Willem, you need to look up Arthur Tress. He photographed Morro Rock from 2009 to 2015 with a 6x6 Hasselblad and made some 25,000 exposures. His work is currently also included in a show at Seattle Art Museum. For all the images I have seen he made, he tilted the camera 45% sideways to get diamond shaped frames around his subject. Very interested work.
Love how the basketballs are midair and one is centred between the two nets and the other is between the two fences in the background...The cherry on top is the doppelgänger effect and the almost unnoticeable Morro Rock👌🏾
This is such an interesting exercise, I feel like there are few places with such an omnipresent feature (at least where I am) that doing something like this would be a really great creative challenge. Photos look killer as always!
Hey Willem, As a photographer born and raised in the next town over, its so cool to see something that I see every day and take so for granted shot from someone else's perspective! great project.
As someone that grew up in this area and practiced a lot of photography in morro bay and photographing morro rock, it’s very cool to see your interpretation of something I’ve seen photos of forever
@Willem Whenever you get around to printing these in some sort of coffee table book let me know. The stills you've captured here are simply breathtaking. After watching any of your videos you always inspire me to grab my camera, go out and shoot. Keep it up! Next time I'm out West we should set up a shoot.
Unreal how many captivating photos you can get with a prominent landmark snuck in somewhere. Love the sneaky ones where you have to do a double-take to spot the rock 🪨
Willem, You make the whole photography process look effortless (and, of course, it's actually very hard work). Seeing this beautiful area through your eyes is one of the best ways to train my own way of seeing. Thank you! Can't wait to see the completed project - please let us know so we can pre-order the book!
Just watched all 27 mins with my two young daughters and every time they spotted the rock in the pictures they would giggle. I love your videos, I love your adventures. You inspired me back in 2020 to pick up film photography and I love it!! So glad I stumbled upon your channel.
I love MB! I've been to that House of Jerky many times -- weird stuff there (kangaroo, bison, shark, etc.). I'm just a hobbyist photographer but I'm hoping to run into you someday at Morro Bay. I take day trips there from Fresno about once a month-ish
Incredible, just shows how diverse you can be with one subject given the restriction as you say. So many unique ways you can capture it if you really think outside the square.
It is so inspiring to see how consistent your images and coloring are within all of your work. And the willingness to find new ways to photograph the same subject is such an impressive mindset. A pleasure to see this project unfold in real time.
Love the Becheresque quality of this project with the typology, but pushing past it being extremely rigid by find various ways of representing the rock without actually looking directly at it as you are doing through signage, books, reflections and so on. I'm hoping that it becomes a reality for you to make some aerial photographs of the rock as well as some from the water. Very interesting to follow along with this particular project, limitations can often be the best thing for creativity! The "lightbow" was pretty amazing to see and I love the subtly of that image.
Willem, I’ve been a subscriber since the early days, 2018 I think. Just catching up on a few of your videos and have to say that these Morro Bay videos are special, every time I watch one it brings me great joy, and I yearn to get back to California. Thanks for the continued inspiration man, cheers from Sydney 🇦🇺
This project and video is so inspiring for me. I've been wanting to start project of some sort soon and this help give me so many more great ideas! Thanks as always for the inspiration and great videos, Willem!
Projects like this are too dope, they just show the unique style of a photographer so well. Hiroshi Masuko did a similar project on Mount Fuji, which is also super inspiring. Thank you for sharing your process, Willem!
I love the subject and how you work on it with your camera. Walking’ finding some cool spots and points of view, it’s really cool. Ths place looks very nice and peacefull.
The weirdest bit of knowledge I have is that Morro Bay is the setting of Night City in the Cyberpunk games. Morro Rock has been leveled and turned into a spaceport, but still retains the name "Morro Rock."
By exploring just the rock from as many angles as possible and times of day and night, you’ve also explored the host city, some of its people and its charm. Pretty cool how that worked out.
i practically discovered u right now with my girlfriend and loved so much your work (photography and the vlogging part of it) and, well, thank you for it !
This was such a wonderful study on MB!! Your night shots really showed another world! I've been photographing the central coast for some time. Next time you're down, if you'd like a guide on some unique perspectives, reach out, and I'd love to show some spots. Safe travels!
also want to emphasize that not only is this exercise extremely helpful from a story telling perspective when building a body of work. But i feel like this is such good practice physically. Waking up early, going to bed late, walking around all day. staying on all day for a few days straight. I should try a solo trip soon
I used to live out near Morro Bay and I am ashamed that I never did something like this. So cool! I hope you make this into a little photo book or something. I’d buy a copy. 🤙🏼
Really great video… i appreciate it. Morro Bay really is such a fantastic city and the rock is a fantastic subject. On your next trip up, stop off at Sylvester’s burgers in Los Osos.
Hope I run into you one day radonmy out there. You might be aware but over 1 million tons of the rock was blasted away to build the breakwall. The Army Corp wanted to keep continuing to quarry the rock for projects in the area to save money.
