. and often not ending until sometime after midnight. It is filled with the tension of having to get the shot and having it ready for publication by the media deadline. While the public is enjoying the largest beach party of the year, our focus is on the details like f-stops, compositions, and shutter speeds. Our eyes are constantly scanning for the next captivating image. The crowds cheer as a surfer blasts a 360 air while we pray that we didn't miss it - that we nailed the focus and captured the moment. Did the spray obscure the expression? Was the composition clean or was there something missed? Will it translate to a still?

2013 East Coast Surfing Championships

I spent last evening cleaning my cameras and lenses until each was like new. Shooting on the beach we have to constantly fight sand and salt spray, so the cleaning will be a repetitive theme throughout the week. Today while waiting on the delivery of a Nikon 200-400mm f/4, I am packing my gear. I will take with me:

• Nikon D800
• Nikon D300s
• Nikon 200-400mm f/4
• Nikon 70 - 200mm f/2.8
• Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
• Tokina 16-28mm f2.8
• (2) Induro tripods
• (2) Induro BH ball heads
• (1) Wimberly head
• ThinkTank Hydrophobia 70-200mm rain cover
• Op-Tek backup rain covers
• Hoodman Loop
• Lee filter system with holders and hoods
• Lee ND soft graduated filters
• Tiffen polarizer
• Lee 10-stop ND filters
• Tiffen .3, .6, and .9 ND filters
• Cable release
• Camranger remote release
• Batteries and chargers
• Compact flash and SD cards
• Nikon 900 strobe
• Strobe gels
• Rocket blower
• Microfiber cloths
• Residual oil remover lens cleaner
• LensPen
• ThinkTank Streetwalker camera backpack
• LowePro AW200 camera backpack
• Non-abrasive PecPads
• Sensor Scope
• 15" Apple MacBook Pro
• (2) Seagate portable 1TB backup drives
• Apple iPad
• Apple iPhone 5s
• Pocket battery charger with USB connect
• Intuous 4 tablet and stylus
• Spyder 4 Colorimeter
• Memory card readers
• Gaffer tape
• Headlamp
• Heat sheets

2013 East Coast Surfing Championships

Virtually everything listed above will be used over the next 5-days. So now just pray for surf. It killed me watching the opening round of the Billabong Pro in Tahiti yesterday with 12' faces. We may not have triple-overhead surf for this year's event; however, we will have a great event to cover.

2014 - ECSC: BMX Broke Out at a Surfing Contest

One of the bigger events that has become established at the East Coast Surfing Championships is the BMX exhibition. Several top-level pros and X-Games finalist arrive each year to put on a show on a massive ramp course set up on the beach. Watching these riders on television doesn't really give you a sense of just how high that they are flying. For the first photo below, I was on the top floor of a 3-story media tower and I was shooting up! Insane!

Vans BMX Exhibition 

Vans BMX Exhibition 

Nice and short. I'm a bit distracted today trying to recover from a late night at a concert in Harrisonburg, getting ready to start the unenviable tasks of cleaning my camera sensors (dust bunnies galore), and 2nd Chicago Bears pre-season game tonight (I know, it doesn't count but still...). Oh yea, working the day job too. Back to the grind.

2014 ECSC - Old is New Again

7-days until I'll be heading back home to shoot the East Coast Surfing Championships with the ECSC360 crew. I love photographing surfing. It encompasses everything that I enjoy seeing through the lens of a camera - seascapes, action, beauty, people, and emotion. My first foray into surf photography was back in the 80's when Tony Bailey asked me to come down and shoot with him during an ECSC event. Sometimes I wish I had taken a queue from Aaron Chang and followed a dream of traveling to the world's most incredible surf breaks and photographing the sport's most talented athletes. Fear of the unknown left me lost in the safety net of a boring but steady office job only to occasionally ponder what might have been.

2014 East Coast Surfing Championships

Of course things were much more difficult then. The advent of continuos auto-focus (AI servo mode) and digital cameras revolutionized photography in all sports, especially surfing. Shooting wide-open left little margin for error when focusing on a fast moving surfer carving the face of a pitching wave. Manually focusing a long telephoto on an erratically moving high-speed object was not an easy task. We learned to practice predictive focusing based on both photography and personal surfing experience. The shape of a wave and speed of a wave coupled with the knowledge of the surfer's style enabled us to predict where the next big move would occur and react accordingly. I can only imagine how many hours of shooting that the likes of Don King, Chris Klopf, Jeff Divine, and Warren Bolster put in to develop the vision and split second reactions to capture the amazing images that they did.

