Thursday, October 16, 2008

Follow the Light

Well tonight is the third annual Follow the Light Foundation awards ceremony held in memory of the great Larry "FLAME" Moore. It's been one year (and six days) since I was awarded the FTL grant for 2007.


What a dramatic ride it's been. I guess I will use this space to talk about what's happened in the past year for anyone visiting and wondering about what has been going on.

I proposed to spend the grant money on making a surf film about New York, telling of it's history and the people who are from NY, who surf, and where it has taken them...their journey. I, being known more for being a photographer, have a very solid background in film and film studies, I got my Bachelors in it. I had already made several short 16mm films and numerous video edits of surf in NY. I wanted to finally work on a feature...something big. My proposal is probably the reason I was awarded the grant in 2007. For more information on this check here: www.followthelightfoundation.org

It took me about a month before I purchased a video camera (which I had not previously owned) and began shooting. Unfortunately New York had the worst year of waves I could remember in surfing for 10 years now. Nonetheless I continued filming when it was two foot, or when it was 30 degrees out and onshore. Nothing stopped me pursuing this project. I put my all into this video and after a year of working on it I realized it came much further than I had previously thought. While I was filming for the New York Surf Documentary, I also began several other projects. One of them being an East Coast bodyboarding video titled "Cheeseburger Brains" which hopefully will be finished by 2010. Cheeseburger Brains will be all East Coast or East Coast riders and quite different than any other bodyboarding videos in the past.

I also quickly began a photography buisness (Matt Clark Photography LLC) and started my website www.clarkography.com From there I began selling Limited Edition Canvas prints of a select few of individually signed and numbered images which sold very well.






I also began printing Fine Art Limited Editions of my prints which are also individually signed, numbered, matted and framed.




I'm also lucky enough and forever thankfull to www.waveridersgallery.net for representing me as an artist. You can go there to purchase some of my photographic prints.

This had all been going on while I returned for one more year of postgraduate studies in Photography. While working on my photography degree I also began working on my first photography book titled "Delenda".



This too coincided with my Surfline Portfolio Series which can be found here www.surfline.com

and my portfolio as a selected East Coast Photographer representing New York and New Jersey in Water Magazine which can be seen here: WATER MAGAZINE

If you'd like to see the video shown at the FTL Awards Dinner click here