Happy Holidays 2005

Pygmy Seahorse, Raja Empat Indonesia

(c) 2005 Jason Heller & Underwaterphotos.net

Exactly one year ago - Thailand

Exactly one year ago, Wendy and I were in Thailand scuba diving the uninhabitted Similan Islands when the now infamous Boxing Day Tsunami sped past us and proceeded to devestate the entire Indian Ocean region, including the coast of Thailand and its outlaying Similan islands. Were it not for our location in the open ocean, we may not be here to recount the events that changed our lives forever.

We did not however "survive" the Tsunami, we merely experienced it. The poor souls hanging bleeding in trees for hours before being rescued survived the Tsunami. The children who were left with no families, or families left with no children, the hundreds of thousands of fishermen, farmers and others who relied on the world around them for sustinence and had to rebuild their lives from nothing - they all survived the Tsunami.

Experiencing the Tsunami was humbling nonetheless. I received an assignment from Asian Geographic Magazine to cover the aftermath in Thailand. The devestation caused by the force of the waves still to this day is unfathomable to me, even after seeing it with my own eyes. Events like these really make you think about the things that matter in life.

Thailand will forever hold a special place in our hearts.

A year later, I understand that Phuket is back in business, although Kaoh Lak, hit hardest by the Tsunami, is still struggling. So much foreign aid and investment flowed in to help restore the economy of some of the hard hit tourist areas. The Phuket and Kaoh Lak region represents roughly 4% of the GDP of Thailand, therefore it was a necessary investment to make in restoring the island and surrounding area as quickly as possible. The coral reefs are in good shape, with some exception of the shallow reefs that felt the full brutal force sweeping past them. The reef life is very resilient and is just as prolific today as it was a year ago. I look forward to going back to do some diving and to visit some friends soon!

Here are links to the archives of my original recounts of the events of Dec 26, 2004.

7 Underwater Photo Competitions

There are 7 underwater photo competitions with deadlines on December 31st.

You can find information on the contests on DivePhotoGuide.com, here.

I've been so busy lately covering news about underwater photography, photographers, and photo and video competitions at the sacrifice of remembering to enter any lately myself! So I'm going to enter a few images this year into a few of the larger competitions.

Unfortunately I had to cancel my trip to Indonesia scheduled for this month in order to cover the workload at my agency, but I will make a short trip to the Caribbean sometime in January. Not sure where yet. I also will be in Sipadan, Malaysia in April. I miss the peace and serenity of the ocean and it's beautiful reefs.

NYC Transit Strike 2005

So today, 30,000+ transit workers went on strike and put the city into a snail's pace. Trains and buses aren't running, there are 3 - 4 hours lines for the Long Island railroad and cabs are taking on multiple passengers at $10 a pop flat rate. Drives that before the strike took 15 minutes, now takes 2 hours. you need 4 passengers to drive into Mnahattan and people are riding with strangers just to get to work. And it's freezing outside! I feel bad for everyone who doesn't have the luxury of working from home. To think about the children who missed school and parents who missed work because of this. People are going to lose thier jobs. The city is going to lose millions of dollars for each day of this strike. I understand where these guys are coming from, but I think that the unions are taking advantage of the situation and using their members as pawns in a game. Their must be 30,000+ in NYC dying for these jobs. Does the average working person support their stance? OR would they take these jobs in a heart beat? I understand the hipocracy of the MTA having a cash surplus and not willing to offer decent compensation increases. I underatand the purpose of unions, but to what extent is what is going on just? When it impacts the entire city, the trade off makes the means to an end entirely out of hand.


Wendy had oral surgery yesterday and thankfully is home resting while the chaos is going on out in the streets. She had a widon tooth extraced from the bone in her jaw - OUCH! We missed the strike by a day, and therefore were able to move her around town from the oral surgeon's office back home, without any delays. The same trip would have required an extra hour or so today. Hopefully she'll recover this week in time to enjoy Christmas.

DivePhotoGuide.com is growing!

Our website is growing! We are now close to 100,000 page views per month and have over 1,500 registered members and over 4,000 dive operators, resorts, and live aboards. We are quickly becoming a staple resource for underwater photographers and videographers. Our calendars offer centralized information on all of the international photo and video competitions in the world, and our photo galleries showcase some of the best underwater photographers on the planet!

We will be launching our RSS feeds this month. We will offer feeds of both our news headlines as well as our competition calendars. Our network of partners is growing and we are looking forward to the launch of the DPG Directory *hopefully* in Q1 2006!