2014 East Coast Surfing Championships

Unless you had a bulk film back, you were limited to 36-exposure max per roll. Nowadays it is not surprising to hear that a photographer fired off 36-frames on a single wave. During the first ECSC that I shot in the digital age, I logged close to 2500 photos in a single day. That would equate to 70 rolls of film. A roll of Kodak Elite Color costs approximate $3.00 and processing was another $8.00. 70 rolls would cost $770. Over 5-days, the cost would reach close to $4000. During my youth, I couldn't afford enough film to make it through a week-long contest.

2014 East Coast Surfing Championships

There is still a cost today although it is measured more in time and space as opposed to raw materials. As image files get bigger, the corresponding length of time to download and edit them increases. Likewise, multiple copies of the images must be stored on primary and secondary hard drives and offline storage sites. Add to that the catalog management software to be able to organize and retrieve the images plus the editing software to "develop" the images. From an equipment standpoint, cameras can only handle so many shutter actuations before needing replacement. On average most shutters last 100,000 actuations. It sounds like a lot until you realize that it is easy to shoot 10,000 photos in a week! You quickly realize it is not cheap by any means.

2014 East Coast Surfing Championships

This has led me to taking an old approach to shooting with modern gear. I have returned to the roots of the 36-exposure roll and predictive shooting. Instead of simply firing continually with every drop in, limit exposures to the critical point of action. Over the course of a contest or contests, you learn the styles of the individual surfers. You can determine which moves they are likely to perform based on their style and the wave type. Over the course of a normal day now, I will shoot a couple hundred images. I only need a handful for the news outlets and a few additional for my own portfolio. The key is that each time I depress the shutter button, it is at a decisive moment that will make for an intriguing story-telling image. Channeling the greats from my youth has drastically improved my current approach - better quality, faster delivery, and more efficient expense management.

Follow me on Twitter @TravisOwney or on Facebook.

Super Moon Eve

As I said in my last post, I missed the super moon for the second time this year. It was a tough choice with the heavy clouds moving in throughout the day. Do I stay on low ground and hope that the clouds break at moonrise or do I head up into the mountains to see if I can find any iota of a sunset? I decided to roll the dice on the latter which worked out well for the Sunday Sunset Challenge.

Even though I chose the sunset, I still positioned myself so that I could be in place to shoot the moonrise at an overlook that was only a half-mile away. The moonrise would start 15-minutes earlier than the sunset; however with the way that the clouds were setting up, the sunset would be over earlier and the mountains would delay the start of the moonrise for me. The first part played out according to plan. The moonrise, though, was completely blocked by cloud cover from the mountains. I was able to see it peak out of the clouds on the drive home once I was in the valley but without enough time to find a location and setup for a shot.

Super Moon Composite from my Backyard

This image is from the evening before the super moon. Comprised of three photos, it is a heavily edited rendition of what I kind of saw that night. It is definitely not the greatest moon image ever but it was fun to craft.

August Sunset Challenge

My friend Kevin Keyser over at Keyser Images has been posting challenges periodically on Facebook with last night's being the August Sunday #PostYourSunset challenge. It provides some motivation to get out and shoot as well as inspiration from some of the great images being posted. Last night the focus for most was the #supermoon.

This is the second super moon this year and I was looking forward to photographing this rare event; however for the second time, cloud cover hid the moon from my lens. All day long the sky was heavily covered in clouds. I drove up to Skyline without great expectations that I would see either the moon or a decent sunset. Much to my surprise, the sky opened up to the west about a hour before sunset. More clouds were building along the horizon but for a brief moment, there was potential. I opted for the Rockytop overlook as it had the cleanest westerly view. The clouds moving in from the  west dampened what could have been a spectacular scene. I can't complain as I did get a couple of good images out of it including the one posted below.

Rockytop - Shenandoah Valley, VA

Although I missed last night's super moon, I did take a few of the night before warmup. I haven't checked them yet. If there is something worth viewing, I'll add it to another post.

