Ed Fladung

Ed Fladung is an Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­pher liv­ing in Mex­ico. He left his job and hec­tic lifestyle in LA to pur­sue his pas­sion for surf­ing, design, and pho­tog­ra­phy. There he fell in love, mar­ried, and had a child. We catch up with Ed and ask him a few ques­tions.

What was it like grow­ing up?
I grew up in sub­ur­ban Westch­ester, New York in the 80’s. Two things occu­pied my mind­share as a kid: skate­board­ing and graf­fiti. I prac­ticed both with inno­cent aban­don. My fam­ily were very sup­port­ive of my artis­tic endeav­ors. They never went to any of my Lit­tle League games but I had a never-ending bar­rage of art sup­plies and a new pair of sneak­ers or skate­board when the old one was on its last leg.

Croton-on-Hudson, the town that I lived in, was quite small. I was the only skate­boarder for miles. At dif­fer­ent points of my child­hood, kids would pick the sport up and we’d become friends, and then sea­sons would change and I’d find myself amongst a new group of recent con­verts. To feel con­nected to the larger skate­board­ing cul­ture, I devoured skate/surf mags con­sum­ing the lat­est trends.

I was also very into scuba div­ing as a kid. On a trip to Turks and Caicos, my father and I got cer­ti­fied. I was 11. My father tells a story of me on my back at 110 feet with the reg­u­la­tor out of my mouth blow­ing air rings as they float towards the sur­face, slowly expand­ing. Going on a few trips a year (scuba div­ing) really con­nected me to a water lifestyle.

When did you get your first surf­board?
2004. I bought my first surf­board shortly after my 30th birth­day, two days before I moved to Nayarit, Mex­ico after hav­ing lived in Hol­ly­wood and the LA area for 10 years (and never hav­ing learned to surf!). It was a 7’6″ Roberts fun­board. It really taught me to use the entire length of the board. A few months later, I upgraded to a slightly used 6’2″ Al Mer­ick Flyer II and a few months after that I bought 5’7″ Zippy twin keel fish. Those boards taught me how to ride the tail. They took good care of me.

In August of  ’04, I had spent two weeks in Mex­ico, decid­ing whether I wanted to stay long-term. Our fam­ily friend, Michael, was vis­it­ing and, coin­ci­den­tally, he took me out to what is now my local break and taught me to surf over the course of a week. In a large part, surf­ing was one of the main fac­tors in my deci­sion to make the move. I was hooked.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
My body instantly under­stood the glide. It took a few ses­sions to get the tech­ni­cals, but my body knew it was home. Surf­ing just felt so right. But more so than just stand­ing up, I iden­ti­fied with the entire experience—the pad­dling, the wait, the envi­ron­ment, the view, the water, the sea life, the waves, the glide, the sol­i­dar­ity and the soli­tude. That last combo is a big fac­tor in why I really love surfing.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
For my inter­nal com­pass, I looked up to my par­ents and var­i­ous fam­ily mem­bers, all inter­est­ing indi­vid­u­als. For cool fac­tor, def­i­nitely Gonz (Mark Gon­za­lez), the Bones Brigade, all the bands whose music I devoured. For art, Keith Har­ing, Warhol and Basquiat. And later on at CalArts, I admired all of my teach­ers and fel­low stu­dents. For pro­fes­sional graphic design prac­tice, I iden­ti­fied with the work of Mil­ton Glaser, David Car­son, Vaughn Oliver, Rudy Van­der­Lans, Phil Baines and The Design­ers Republic.

What inspired you to begin shoot­ing images?
While grow­ing up, my dad duti­fully doc­u­mented our fam­ily in pho­tos, but he also used pho­tog­ra­phy as an art form; he was always into abstract forms and com­po­si­tion. I was aware, from a young age, that the cam­era could be just as much an art form (like a paint­brush) as it is a doc­u­men­tary medium. In high school, my dad bought me a Pen­tax and for awhile I stud­ied pho­tog­ra­phy and the photo print­ing process. My pho­tos essen­tially got me into art school, but I elected to study graphic design instead. I took pho­tos on and off through school, but for the most part let it go.

When I moved to Mex­ico, I bought a cheap lit­tle point and shoot and a Lomo. I pushed the bound­aries of that point and shoot, and soon after I upgraded to a DSLR. At first, my pho­tog­ra­phy was more to visu­ally com­ple­ment the sto­ries I was writ­ing on my blog about my new expe­ri­ences in Mex­ico. After a few years, my writ­ing started to take a back­seat to the sto­ries I was telling with my camera.

What do you look for in a good pho­to­graph?
I don’t really con­cen­trate on tech­ni­cal aspects: surf­ing abil­ity, dig­i­tal vs. film, focus. I’m more look­ing for a feel­ing. Very rarely, with my own pho­tos, do I know what I have when I’m shoot­ing. A good por­tion of magic hap­pens in the edit­ing process. It took me years to be able to edit with restraint, show­ing only the most cru­cial bits, telling a story in a com­pact sequence or group of images.

Lately, I have been try­ing to tell a story in one pho­to­graph, and some­times that story comes out of the pho­to­graph itself rather than the scene the cam­era was cap­tur­ing. Some­thing unex­pected and random—trying to find a feel­ing, play­ing, push­ing pho­tog­ra­phy as a doc­u­men­tary medium, but also some­thing with more of a per­sonal voice.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out and why?
I’m rel­a­tively new to surf­ing, so I haven’t had the chance to make too many surf mecca haj­jes. Bali was amaz­ing. My wife and I went on the off-season twice and though the waves were smaller, I enjoyed the bukit spots so much. Nusa Dua kicked my ass and the locals were call­ing it three feet (over­head in my terms). Bali is the most beau­ti­ful place. Ubud in the rainy sea­son … I could live there eas­ily if my wife ever gives the green light. My wife and I trav­eled through­out South­east Asia and India. India really blew my mind. For a pho­tog­ra­pher, it has end­less inspi­ra­tion. The Caribbean side of Mex­ico has one of the most spe­cial qual­i­ties of light I’ve found so far.

