Surfing Santa Barbara feature Interview:
Five Questions with Matt Schwartz
BUREAU Magazine finally caught up with Matt Schwartz recently after his busy schedule documenting several interesting projects in connection with both Surfing and Music. Matt is a photographer living in Brooklyn, New York. We admire his visual aesthetic and rapped out recently about his no nonsense approach to the Art and Craft of Fine Art Photography.
Bureau: What inspires you to create images ?
MS: I kind of have to. I come up with an idea or see someone or something beautiful and for some reason, I need to own that image forever. It is not enough for me to see something beautiful and just look at it without a camera. Everything is more vivid and alive through the lens. I am there with the person or object and become one with it. I used to lose myself by playing music, though for the past 10 years it's been photography. I once wrote in my journal "she hit pause" about a girl I met who stopped time in my life. This is what photography is to me, and where the name to my studio : She Hit Pause Studios, came from.
Bureau: You keep up an interesting catalog, but still find time to make them available and affordable. How important is it for you to be collected ?
MS: That is a great question. I have been asking myself that almost daily. I have been selling my work full time for about 10 years. I typically have been doing the selling myself, either in Brooklyn or on my site. I have never had an ego about my work, which I attribute to why it has worked. I like selling pics to people my age and younger. I like when people say " This is the first piece of real art I am buying " or telling me how happy the work makes them. I think this keeps me going more than the $ aspect. I have recently started selling more expensive limited editions to collectors. It feels a little weird selling an image for more than my car cost. I think selling affordable pics to people in their 20's and the limited editions is a good balance for me. It keeps me humble. A few weeks ago,
I was selling my work and someone came up to me and said he was a big fan of my work and he wanted to meet me. I thanked him and asked him what he does. He said he played in a band. His name was Ben from Mumford and Sons. That was really rewarding.
Bureau: You have a keen ability to create another time & place with some of your process: The surfing images and the transfer prints. How much does nostalgia play into our work ? And tell us a little about that process.
MS: I definitely have a Fondness and attraction to life before computers and cell phones. Film over digital. The faster this world moves, the more I am yearning for its opposite. Lately, I've been buying vintage video games and musical instruments. There is a certain romance to a typewriter or even a notebook than writing on a computer. cont -
There is a weight to film over digital, where you cherish each image and make them count. I like rawness and messiness over polished and megapixels. Most of my work is done on polaroids and film. I use large format polaroids, pull apart the film and then rub the negatives onto watercolor paper. With all of the above said I have used digital on a few shoots for clients and see where it can be useful if a quick turnaround is needed.
Bureau: Did you go to school for Art and how important is education for Photographers.
MS: I did not go to school for art. I took one photograph class my last year. Before shooting professionally, I was setting up fashion shoots with girlfriends and just taking pics for the love of it. That is why it worked for me. I never pressed the shutter on the camera thinking that this will lead to money. It is all images that I want to exist. I am not into expensive cameras or the idea of education for photography. Everything can be learned from a book or by experimenting. The rawness and the "mistakes" are what make photography unique, not rules about composition and lighting. To me, photography is looking through the lens, finding something beautiful and pressing the button. There is no inner dialog or rules, just passion.
Bureau: What are you working on now ?
MS: I just photographed the band "Vacationer" last week, which was a lot of fun. I really like their music and the creative direction the label gave was "We don't want to give you any creative direction. We want you to do what you do" That was awesome to hear and led to a great shoot.
I was hired to shoot The Wanderlust Festival in Hawaii 3 or 4 weeks ago. It was perfect for me. Surfing, yoga and music. I have three shoots from Puerto Rico that I am trying to release and then tackle the Hawaii photos. After the festival, I hung around for a week and shot some of my favorite surfing images ever taken. Today, my work was being sold at a market in the city and I met with my first photo rep and an architectural/design firm about doing the decor for a new boutique hotel they are opening. Lots of hustling. I am trying to differentiate between good stress and bad stress. I am told I am experiencing good stress right now. I am ready to jump some levels in my career. I have sold a lot of work and still have hundreds of unreleased images. I just want to concentrate on shooting and sleeping.
BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE : SURFING SKATE BIKE
1. FICTION: "GO - GO'S DROPPING IN" from SURFERS and LOW RIDERS by J.A. Triliegi
2. FILM REVIEW: BIG WEDNESDAY at 35 YEARS The Classic Surf Flick Still Stoking
3. SANTA BARBARA SURFING: SHOPS . SCHOOLS . SITES . SUPPLIES . PUBLICATIONS
BUREAU FICTION
SURFERS AND LOW RIDERS: "GO GO's DROPPING IN …"
Excerpt from Story Series by Joshua Aaron TRILIEGI
My older brother Chaz is talking Mom into letting me take a day away from school
to watch the surf contest at Hermosa Beach Break Wall. I wonder what that means,
were going to break a wall ? We do break it when Mom reluctantly agrees, due to
my old man seconding the motion. ' The kid needs to learn how to surf, we don't
want him hanging around these streets & fields for ever.' Somehow, they agree.
I'm told we will be getting up at five AM. The surf journey starts early when you
live inland. We pile into someones van & are on the sand lot walking to the reef &
break by sunrise. If I don't look up, its legs and feet and crotches : I'm nine, ten
or eleven, the only kid in attendance. Were about to to see one of our neighbor-
hood jesters steal an entire season from a bunch of internationally known pros.
People are gathered in groups & huddles. A calm intelligence, mixed with a wild
sense of un expectancy from the surf, which is cold and grey, is in the air. Big
sets flow in, getting larger & slanting into even more powerful faces that broaden
slowly, without notice, becoming the big waves that cats from all over came here
to be a part of. These are Winter swells. Different than the smooth, silver, glassy,
summer afternoons we knew so well. This is the mean, cold, sharp, kind of grey,
jagged, hurtful side of mother nature. An old woman of an ocean ready to take
the boys into manhood. Several little stands & tables with umbrellas & banners are
blown over completely. The more concerned sponsors embarrassingly back up their
entire camps. It's an outsiders nightmare & a locals home favorite kind of condition.
It doesn't take long before Go-Go, short for Geronimo, starts scheming to pull
the kind of prank that makes names and legends and stories such as this one here.
He's chewing on two pink chocolate sprinkled cakes, shaped like breasts. Chasing
them down with several gulps of Mad Dog Twenty-twenty & a quaalude or codeine
'cause his wetsuit has a giant rip in it and he messed up his ankle the night before
at Oktoberfest. Sleeping in his car in front of Millers Market until pre dawn hours.
He's looking like a coyote running in the back field, while all these pros look like a
bunch of rabbits, sitting, quiet. Even though they have been in the water for several
heats or sessions of elimination and judgements on style, distance, etc… Go-Go's
not even entered in the competition. He's simply going to jump out there and join
the ranks with a wild sense of piracy that comes with years of life on the water. Like
a renegade native, getting high on the water. He can't help it. Go Go's dropping in.
I have heard guys talking about my brother's either bravery or just plain craziness
in dropping in on the biggies at the break wall. But those were warm Summer swells.
This was after he had dropped out to master Swami's, County Line and Horseshoe.
Years before the storms took away half the beach from us forever. Back then, there
were the Hawaiian transplants and Filipino's , the blonde Malibu types and then there
was Bill. He was my older brothers, best friend's older brother. The first day I met him,
he was shaping a board in the family garage. He was the conscious of our neighborhood.
A mentor and ex football hero. Now the word is getting and Bill is saying that Go-Go is
a kook. But everyone else is goading him into it. The b level players like, Gozer, Richie
and the others. " Yeah Go - Go do it." So, we're all aware that something is going to
happen and all the guys that look like newscasters at the table are about to be surprised
by the " Attack of the Boys from The East End " like a film at the Roadio drive-in. We had
our own daredevil-jokester-madman-hero and we'd have sent him into anything, just to
watch him burn, although it was his matchbook, that was always clear, so it didn't seem
like anyone even thought twice about his safety, except maybe Bill.