ECSC - More Than Surfing

If you think the East Coast Surfing Championships is just surfing, think again. There is so much more.  In 2013 3-time Olympic gold medal winner and one of the greatest volleyball players of all-time Misty May-Treanor hosted the Dream in Gold Juniors clinic on the beach for the volleyball stars of the future.

Misty May-Treanor - 2013 ECSC - 3-Time Olympic Gold Medalist

Dream in Gold Juniors Clinic

2014 East Coast Surfing Championships Preview

I'm excited to say that this will be my third year teaming up with ECSC360 to photograph the East Coast Surfing Championships in Virginia Beach since Lee Rosenberg of East Beach Photography drafted me over lunch one afternoon. ECSC360 has done an incredible job providing media coverage for all of the activities that occur during the championships while promoting the individuals that make up the media team.

I'll be arriving in town Tuesday night, August 19 and will be on the beach Wednesday morning for the start of the main event. If you are coming down to join the festivities please stop by to say hi. You should be able to find me somewhere along the water's edge wearing a ECSC360 t-shirt and draped in camera gear. Here is a sampling from the 2013 contest:

I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing you there. Follow me on Twitter @TravisOwney for updates throughout the competition and view photos on either Facebook (follow Travis Owney) or on Travis Owney Photography. Oh...if you are coming to the oceanfront or not, please pray for waves!

Chasing Light

It seems lately that I have mainly been shooting or assisting with portrait sessions. While I love my clients and photographing people, it is nice to take a break every now and then to create fine art landscapes. There is something about being alone in a dark, deserted location with only a camera, tripod, and your thoughts that is somewhat cathartic to the crazy hustle and bustle of everyday life. With the Stockley Gardens Fall Art Festival coming up in a few weeks, I took a weekend off and headed to the Outer Banks to find a few more images for the show.

I left late Friday afternoon with no real destination, no hotel reservations, or concrete plans. I just started driving while keeping an eye out for great light. It is not often that you get the opportunity to just let the light dictate where you will land. Client shoots are generally timeboxed and though you try to schedule when the best light is available, you usually find yourself having to attempt to mold whatever conditions are present to get a good image. It is anything but natural - reflectors, strobes, assistants, dreadfully boring skies, gale force winds, etc. leading to more mechanical photography. It is a fun challenge to overcome but it is work. The benefit is that when executed correctly, the images are incredibly satisfying; however, the effort involved is sometimes draining.

Being able to hit the unknown road and leaving it up to it mother nature to drive the scene is refreshing. You just let your mind explore whatever is presented to you. Sure there are technical details that you need to consider when you actually setup the photo but for the most part you are the passenger on a delightful journey. When I arrived in Nags Head, the sun was still fairly high over the horizon. I kept driving, passing the hotel where I usually stay when in the OBX. I found myself wondering past Oregon Inlet and over the Bonner Bridge. My initial intentions where actually to go north up to Duck; however, the light kept pulling me further south. Just north of Salvo I stopped at the refuge visitor's center drawn by a thin strip of clouds stretching across the sound. The light changed dramatically, bathing the marsh in a brilliant golden glow. It only lasted for a few minutes before fading to darkness but a few clicks of the shutter captured its brilliance forever. It would have been entirely missed had I forced a location.

Because I was already halfway to Buxton, I figured I would continue heading south. This is the nice thing about being free to travel randomly. Would there be a room available when I got there? I didn't know nor did I really care. If there wasn't I'd either head back north or sleep a few hours in my truck. Luckily the Island Inn had rooms and as a bonus, they were running a special discount for drop-ins. While walking back to my room after grabbing a quick bite at Diamond Shoals Restaurant (one of my favorites!!!), I noticed the glowing light of the 3/4 moon radiating through the clouds. I looked at the direction and immediately thought of the lighthouse. It is funny that the Cape Hatteras Light has always been one of my most desired subjects yet every time I have been in the area, the conditions never materialized for a really good photo of it; either the light was wrong or the sky lacked the drama needed for something different than every other shot taken of it. Back when it was located closer to shoreline, the ocean provided a great backdrop but in its current location, it is difficult to capture esthetically. Standing in that parking lot, it hit me that I had an opportunity for which I have been waiting for years.

