Taylor Steele for Fast Company Magazine

When I was a grommet I thought bodyboarding was the only way to ride a wave. I remained oblivious to the waves surfers were riding, confident in my belief that bodyboarding was pushing the limits harder than traditional standup surfers. It wasn’t until shooting a bunch of longboarders running a muck on a one foot reef in New Zealand with grins longer than their boards I realised there was more ways to have fun while riding a wave. 

Shortly after I saw a film called ‘The Drifter’ by this guy called Taylor Steele and realised there’s more than one way to go on a surf trip, and there’s way more than just the waves you find to make a memory.

From that time I was hooked on doing something different than what I had been, longboarding, bodysurfing, dolphining, foamielife’n, basically trying anything to propel myself along with the motion of the wave. 

This was a huge motivator in shooting The Underwater Project, although I had been shooting for several months the reason why didn’t really click until that time.

Five years later an email from a finance magazine Fast Magazine asking me to photograph Taylor Steele in the same style as The Underwater Project this ride seemed to come full circle, the line “Just do what you do and it’ll be perfect” made me stoked.

As I’m constantly coming to grips with the business side of photo/film it gets me equally stoked to see Taylor’s creative influence make waves in the business world, making the Top 100 Creatives in Business issue. 

It was a fun swim, stoked to be stoked.