A Photographer's Start
January 27th, 2020
There was a burning desire inside of me to be on the road trying to become what I wanted to become, an adventure photographer, but I didn’t have the body of work nor the skill to be able to create on the spot. My savings account had roughly $3k from the winter of substitute teaching and I had just pumped most of my funds into a new water housing. I was equipped with two lenses, a 24-70 and a 28mm. The 28mm was the best thing I could buy that would fit into my new housing, so that is what I did.
At the time, I had no idea what it took to create a shot, but I was excited to try. Eager, I took a chance and headed south. My goal, which never actually happened, was to photograph the California coast from San Diego to Brookings, OR. I got distracted by rocks and ended up along HWY 395, but that is another story.
The best shot of the day while attempting to road trip and shoot a surf project. The trip felt like a lifetime of learning in a single go. Photograph by Dalton Johnson
On my first night, I jumped in the water at Swami’s, I was still heading south from Santa Cruz for San Diego. With a few low-hanging clouds and a packed line-up, I swam out with my camera loaded (on the wrong settings) and started snapping. The thought had not crossed my mind that I should link up with surfers to create work, I just figured if I showed up at a popular place somebody would be there.
Struggling to hold position, or just get into a position, I welded my camera and pulled the trigger. Time and time again, I tried to shoot. From the screen on the back, I knew images were being captured, but I really couldn’t see if anything good was being shot.
Click. Click. Click. Firing frame after frame without consequence. Thank goodness I started in the digital age! I tried onto of the wave looking down, pulled back, selfies, and in the “channel”. As the sun started to set, the clouds changed from white to pink cotton candy. Maybe, this was going to work! Maybe, I could actually take a good photo!
All I knew was that I wanted to get better, which meant I needed to put in more hours.
Yup, I sucked and took terrible photos, but damn it was a fun way to start out!!