I raced back to the hotel room, grabbed my camera bag and a flashlight. Passing several deer on the entrance road to the light, I pulled into a very dark, very deserted parking lot. The only light was that from the moon itself and the only sound was that of the waves crashing on the other side of dunes. The moon's trajectory was perfect. As it descended toward the horizon, it was moving on a path that would intersect the lighthouse at its midpoint. Most people do not realize how fast the moon, or any of the celestial bodies, move or, technically, how fast the Earth spins. There is not a lot of time to setup and get the capture right before the image is gone. This is especially challenging in the dark. I set the camera up for a portrait composition. The exposure and focus were set for the moon, the brightest part of the scene. A second longer exposure was taken as well. Later in Photoshop I merged the two to bring out some detail in the lighthouse without blowing out the moon. That all belongs to the technical side. The real message is that I ended up here by simply following the light that was available, a glow from the heavens as seen from a nondescript parking lot. The result was an image of the famed Hatteras Light that I have never seen anywhere else.

Another oddity about adventures like this is that the normal concept of sleep and time seem to naturally shift. Although I tend not to sleep a lot, I am horrible when I am at home at getting up early enough to make the drive down to the oceanfront for a good sunrise shoot. On the road, though, is a different story. I returned to my hotel room around midnight and was easily back up at 4:00 a.m.  With the moon long having set, the beach was beyond dark. Having scouted the location before, I knew the basic area where I wanted to shoot. Care has to taken when setting up because it is hard to judge how far water will push in on a large breaking wave. I set up my outfit on the edge of the highest watermark I could determine but always kept one hand ready to grab the tripod in the event that I heard a loud rush of water pouring toward me.

What seems like total darkness is never total darkness. There is always light even when undetectable to the eye. This is my favorite time to shoot. There are a lot of technical fundamentals combined with an equal amount of guesswork. Because exposures can range from 10 - 30 minutes or even longer, you only get so many tries before you have to plan a return trip. The good thing is that using modern technology like the Photographer's Ephemeris application, you know where the sun will be rising. This is also the spot where there will be the most light leakage on the horizon. By making a long exposure, your camera sensor collects the available light and some amazing colors that you will never see by eye. What is black to you renders in burst of yellows, greens, and magentas when recorded. The water turns ethereal as waves repeatedly wash over the beach. It is an incredible experience to stand in darkness and look down at an LCD image that looks unworldly. Again, it is all about the light and its location, intensity, and quality. I could have tried something similar elsewhere on the island and came up with nothing worth viewing.

I hung around a little while to get the classic sunrise shot before packing up to drive north to shoot some photos of the Eastern Surfing Association Championships finals. The wonderful thing about trips like this is that you seldom really know what you got until you get home and see them on your monitor.  So take weekend and set off on your own unplanned adventure just following the light and see what you end up capturing. I think that you will find that you end up with something amazing. Happy adventures...

Independence Day in Small Town USA

I absolutely love small towns.  Maybe it is the slight introvert in me but I generally feel lost in big cities. Large expanses of buildings and concrete were never quite my game. It is one reason that I loved growing up in Virginia Beach so much. While it is becoming an increasingly large city, it will always have that small town feel that beach communities seem to maintain. It is also the reason that I like to get away to truly small towns. When I lived in NC, I used to pick a direction on the map every Friday afternoon and drive until I found a place of interest. I usually ended up in a spot not often travelled to by others en route to more bustling vacation spots. The people I encountered were almost always generous in their hospitality and I had the opportunity to see and do things most don't get the chance to experience. It was amazing to arrive back in the office on Monday with stories of kayaking around Core Banks, hiking to the base of a little known waterfall in Nantahala, or seeing the world's largest frying pan. My friends and coworkers had no idea that such treasures were within driving distance of their home.

For the 4th of July this year, I decided at the last minute to bypass the elaborate fireworks display on the Norfolk waterfront and opted instead to go to Edenton, NC; a small tight-knit community on the Chowan River. Life is definitely different there. In place of big overstated celebratory events, there was a single gathering in town park with a local fair type feel to it.  Ice cream, BBQ, and funnel cakes filled the air with wonderful smells. The kids took turns riding in a little replica train that circled the park while the parents spent time escaping the 98 degree heat under large tents as they listened to old school music and caught up with neighbors. It was an interesting dichotomy to Virginia Beach where every restaurant and bar views the 4th as a profit opportunity. In Edenton all of the restaurants closed for dinner on Independence Day to give their employees a chance to enjoy the holiday and to avoid the craziness that such events inspire. Life is a little slower but definitely not less enjoyed than in their larger population cousins.

