Shooting For Yourself 2

After I had finished shooting Greg, we went surfing. While we were getting ready on the sand I saw a dude getting out of the water with his huge surfboard. The unique thing was he was getting into a wheelchair that was submerged in waist high water. Holy crap! This guy got onto his chair and rolled out of the water, over the rocks, and with his new Infinity surfboard in tow. That studs name is John Davis. John pioneered off-road wheelchair racing and discovered adaptive skiing. Today, John is a two-time Paralympic gold medalist, and is now surfing.

I was so impressed with his determination and drive that I went over and started chatting with him. What a cool individual. I said I was totally inspired by him and I wanted to take his picture. You know what he said? "Ya dude, that would be sweet".
The next week I went back to San Onofre to take John's picture (what a perfect excuse to go surfing. My wife can't believe I call this work). He's a great person and the shots turned out beautiful. It was cold and stormy right before we started, then the sun burned through. What kick ass luck.
Some shots put me in chest high water with the old 1DS MKIII. When we were finished it was covered in salt spay and crust. It never failed, not once.

Back to my original point. John works for The Hartford, a gigantic insurance company. He was showing the prints I gave him around and it turns out his friend just happens to be a creative at The Hartford's internal ad agency. It turns out that he wanted to do a little story on John in one of their national sales brochures. What do you think happened next?

The moral of my little story is "shoot for yourself". I did and all I got out of it was a renewal of my passion for photography, some great images, a new surf buddy, and a huge national client.