50.0

Not much of a back story to this shot. Water comes shooting straight up this hole and then combines with waves breaking around to your right to suck back down into the ocean. I stood on the lip of this thing wearing my life vest looking like a fat version of Bill Murray in "What About Bob" when he becomes a sailor. My friend and mentor Ryan Dyar showed me some fresh techniques so I've done a reprocess of this image. Ryan recently joined 500px, so if you want to see why I'm constantly raving about him, check out his swag at Ryan Dyar Photography, or here at 500px Ryan Dyar. On paper, Ryan and I seem more like Mutt and Jeff than great buddies, but I absolutely love the kid. I met Ryan a couple of years ago one morning up on Mt. Hood. I'd been shooting a few months, and I was starting to understand enough about what makes an image special to know that I wasn't doing it. I identified a handful of photographers who consistently presented work in a style that I really admired, and worked to try to understand what they were doing that I wasn't. At the top of that list was a local kid named Ryan Dyar. I contacted Ryan with a question, and much to my surprise and delight, he suggested we go shoot sometime. I will never forget meeting him up on Mt. Hood that first morning in the pre-dawn darkness. Me in my high tech fancy gear that I had no idea how to use, very concerned with whether my butt looked fat in my pants; and Ryan in his hoodie, looking like he just walked off the set of an all-night Tony Hawk Skateboard Video shoot. Whatever cosmic force decided we should go out shooting together that morning was very clever indeed, for my life has been immeasurably enriched since that day, and I'm not talking about photographically. Over the past two years, I've had some of the great experiences of my life, many of them with Ryan at the helm. Wait.... that sounds, err, awkward. His willingness to take an old, fat, accident-prone wanna-be under his wing has led to countless adventures. I've become a post-hole in snow crevasses, chased off a beach at 4am by a bear* (it was a deer), snickered at watching Ryan break his wrist in the parking lot and feigning concern, been blown off a ridge by a snowstorm in a tent, developed enough swamp butt to create a new form of science, learned to photograph topless "wildlife" at a beach near the Redwoods, discovered that too much fiber CAN be a bad thing, and car camped at Walmart, all under the direct tutelage of this kid who had no reason to include me in his experiences. I treasure them all. Ryan can be talked into teaching one-on-one and small group workshops, and as far as I'm concerned, it's the best money you can spend on your photography. Love ya babes!!