Manual, BULB, Mirror Lockup, 4 sec, f/11, 34mm, ISO 200

One thing about a small town is that there is no sneaking into it. I wasn't in town for 30-minutes before I heard my name being called by a friend that I had just recently caught with at our 25th high school reunion. Not that I was trying to be covert; I just didn't want her and her husband to feel obligated to house me for the night. I knew they had plans to head out of town in the afternoon to a baseball game. It is funny because I can spend days going all over Virginia Beach and not run into someone I know and in this little section of NC Americana, I'm caught immediately. Katy gave me a nice improptu tour of the town and it's history. You just don't see that very often in larger cities where getting around is difficult and people are too busy to share a few minutes of their time with an old friend. It was refreshing and much appreciated.

Manual, BULB, Mirror Lockup, 1.6 sec, f/14, ISO 200

Although Katy provided me the access codes to a private plantation to view the fireworks, I found that a better vantage point was had with water in the foreground. This was of course the same location from which the entire town was going to view the show. So even though the heat was unbearable, I staked out my spot on the water's edge at 7:00 and proceeded to bake for 2-hours waiting for the show to start, giving me plenty of time to make small talk with locals. They were graciousness enough to give me room to shoot with tripod and all. I'm not sure that I would have received the same consideration on the Portsmouth seawall.

Manual, BULB, Mirror Lockup, 2.6 sec, f/14, ISO 200

The fireworks show in size is nothing to compare to those like NY, DC, or even Norfolk. Most were single or double burst and it was over in what seemed like 15-minutes although I didn't check the time. What it lacked in size, though, was made up in the quaintness of the moment. This is how the 4th is to be celebrated. There were no sponsored by x-corporation signs, celebrity guest speakers, or a full orchestra for the backdrop. It was simplicity of Edenton celebrating our freedom the way it should.

Manual, BULB, Mirror Lockup, 9.6 sec, f/14, ISO 200

There is no mystery to photographing fireworks. A DSLR helps but many of today's point and shoots have enough features to allow you to get great images. Equipment-wise, you just need a camera that allows you to take long exposures and a stable platform (tripod) to mount it on. To avoid camera shake, I used a cable release and Mirror Lockup; a feature that allows you to open the mirror prior to releasing the shutter thus minimizing vibrations from the mirror slap. I set the shutter speed to BULB which means that the shutter will remain open until I depressed trigger again to close it. This allows you vary the shutter speed without having to fiddle with the camera settings. f/11 to f/14 enabled longer exposures while maintaining a large depth of field. I generally open the shutter when I hear the shell launch and then close it when I think I have the image captured. It takes a little practice but not at all difficult or too technical.

Manual, Aperture Priority, Mirror Lockup, 8 sec, f/11, -1 EV, 36mm, ISO 200

The one disappointment I had was that the full moon did not rise until after the fireworks show had ended. I was hoping to get the moon in the frame behind the streaming blast of colored light but it wasn't meant to be. With that in mind, I couldn't let the opportunity go to waste. When I got back to the hotel room I set the alarm clock for 3:30 a.m. to be in place by 4:00 to capture the moon over the waterfront. Something about being out there alone, capturing a beautiful scenic of the moonlit waterfront is magical. I'm looking forward to my next small town adventure.

2012 Virginia Beach Steel Pier Classic Surf Art Show

Over Memorial Day weekend, I had the privilege of exhibiting at the Steel Pier Classic Surf Art Show. Jill Beninato from www.sitstaysmile.com and her husband Chris lent me their LightDome tent, helped me set it up, and even came down on the first day to give me a hand and provide some pointers. As always, my family gave their full support helping with the loading and unloading. I had an absolute blast, seeing friends that I haven't talked to in years (in some cases  decades!), making new friends, selling several prints, and getting a feel for how to manage a show.