Of course , it was about the girls too. A guy like Go-Go who wasn't a pretty boy or
particularly smart or wealthy could crank up his position on the charisma level. He'd
be King - for - a Day. Could maybe even shack up with a babe for a week or so after
a performance like this. A guy would build up his story, it circulated, and he'd ride it
like the wave that Go-Go was hoping to catch. There are boats at bay, in case of any
emergency and the girls are all in their bikini's and cut off jeans. They must have come
up from Mexico the way they look, glowing with that peach, amber glow that white girls
get after a season or two on the road with surfers. The tips of their hair, the tan toes, the
bright colored clothes and all the wind blown edges of their attitude. Go - Go slips away
long enough for us to forget about his plan when someone at the surf officials table
becomes extremely animated and upset, waiving erratically at some thing no one else
can see. Another official breaks out the bull horn and starts directing the man on the
break wall to , " Get away from the water. " Go - Go continues down the wall toward
the rocky point where locals, who knew the terrain, could jump off by counting the right
three second interval between the breaking set and the next rising crest. But today, this
was just plain fucking insane and everybody knew it.
I started to get concerned. Not like Bill did, by calling him a knuckle head, but fearful
that a bad thing could happen. And of course a bad thing could happen, that's the
point of these manhood rituals with the sea and earth and wind and ourselves. But
Go-Go was built to do this, just like he was built to steal a police car because the cops
busted up a party where he was about to get laid and it really pissed him off. Some
were not impressed, whereas we were ecstatic, I mean I was anyway. The place was
being robbed of it's boundaries, that was the thing. So Go-Go does a run and a jump,
off the end of the concrete, over the first set of rocks and launches a toes - out - cat -
like - flight over the six feet of rocks on the outer side of the break wall and into the
sacred sea. Breaking several rules, disrupting the contest and banishing himself from
any future competition position according to the Official California Surfing Federation
handbook of 1970 - something. But Go-Go wasn't saving for retirement, he was building
up a different account of sorts and was about to hit the long shot on a late bet at roulette.
Now he's out there and has to drop in on this next big set and do this thing or it'll flop
and he'll have lost a chance & completely ruined an otherwise decent Winter competition.
He works quick, paddling into a larger break point which can completely slam you into the
rocks if your to close at drop in. By now everyone knows what's going on, all eyes are on
Go - Go. People in our circle start shouting, " Go - Go you f*cker ." Others join in like
fans at a Rams game or Stones concert, " Go - Gooooooooo, do it man." Finally, the war
cry is heard, " G - e - r - o - n - i - m - o ! " I look up and even Bill is beaming. As they
all shouted into the cold, grey sea, Go - Go dropped in and it was then that I started to
understand what surfing was really all about.
HEAR THE ENTIRE STORY IN AUDIO AT:
BUREAUofARTSandCULTURE.com SURF BUREAU PAGE
BUREAU: FILM
A Thirty Five Year Anniversary Appreciation
By Joshua A. TRILIEGI
It's hard to believe that thirty five years have passed since this classic surf film about
California and specifically Malibu beach surfing culture, characters and history had its
debut. Upon re watching this classic film recently, I was drawn into a kind of nostalgia
that reminded me of other classic films from the seventies that seem to define the
formative years here in California. American Graffiti being the other fine example of a
piece of cinema that celebrates, defines & indeed explains to outsiders what it was like
to be a part of a California subculture that has since gone mainstream: Classic Cars.
Big Wednesday does the same thing for Surfing. These days surfing and its nearest
offspring, skateboarding, are world renown industries owned by a hand full of companies,
corporations, associations and ecologically informed non-profit organizations.
But back in the day, guys like Leroy, Jack and Matt made California surfing. The lifestyle
and its loyalty to expressing ones self with nature was a coveted and special relationship
that each surfer had on his or her own. It was a private experience one had with the
waves, the coast, the ocean, the earth itself. It is a sacred thing to drop in on a wave
and ride it as long as one is able. Honing a craft, one-second at a time, in unison with
mother nature. Simply, a person, their craft and the ocean itself relating to one another.
the film was photographed. Pacific Coast Highway starting at the County Line, Topanga
Canyon & on into Malibu Beach. Re visiting these historic beaches and film locations is
a beautiful way to understand the art of surfing. Reviewing the motion picture Big
Wednesday directed by John Milius and starring Gary Busey, Jan Michael Vincent and
William Katt and thinking about their careers & some of the damage done personally
was a bit heartbreaking. I guess that's the power of film to preserve a time and a place.
