Aaron Chang

Last updated

Aaron Chang (born August 9, 1956) [1] is an American photographer specialized in surfing and ocean photography. He spent 25 years as a senior photographer at Surfing Magazine ; he was an early photographer to practice the act of shooting waves with a wide angle lens from the water.

Contents

Chang later focused on fine art photography. [2] He owns two art galleries that show his work in Solana Beach and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Chang splits his time between Carlsbad and Carmel, California.

Early life

Chang was born in 1956 in Tucson, Arizona, [1] the eldest of Howard and Marilyn Chang's two children. Aaron's father, a math teacher, introduced him to photography at age 9 when he gave him a Bellows camera. The family moved to Imperial Beach, a region of San Diego, California when he was 11. [3] In high school, Chang swam competitively, surfed and worked in the lab developing photos at the high school where his father taught. [4] He graduated in 1974 and after moved to Oahu.

Career

Surf photography

Chang worked in Waikiki taking pictures of tourists at luaus at the Royal Hawaiian and on boat cruises. [4] He then moved to the North Shore, where he worked as a photographer shooting postcards. Three years after, Larry Moore from Surfing Magazine saw Chang's photography [5] and put Chang on staff at the magazine in 1979. [6]

In the 1980s, the photography industry saw new motor drives, improved lenses and higher-quality film stock. Chang applied these techniques to shooting the sport of surfing. He was one of the early photographers to use a camera in the water to capture surfing photography. [6] Chang's most significant contribution to early surf photography was the use of an ultra wide angle lens in the barrel in big waves, something that no one had tried before in the 1980s. [1]

Chang was a senior photographer for 25 years at Surfing Magazine; [7] his photos were selected for 38 magazine covers. His shot of an arcing wave at the Banzai Pipeline appeared on the cover of Surfing Magazine in 1985; it was the first significant empty wave shot with no person featured.

Chang has traveled to 50 countries for book projects, films, and travel journalism assignments. [6] His work has appeared in Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, GQ, People, US Weekly and Elle. [8] He has shot a variety of subjects, including poets, surfers, bikini models and Nobel scientists, and elephants in the Namibian bush. [9]

Chang was selected as one of the photojournalists for seven "Day in the Life" book projects. [1] [10] His work has been included in illustrated surfing books, including Pure Stoke (1982), The History of Surfing (1983), and Surfing: The Ultimate Pleasure (1984). [1]

He was named one of the top five sports photographers by American Photographer Magazine in 1985. [9] Chang has been featured on a variety TV shows, including networks such as PBS and Fuel TV.[ citation needed ] He is a subject in Doug Walker's surf documentary Lost and Found (2011).[ citation needed ]

Other projects

Chang has worked on commercial accounts, including Polaris Industries, Yamaha Corporation, Levi Strauss & Co., Billabong, and Nike, Inc. [ citation needed ]

In 1994, Chang launched Aaron Chang Clothing, a beachwear line. The California Surf Museum also housed an exhibit titled Aaron Chang: Water Housings and Cameras and Hobie: Shaping a Culture in 2012 showing all of Chang's underwater camera housings used to capture his in-the-water shots. [11] [12]

Fine art photography

In 2009, Chang shifted to work in fine art photography with a focus on arcing waves, the sea and light. Chang's photography has been included in the San Diego Natural History Museum at an exhibit called On The Trail of Ansel Adams. [13] This exhibit highlighted black and white, nature-based imagery from multiple photographers that were inspired by the photographer Ansel Adams.

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ansel Adams</span> American photographer and environmentalist (1902–1984)

Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating "pure" photography which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph. He and Fred Archer developed a system of image-making called the Zone System, a method of achieving a desired final print through a technical understanding of how the tonal range of an image is the result of choices made in exposure, negative development, and printing.

Group <i>f</i>/64 1932–1935 American photography group

Group f/64 or f.64 was a group founded by seven American 20th-century San Francisco Bay Area photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharply focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western (U.S.) viewpoint. In part, they formed in opposition to the pictorialist photographic style that had dominated much of the early 20th century, but moreover, they wanted to promote a new modernist aesthetic that was based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and found objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Greenough</span>

George Hamilton Perkins Greenough is an influential surfer, known during the 1960s and 1970s for his work in film, and in surfboard design, fin characteristics, and other creations for the aquatic medium. The contributions of Greenough, along with Bob McTavish, to the development of short boards resulted in a number advances in surfboard shaping and other surfing technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Newhall</span> American photography critic (1908–1974)

Nancy Wynne Newhall was an American photography critic. She is best known for writing the text to accompany photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, but was also a widely published writer on photography, conservation, and American culture.

Warren Edward Bolster was an American skateboard photographer during the mid-1970s rebirth of skateboarding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clyde Butcher</span> American photographer

Clyde Butcher is an American large-format camera photographer known for wilderness photography of the Florida landscape. He began his career doing color photography before switching to large-scale black-and-white landscape photography after the death of his son. Butcher is a strong advocate of conservation efforts and uses his work to promote awareness of the beauty of natural places.

Bill Andrews (1944-2017) was a surfer, documentary photographer/videographer, and archivist. During his daily reportage of modern surf culture, Andrews archived over 20,000 surf-related photographs and videos. His work can be seen on the online chronicle "A Day with BA" and on youtube.