We were lucky that Mother Nature blessed us with some beautiful weather, sunny and 85 for all 3 days. I did manage a slight burn on day one but that is what happens when you forget to sunscreen your face at a beach event. Good thing it wore off by day two.

Sales were good; however, they did not compare to the incredible feeling of watching people stop in their tracks and simply utter the single syllable "WOW!" I must have heard it a hundred times. Those Bay Photo Metal prints are stunning. The greatest compliment that I received was from a couple that had just moved down from Buffalo, NY. For the last 20-years they have attended 30 - 40 art shows a year. The husband told me that he thought that he had seen it all until he stopped in my booth and was speechless at the beauty of my work. That alone made all of the hard work and preparation worth while.

Special thanks to Jodie Woodward and her crew for pulling it all together. It was fun show and I'm looking forward to returning next year.

Thanks EBSC!

I owe East Beach Sandwich Company a huge thank you for not only displaying and selling my work for the last several of months but also for hosting a wonderful "Meet the Artist" party. Live music was provided by Paper Mountain (absolutely awesome!) and beer samplings from Beach Brewing Company. It was a wonderful experience working with such a great group of people. If you are in the area, or even want to make a side trip, I highly recommend that you stop by their shop for some of the best food in town! They are located on 4700 Pretty Lake Ave in the newly revitalized East Beach section of Norfolk.  I look forward to working with them again in the future.

EBSC Meet the Artist Party Announced

On April 29 from 4:00 - 8:00 p.m., Jim and Sharon at East Beach Sandwich Company will be hosting a "Meet the Artist" party to wrap up my exhibit. There will be food and beer discounts in addition to Beach Brewery being on hand to provide samples of some of their latest creations. Come on out to partake in the festivities or just stop by to say hi. I guarantee that you will love their food. Chef Jeff is awesome in the culinary department! There will be a give-away or two and simply a fun afternoon. They are located at 4500 Pretty Lake Ave in the...you guessed it... East Beach section of Norfolk. I look forward to seeing you there!

East Beach Sandwich Company Exhibit

Wow, there has been a lot happening in 2012 and I just realized how bad I've been update updates. Time to play catch up! One of the bigger events for Travis Owney Photography this year has been an exhibit at East Beach Sandwich Company (EBSC), a great little eatery owned by Jim and Sharon Smith. The restaurant has received rave reviews in part to the laid back fun decor and the excellent food prepared by chef Jeff Woodhouse.

Chincoteaque Sunrise

In keeping with the their community roots, Jim and Sharon decided early on to support local artist by displaying and selling their work. Every 3 months, they host a single artist. At the end of the exhibit, they have a "Meet the Artist" party in which the run discounts on food and beverages as well as invite other local suppliers to be on hand for samples. Imagine my surprise when Sharon contacted me out of the blue in December to ask if I was interested in being featured. Interested!?! Heck yea!!!

Jeanette's Pier

Actually this could not have come at a better time. Anyone who takes their craft seriously and devotes themselves to it thoroughly understands that there are periods when you begin to question yourself and your work. It just so happened that this was one of those times. I had been in a rut for a brief time which was leading to me being more and more critical of my fine art images. It happens... photos that received great applause start looking dull, new ideas are slow in forming, and just the want required to get out make more starts to fade. I owe EBSC a huge thank you for not only offering me a venue to display my art but also for reigniting my desire to create more, even greater images and to seek additional shows and venues to display them. Stay tuned, there will be more announcements to come... :-)

Dad and I: A Cat's Cradle Lesson

Disclaimer on being late with this post. I wrote it several months ago but just got around to posting. I'm slacking!

Every October when I was a kid, dad and I used to take his 1969 van, affectionately named "Old Blue" on a weekend road trip to Martinsville, Va to go to the car races. After an interesting evening scare when we thought Old Blue had rolled onto the train tracks that ran along the race track - just imagine a light the size of the sun and rumble louder than thunder waking you - we decided to find a more peaceful place to camp.

At that time of year, Cherrystone Park closed their facilities but allowed people to camp there overnight. Dad, I, and couple of his buddies had the park to ourselves. Imagine being in a place where the leaves had just turned to fiery oranges, reds, and yellows; chill mornings transitioned to comfortable days, and wildlife of all kinds roamed freely around the site. This was the same time that I discovered photography and couldn't have found a better place to practice. In my mind, I was Ansel Adams and dreamed of capturing majestic images worthy of National Geographic covers.

