Telling your company story with an old camera. 

I have 5 principles in business which I established a long time ago and one of them is communicating through film and photography.

Photography in particular is at its best when people recognize your images and know it belongs to your brand—even if there is no logo.

My initial photography for FR. was all shot by me during bike rides or at riding camps.

I carried a camera in my back pocket and then in 2009 I bought a Nikon D700. If I found interesting views on a ride, I would sometimes drive back with my Nikon to recapture what I had seen.

For example, this photograph from 2012 was taken after I rode my Cervelo R5 from Waikoloa. I started at sea level and rode up to the visitors centre at 9500 feet on Mauna Kea. It was 80km / 50 miles but was ALL climbing and the last few kms are around 17% so it had some teeth to it. One of the best rides of my life. I drove my rental car back up to Mauna Kea to retrace the route with my Nikon D700 and up on Saddle Road was a major storm rolling in. You can see that very storm in the background of this photograph.

On the side of the road, the ground is covered with massive layers of lava where you can find the occasional black goat.

It’s raw and it’s beautiful.

I used this photo for years on everything we were doing as a company because it said everything about riding without having to say a word. If you rode up to Mauna Kea you know how incredible this road is and how it feels like you could be on the moon.

Then you turn left up to Mauna Kea and it’s 6 miles of rawness and legit suffering.

I couldn’t decide between a Nikon D700 or Canon5D so I emailed a bunch of photographers I respected and asked them what they shot with. A number of them were surf photographers and they pretty much all wrote back saying Nikon D700 all the way.

So why is photography so important and why should it reflect the founder’s personal taste and eye? It actually becomes a reflection of you and that is the point behind why you start a company or a project…because you have something to say.

I think you can really debate art, photography and film. What is technically correct vs. what feels different? What visually inspires you so much so that it creates an emotional connection?

It’s hard to do because sometimes you're telling a story that ultimately reflects the soul of the photographer you hired. We’ve been fortunate enough to work with some of the best photographers in the world but some photographers just have a different feel that doesn’t align.

It’s a part of the process.

My feeling around telling your story comes from a long line of influence.

Certain films had a massive impact on me because of the way they were shot. Even the ones I saw when I was young, went back to watch, and I couldn’t believe how the cinematography was still impactful today.

When I was a kid, my parents snuck me into a drive-in to watch the Godfather as a kid. I’ve probably watched it ten times in the last year.

I watched Lawrence of Arabia in 2010 because my Dad recommended it to me after our conversation around warmth and simplicity. That film perfectly showed that minimal doesn’t equal sterile.

Lawrence of Arabia was shot in 1961 and 1962 and directed by David Lean.

Watch the Exorcist (released in 1973) and just focus on the filmmaking—yeah it scared the crap out of me when I was young but having watched it a few times recently, the cinematography is incredibly “patient”, powerful and gritty especially during the scenes where there is no dialogue. The way the film was shot didn’t make you feel like you were watching a movie; it used a true documentary style to tell a horror story.

Michael Mann who directed Heat in 1995 also directed the first Hannibal Lechter movie: Manhunter in 1986. Both are beautifully shot films. Watch Manhunter which is so much better than the other Hannibal films (including Brian Cox of Succession as the OG Hannibal).

Manhunter (1986)

Heat (1995)

Then there is Denis Villeneuve who directed Sicario. I watched that movie 100 times because of the way it’s shot and the haunting music.

Also watch his movie Arrival for breathtaking cinematography.

Phantom Thread by Paul Thomas Anderson is a masterpiece. I could watch that movie with just the soundtrack and not even need the dialogue—it’s that beautifully shot. The music is by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. Yeah.

Watch my favourite scene from this movie

With all these films, it’s the non-dialogue scenes that are the most powerful because of what is being told visually—no talking is necessary.

That’s very, very hard to do.

There were a lot of album covers that had the same influence on me—simple yet moody.

Pat Metheny, Bill Evans, Rush and Loscil.

I remember the first time I saw an Edward Burtynsky photograph; my jaw dropped.

Discovering Todd Hido in a book about his landscapes shot through his car window.

Seeing a Hiroshi Sugimoto Seascape photo that a lot of people try to replicate—but you can’t.

Discovering Yamamoto Masao on YouTube—4 by 6 photographs that are so powerful—one small image could fill a wall.

Art, photography and film are all obviously open to interpretation and not everyone will have the same sentiment towards the art you love. An appreciation has to start somewhere though that triggers emotion and eventually influences what you like and how you tell your story.

I like raw and moody personally. That’s the way I like to tell a story.

So how do you choose a camera? Sony, Fuji, Nikon, Canon, Hasselblad, Leica etc.

I feel like the Nikon D700 found me and when I brought it home, it became a part of me.

The photographs I took with it are not technically perfect—but I like it that way. I took all the photography courses, learned every principle but prefer to do the exact opposite.

Everything has to be about feel and a Nikon D700 looks and feels like it was shot on film. It’s heavy and clunky but fits perfectly into my hands the way a camera should.

Once you develop your own eye and feel—nothing changes.

That’s how you tell people about what your company stands for.

Thanks for reading -

Peace

- ralph | fr.