To express a moment in time, be it, documentary, fiction or otherwise. As far as surf
films go, when it comes to fictional versions of what surfing is about, Big Wednesday,
in my book, is simply the best at capturing the philosophy, the lifestyle & the character
of what it is to be a surfer at that particular time and place: the 1960's and its transition
into the early seventies. With a cameo by Legendary Lightening Bolt founder and classic
surfer, Jerry Lopez. An important casting choice that gives the film a groundedness in
reality & boosted its credibility with real surf fans during its heyday & initial release.
The red surfboard with a yellow lightening bolt placed directly in a vertical fashion down
the center of the board was & will always be as iconic as a Mercedes Benz logo.
There are the documentaries by Bruce Brown: Endless Summer and the like. As well as
a catalogue of other classics such as Five Summer Stories & the others within the genre.
More recently Stacy Peralta' s Dogtown Documentary & subsequent Lords of Dogtown as
well as his Big Wave Surf documentaries have added more information to surfing dialogue.
But still and all, Big Wednesday is king. I know because I grew up and witnessed the tail
end of this particular period and hung out with and admired the older guys who were a
part of this important period in West Coast & specifically Southern California surf culture.
[ Read the short story SURFERS AND LOWRIDERS on our Website for more on this period]
Big Wednesday captures the music, the friendship, the heroic stature, the generation to
generation torch passing, the gaining your friends/losing your friends aspect of growing up.
The original musical compositions by Basil Poledouris and theme songs hold up just fine.
Nothing is too trendy or dated, The costumes, sets, locations and acting are what we call
pitch perfect. The props and logos have become legendary. The BEAR logo to this day is
being reprinted and celebrated on sweatshirts, classic cars and stickers. Big Wednesday
is a classic film in the Warner Brothers catalogue that helped to redefine a generation
of West Coast culture: surfing, skateboarding and the California cool that people from all
over the world appreciate, envy and honor, sometimes more than the locals themselves.
The actors actually did most of their own surfing in this film, which is rare. There are
surfing doubles, but the editing and cinematography is extremely well done for its
time. Shot on real film, on location, with a group of actors and actresses, including Lee
Purcell and Patti D'Arbanville at the very end of a time & place when Hollywood was able
to create stories that were highly dependent on character, story and emotional content.
This film which was released in 1978, thirty five years ago, stands up against any film
of its genre. It's as entertaining as American Graffiti, as honest as Dogtown , as funny
as Animal House and ultimately a heartfelt and heartbreaking story about the fleeting
moments in life. Like a wave: life, friends, careers, loves, memories pass rather quickly.
Movies such as Big Wednesday preserve these moments, capture those times, creating
a painting of sorts, a photograph, a time, a place that will never be the same again.
Cinema has a way of allowing us to re-enter history, experiencing life itself to enjoy
over and over. This has been an appreciation of BIG WEDNESDAY on the 35 year
Anniversary. An ongoing Series of articles marking the Films, Books & Artworks that
are worth remembering, re-watching, re-reading and re-celebrating time & time again.
by Joshua A. TRILIEGI Exclusively for http://www.BUREAUofARTSandCULTURE.com
BUREAU: SURFING LINKS SHOPS SCHOOLS
www.wavetribe.com
WWW.surfingsports.com
j7surfdesigns.com
www.channelislandso.com
Play It Again Sports
www.creationcaptured.com
www.venturalosangelessurflessons.com
www.playitagainsportssantabarbara.com
www.venturasurfschool.com
www.surfcountry.net/
www.cisurfboards.com
www.progressivesurfboards.com
- COMING SOON ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, SKATE AND BIKING LINKS ...