Who/what inspires you?
My wife Mar­cia and my son Luca both inspire me in so many dif­fer­ent ways and keep me grounded. My whole family—I’m for­tu­nate to be part of a very eccen­tric, funny, sweet, artis­tic, lov­ing, tight-knit fam­ily. With­out them, I’d be a Wall Street banker.

Sur­f­wise, I started surf­ing very late in my life, in Mex­ico, so I nat­u­rally grav­i­tated to the inter­net for inspi­ra­tion and found it in all the really cool surf-related blogs and web­sites that have been blos­som­ing over the past five years. I still look towards all these really awe­some peo­ple putting out daily stoke and inspi­ra­tion. For that, the inter­net is a beau­ti­ful thing.

Some­where along the way, Michael, the same guy who taught me to surf, gave me a copy of pub­lisher Tom Adler’s Surf Con­test photo book by Ron Church. It blew my mind into tiny pieces. It was the first proper surf pho­tog­ra­phy book I owned and it started my surf pho­tog­ra­phy edu­ca­tion in earnest.

I also draw heavy inspi­ra­tion from art, art cul­ture, tech­nol­ogy, archi­tec­ture, futur­ists, cur­mud­geons, music, pol­i­tics, bud­dhist phi­los­o­phy, graphic/web design, psy­chother­apy, fash­ion and just about any­thing that com­bines any of these dif­fer­ent disciplines.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
Com­pas­sion and empathy.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
I’m not sure I’ve lived enough to have major regrets yet. I think, if I could do it dif­fer­ently, I’d love to have been in my late teens dur­ing the early 60’s in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and in my early twen­ties in the early 70’s in Hawaii on the North Shore. That’d be an ideal life.

What are you most proud of?
My son, Luca. I’m a new dad!

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
The act of sit­ting out in the water star­ing at the hori­zon for long peri­ods of time … wait­ing. The hairs on my neck stand­ing up as the set waves roll in. The moment the wave’s energy and board’s energy con­nect and syn­chro­nize to catch­ing a wave and slid­ing. For me, surf­ing is as much a med­i­ta­tional prac­tice as a phys­i­cal event. It equal­izes me and not nec­es­sar­ily in some blissed out way; it’s often more sub­tle. A stress­ful cou­ple of days and after a trip to the local break, my mind has less sta­tic. Surf­ing is largely respon­si­ble for help­ing me make the deci­sion to move to Mex­ico; with­out it, I’d prob­a­bly have a very large ther­apy bill.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Every day I get to wake up, play with my boy, kiss my wife, do some work, cre­ate some art and go surf­ing. What else could be better?!?

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
I’m a bit removed from surf culture’s core by way of geog­ra­phy. I’d have to say the surfy blog­gers, of course. They are who I’m con­nect­ing with. Peo­ple from all over the world—from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia to Brazil, Peru and Corn­wall. Peo­ple that are surf­ing, snap­ping pho­tos, mak­ing art, shap­ing boards, trav­el­ing, putting on art shows, surf con­tests, plant­ing gar­dens, res­cu­ing sea life, think­ing about the future, help­ing the less for­tu­nate and doing it all while shar­ing it self­lessly online. Never before has stoke been so widely acces­si­ble. There are con­stantly new pock­ets of surf cul­ture that are com­ing online every day. It’s a very excit­ing time to be a surfer and surf-inspired artist, I think.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board? Your favorite surf spot?
9’0″ San Miguel noserider, 6’2″ Al Mer­rick Flyer II, 6’2″ Michel Junod sin­gle fin egg, 6’0″ ATL Surf­boards potato chip and, my newest acqui­si­tion, a 5’7″ ATL twin keel fish which I’m head over heels for. I alter­nate a lot between the fish and the log. We get long patches of flat here in Nayarit, so I ride the long­board a lot of the time. I love that board. It’s a total water log but it has really nice noserides. My favorite surf spot is called Dinosaurs. It’s a ledgy, fast, right point break. It only really breaks dur­ing the sum­mer south­ern swells, and when it gets above head, it gets hol­low and heavy.

What’s your favorite meal?
I’m a total foodie; I love eat­ing. But if I had to nar­row it down. I’d prob­a­bly say Indian food or Viet­namese Pho. I am a Pho addict. When I go back to Los Ange­les, I camp out at Pho Cafe in Sil­ver Lake. The irony is that nei­ther can be found within a thou­sand miles of where I live.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
Edward Sharpe and the Mag­netic Zeros, Dis­cov­ery, The Very Best, Girls, Beirut, Suf­jan Stevens, Miike Snow, Pas­sion Pit, Justin Hines, The Dodos, Cass McComb.

What are you most grate­ful for?
To never have to com­mute in traf­fic ever again if I can help it.

What’s next for Ed Fladung?
Work­ing on cool design projects, col­lab­o­rate with awe­some peo­ples and clients. Try to get my pho­tographs more widely seen—into shops and gal­leries. Con­tinue try­ing to get my book pub­lished (col­lec­tion of sto­ries and pho­tos from my blog). Watch Luca get older too quickly. Read more books. Shape my first alaia (wait­ing for the wood to dry!). Take a sojourn down to Michoa­can for some waves and spend a night or three in a sleep­ing hammock.

More infor­ma­tion on Ed Fladung and Qual­ity Peo­ples can be found here. Ed also writes for the surf pub­li­ca­tion Drift.