Funny how time changes things. It is barely perceptible. One day you look up and a lot of your world has changed in directions that you never planned. Back in my childhood, "Cats in the Cradle" was hit song. I liked the melody but never really got what it was about. A few years after college, I packed up and left VB to bounce around the Southeast following a project management career that I stumbled into by accident. While in Atlantic Beach, I started a fishing team to compete on the saltwater circuit. Dad would come down to join us for tournaments. Then in 2000, I had to drop from the circuit due to a fallout in the tech sector of the economy that left me broke. My family stood me up until I was able to recover and then I was off again to follow a paycheck before I finally landed back in Tidewater in 2006.

Ron and Dad hanging by Old Blue shortly before we got evicted from this spot!

So what does this have to do with Kentucky? Well a little of nothing and a lot of everything. For the last several years, dad has been rebuilding Old Blue, spending countless hours turning it into a 460 hp beast of a hotrod. For 42-years, Louisville, KY has hosted the National Street Rod Association show with over 10,000 people coming to show off their custom built hotrods. It may sound strange for those that haven't seen them, but these are truly works of art and master craftsmanship. It is phenomenal what people can do with what was one time destined to be scrap. The show is somewhat of a Superbowl for antique restoration and the venue where dad planned to debut his masterpiece.

Rat Rod, f/7.1, ISO 200, 1/30 second, 29mm, Nikon D300

I was waiting in a dentist office a month prior to the show when "Cats in the Cradle" was playing in the background. It was the first time that I really "got it". When he asked me if I was interested in going a couple of months prior, my initial response was that I was too busy. Work was unbearably heavy and I had volunteer and social engagements to attend. There was no way I could take a week off to spend in Kentucky looking at old cars. Sitting there it hit me that I was the son that was too busy for his father that devoted years of his life so that I could have the career that I do today. That we are getting older and that trivial things are taking precedence over those that truly matter. That I didn't want to think that our last great time together was in a park back in an October of my childhood.

The powerhouse of Old Blue

So last August we set out on an adventurous road trip, just the two of us and Old Blue, traveling 800 miles for something much more than a car show. It was everything it should have been. We laughed at dumb jokes, bickered over directions, recounted old stories, and simply had a great trip. I got to shoot a couple thousands photos of beautiful machines and dad got show off Old Blue to his "customers" as he liked to call them, people that could truly appreciate his work of art, but all of that was secondary.

f/5.6, ISO 400, 1/1250 sec, 16mm, Nikon D300

The truth is I discovered that if you care enough, the "Cats in the Cradle" song can be proved wrong. Don't wait for an opportune time to reconnect. If you do, you will miss it. A lot happens over time but there are some things that stay the same; you just have to try harder to make room for them. Instead just make it happen and you'll have new stories tell of your time together.

f/5.6, ISO 400, 1/1000 sec, 20mm, Nikon D300

A Tale of 2 Hotels

This past weekend, Liz and I took a weekend respite from our hectic work schedules to get away for a couple of days in the VA mountains. Liz had purchased a one night stay at the Homestead, a plush resort in Hot Springs. The small sleepy town is famous for a few things - the multitude of warm mineral rich springs, the home of legendary golfer Sam Snead, and of course, the Homestead itself. To extend the weekend, we decided to drive up on Friday evening and stay over in Lexington, home to VMI and the College of Washington and Lee. The original plan was to explore Lexington on Saturday morning and then head up to the resort that afternoon. It turned out being an experience in social spectrums and as plans go, ours changed on the fly.

The Ugly Truth - William Shatner Isn't Always Right

This will be crushing news to any Star Trek fans, or even those that look back favorably at TJ Hooker, Captain Kirk isn't the best source of travel planning. In order to save a few bucks, we booked our hotel stay in Lexington through Priceline, a website that I have used often in the past to make travel arrangements. This time; however, we decided to try the "name your price" service and leave it to the captain of the enterprise to find us boarding. The result was a night spent in a HoJo that may have possibly been last updated when many young geeks in the making were still excited about a new episode of the original Star Trek airing.