Alma Ruth Lavenson was an American photographer active in the 1920s and 1930s. She worked with and was a close friend of Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston and other photographic masters of the period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morley Baer</span> American photographer

Morley Baer, an American photographer and teacher, was born in Toledo, Ohio. Baer was head of the photography department at the San Francisco Art Institute, and known for his photographs of San Francisco's "Painted Ladies" Victorian houses, California buildings, landscape and seascapes.

Manuello Paganelli is a self-taught North American artist, author, humanistic and documentary photographer published extensively across the world as well as an ardent voice in the protection and value of photographer's copyright and their rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Burkard</span> American photographer

Chris Burkard is an American photographer and artist, based in the California Central Coast region. He photographs landscape, lifestyle, surf, outdoor, and travel subjects. Burkard takes a photojournalistic approach to make editorial projects, using multiple media. He uses natural light to capture humanizing moments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dody Weston Thompson</span> American photographer (1923–2012)

Dody Weston Thompson was a 20th-century American photographer and chronicler of the history and craft of photography. She learned the art in 1947 and developed her own expression of “straight” or realistic photography, the style that emerged in Northern California in the 1930s. Dody worked closely with contemporary icons Edward Weston, Brett Weston and Ansel Adams during the late 1940s and through the 1950s, with additional collaboration with Brett Weston in the 1980s.

Anthony Friedkin is an American photographer whose works have chronicled California's landscapes, cities and people. His topics include phenomena such as surf culture, prisons, cinema, and gay culture. Friedkin’s photographs have been exhibited in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum. His photographs are included in major Museum collections: New York's Museum of Modern Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum and others. He is represented in numerous private collections as well. His pictures have been published in Japan, Russia, Europe, and many Fine Art magazines in America.

Zakary Noyle is a professional surf and wave photographer living on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, best known for his large wave photographs.

Matt Warshaw is a former professional surfer, former writer and editor at Surfer magazine (1984-1990), and the author of dozens of feature articles and large-format books on surfing culture and history.

John Severson was an American editor, author, filmmaker and artist, widely known as the founder of Surfer, a magazine focused on the sport and culture of surfing. Severson also created a diverse body of artwork dedicated to the sport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Chiara</span> American contemporary artist and photographer

John Chiara is an American contemporary artist and photographer.

<i>Monolith, the Face of Half Dome</i> Photograph by Ansel Adams

Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California is a black and white photograph taken by Ansel Adams in 1927 that depicts the western face of Half Dome in Yosemite, California. In the foreground of the photo, viewers are able to see the texture and detail of the rock as well as the background landscape of pine trees and the Tenaya Peak. Monolith was used by the Sierra Club as a visual aid for the environmental movement, and was the first photograph Adams made that was based on feelings, a concept he would come to define as visualization and prompt him to create the Zone System. The image stands as a testament to the intense relationship Adams had with the landscape of Yosemite, as his career was largely marked by photographing the park. Monolith has also physically endured the test of time as the original glass plate negative is still intact and printable. The photograph is a part of the portfolio Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras, released in 1927.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Adams (photographer)</span> American photographer (1918–1985)

Harry Holden Adams was an African-American photographer who worked for the California Eagle and Los Angeles Sentinel.

Fred Lyon was an American photographer. He was known for shots of foggy San Francisco, and photos of San Francisco life from the 1940s to the 1960s. Lyon worked in different roles within photography, including as a military photographer, a photojournalist, a fashion photographer, landscape photographer, and as a street photographer. His nocturnal San Francisco photography was often compared with Hungarian–French photographer Brassaï.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Matt Warshaw. "Aaron Chang" Archived 2017-03-04 at the Wayback Machine . Encyclopedia of Surfing. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
  2. ↑ Hochman, David (6 September 2016). "A $12,000 California Coastal Photo Safari With A Surf-World Legend At Four Seasons Residence Aviara". Forbes. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  3. ↑ Erica Andrews (11 September 2013). "Surfing and Salvation". Caring Magazine. Retrieved 10 August 2016.
  4. 1 2 Ann Wycoff (28 February 2011). "Aaron Chang Illuminated". San Diego Magazine. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  5. ↑ Dennis McLellan (12 October 2015). "Larry 'Flame' Moore, 57; Renowned Surf Photographer 'Defined a Whole Genre'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 Hinman, Wendy (May/June 2016). "Seize the Light". Carlsbad Magazine. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
  7. ↑ Louis Shook (23 May 2016). "Appreciating the Gift of Life". Carlsbad Lifestyle. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
  8. ↑ Almond, Elliot (April 2009). "Surfing: Mastering Waves from Basic to Intermediate". The Mountaineers Books. pp 174.
  9. 1 2 Matt Warshaw (16 October 1994). "A Greater Power : His talent may be matched only by his ego. But Aaron Chang still bows to the ocean that made him a star among photographers.". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  10. ↑ A Day in the life of America pp. 71, 252, 263 by Rick Smolan, David Cohen, Leslie Smolan – 1985
  11. ↑ Museum Exhibit (31 March 2012 - January 2013). "Aaron Chang: Water Housings and Cameras and Hobie: Shaping a Culture" California Surf Museum. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
  12. ↑ Scofield, Boyd (14 March 2012). "An Evening With Aaron Chang". Transworld Business. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  13. ↑ Museum Exhibit (January - March 2013). "On the Trail of Ansel Adams" San Diego Natural History Museum. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.