Padaro Lane

A continuation of my personal project about surfers, this is Heather Tiddens, a local surfer, and yoga instructor. To make this image I used an assistant with a strobe light. My assistant holds the strobe quite close to the face of Heather while I make the exposure. The strobe light is then removed from the image using Photoshop. Curiously, the sand on the beach that day had just been washed by the super-moon’s high tide, giving the sand that smooth look. The sand in Santa Barbara where I made this, is usually quite dirty with tar seepage, kelp and other natural and un-natural debris. Seeing the beach in this condition, completely changed my ideas about just how to photograph Heather. To quote James Cameron, “It is easy to get caught up in. This is a technical art form. You have to pay attention to the lights, the camera, exposure etc. But you have to remain open and ready to see and accept the gifts your preparation will bestow upon you.”

A lineup of sorts, of all the surfboards that live under this house. The house is on the beach and so it seems natural that there would be many surfboards. Storing them under the house is just efficient. Lines drew me to make this image. The house is a multitude of horizontal lines. The roof is flat creating one line against the sky and then the railing of the balcony repeats the plane. Windows along with the sliding doors echo the parallel lines. To break that levelness I added the surfboards. One at a time I set them in place and the vertical lines it made and added to the appearance, helped calm the flatness. It began to tell the story of the house, and the quiver of boards.