The lobby was furnished with 70's era couched and coffee table. Sadly, it was more modern than the room in which we were about to spend the night. The stench upon opening the door was the first sign that the evening would be mildly uncomfortable. It caused me to check under the beds to see if there was possibly a decomposing corpse left behind by the last occupant. The single light illuminating the room was sickly issuing from a broken shaded ceiling lamp. Thankfully there was nothing scurrying about the room. An 80's era television and dorm room fridge were the extent of luxury items. We had to laugh at the thought that the room was eerily similar to one you would find in a low budget teen slasher film. It really brought it all together when I heard Liz in the bathroom acting as a plumber and fixing the broken toilet.

The one amenity the hotel boasted was the on-site miniature golf course just outside of our sliding glass door. The photo below is of it in all of it's majesty. I don't think Sam Snead built his golf legend start here. The funny thing is that we were in the heart of the most beautiful country in VA and this was the BEST view that we had! I'd be willing to bet that the 18th hole isn't officially sponsored by NASA.

For a change of scenery, we drove into Lexington for dinner. This was a much anticipated moment because I was going to get to enjoy the best bowl of French Onion soup known to have been created in the states. For those that went to school in the western part of VA, or like me had a sister that went to Radford, you probably already have figured out that I'm talking about Macado's. It has been almost 20 years since I last tasted a rich, cheese covered bowl of heaven. I think I started salivating before leaving VB. Well kids, I'm sad to report that they changed the recipe. There must be a cheese shortage! The only cheese was on a piece of french bread that was provided with the soup. It was still tasty but...why Macado's, why?

Ugliness, Part 2

For the second stage of our trip, I can't blame Shatner; however, Mother Nature is at fault. When we woke (well, I'm not really sure we ever truly fell asleep) Saturday morning, we decided to scrap our tour of Lexington in order to try to beat the massive storms that were moving in from the west. As those of you in VA and NC know, the storm system resulted in numerous tornados that devastated much of eastern NC and VA, costing several people their lives and many others their homes. Homestead was an hour drive up through narrow mountain roads from Lexington. For us it made winding up the mountainside in near zero visibility being buffered by 30-knot winds somewhat of an adventure.

In hindsight, I wished I had stopped to capture the massive rapids of the flooding river but getting the camera gear out in the driving rain didn't seem like a great idea at the time. When we pulled into the Homestead, we were greeted by menacing skies. For a moment, the massive building juxtaposed against the stormy skies conjured up images of the Shining. It was oddly beautiful and scary at the same time.

Between the breaks in the rain, I managed to get out to shoot a few photographs as the storm passed through. It is hard to do something like this justice. Standing there it looked even wilder and more menacing.

The Beautiful - Living the Life of the Privileged

OK, I'll be first to admit that I am probably more comfortable in a beach bar with sand covered floors, but there is something to be said for experiencing a place like the Homestead. Im kicking myself for not taking more architecture shots of the interior but truth be told, we were so busy trying to fit in everything we could within 24-hours, I didn't get the time to spend behind the lens. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford to spend several days there but for now the handful of exterior shots will have to do.

We arrived on at 11:00 and the staff graciously let us check-in early. While not extravagantly big, our room was very nice in every detail. I may be a simpleton, but I really dug the idea that the closet light came on automatically when you opened the closet door. It is the small things that keep me happy.

The hotel, itself, is an architectural masterpiece, sprawling over several city blocks. I had to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to stop getting lost. Everything is big! The grand hall when you enter leaves you breathless and that carries throughout the rest of the building. We swam in the indoor pool fed from the mineral springs, lunched in the casino overlooking the golf course, had afternoon tea in the grand hall, dined at Sam Snead's Tavern, had cocktails in the President's Room, explored the Garden Hall at night, and even crashed a wedding reception after party in the Player's Club.

The next morning after breakfast in the main ballroom, Liz headed off to go horseback riding and I ventured around the gardens to photograph the building in the clearing morning.

The following view of the Magnesia Spring just one of the thousands of romantic vistas the Homestead affords. "Afford" in this case is relative. ;-)

I wrapped up the morning with a 28-frame pano from below the main building before we packed it in to head home. Personally, I still prefer to vacation at a location with sand and surf; however, it is nice to have a change every once in awhile even if it does mean occasionally having to wear a blazer for breakfast. If you get the opportunity, it is a nice escape.