A Demanding World, Technology and Hamster Wheels

Did you ever have one of those days? Well this last few weeks has been like that for me. We live in such demanding times. There are very few human beings in the big business world. They are mainly drones I tell you. Programmed to live life with the perception of serving oneself, when really serving others. I have the good fortune of working with some select few minds that shine above the rest. The one common element is sense of self. Whether working on a team or alone, the sense of self helps to keep passion and pride burining strong. Thus giving you the power to overcome all obstables and hurdles, to develop solutions for every problem. There's a lot going against us, particularly in America, where our programming is deeply embedded in our minds. It trickles down from the top - the top of society, the heads of companies and the heads of families - to slowly affect everybody (shit always flows downstream). Do we do it to ourselves? Sort of. I am what we in marketing call an "early adopter", or as my friends call me, a gadget freak. However, technology is a double edged sword. We continue to develop technology to make our lives more productive and more efficient, but all we are doing is making ourselves drones to our own tools and technologies. Are we more productive and efficient? Yes. But at the sacrifice of actually living our lives for the fallacy of always evolving to live life "on the edge". One must be careful, or end up running twice as fast in the hamster wheel and getting half as far as you used to. We must all challenge ourselves to strive to be the best we can, personally and professionally... But it must be in that order.

Saturday in New York

We decided that we had to have the world's best Pastrami sandwich this weekend, so we headed over to Katz's deli, where else....I remember going to Katz's when I was a kid with my father. It was always a special occasion. I guess if you eat at Katz's regularly, you'd most likely die of a herart attack from the grease. But it would be worth it! Now, I can help share that same special feeling of the best Pastrami in on the planet, with my new wife and relatively new New Yorker, Wendy. She isn't new to Katz's anymore, but I guess it sometimes takes someone who didn' have their entire life to take something for granted, to help you remember just how good it is. If you've never had a Pastrami sandwich from Katz's, you're missing out!

Launch of new Horizon Interactive Website

Today we launched the new website for Horizon Interactive, approximately 6 months after Mass Transit Interactive was acquired.

As consumers become more inclined to consume content over digital channels, the marketing world has been shaken up, and will continue to be, violently. I have been very keen on following consumer trends and helping my clients stay one step ahead of the curve by helping them to connect with consumers in a manner in which is embraced as opposed to forced. We live in the age where we the consumers have the power to cosume media where and when we want, the days of programmed and static content are over. Digital media has helped us share, learn and transact in ways we never have before as a society, and the comapnies who take it head on will have an edge over those with mere toes in the water.

Ok - enough marketing for today. Check out the new Horizon Interactive website.

Snowboard Season is Here!

I know - my passions in life are in conflict...Diving the tropical waters of remote islands and snowboarding the vast (and often cold) mountains of the west coast. When someone develops that first indoor snowboard park on a tropical island, you'll know where you can find me!

The last few seasons I have bearly been riding, but this year, I think I'm going to make it back out on the slopes of Lake Tahoe (and even some east coast icy riding in Vermont) instead of cruising the reefs of Indonesia. It's a tough decision, but I need to get some snowboarding in, it completes me (hardcore snowboarders and skiers will understand).

This is a photo of me on top of Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe about 5 years ago - that's the last time I was there, and now my inspiration to get my ass back there before the year is out!

Reggaeton Mania in New York

Last night we went to see some of the top Reggaeton artists perform in Madison Square Garden. Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Ivy Queen, Tego Calderon, Hector El Father, Wisin y Yandel, Angel y Khriz, Alexis y Fido all ripped it up Thanksgiving night in NYC.

Unfortunately we had to skip out on Thanksgiving with familiy, but we'll make up for it. I've never been a big fan of holiday celebrations. Why are certain days so extraordinarily more important than others? There is something to celebrate each and every day we wake up and walk this beautiful earth. I can apreciate memorizlizing events or people with holidays, but doesn't that to an extent de-emphasize making every day special? Anyway, I digress...

I have some short video clips of Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Ivy Queen and others from the concert, but I haven't uploaded them yet. I will update this post when I do.

Dreaming of Diving

It just dawned on me today that I haven't been diving since Raja Empat Indonesia in June. The photo to the right is one of the last I shot while in Indonesia, while absorbing my last minutes of remote natural beauty.

The only plans I have to go diving are in April, after presenting at ADEX in Singapore. I'm heading to Sipadan, Malaysia. But I need to get away sooner than that! Hopefully I'll take a quick dash down to the Bahamas or the Caymans, which I have yet to shoot since switching from film to digital cameras.

Either way, I'm inspired to get in the water soon. It has been hard this year becuase I'm focused on my career. Unfortunately I have a business that does not run itself. Although, as any dedicated underwater photographer, it is simply how I spend my time between dive trips.

Dreaming of diving...

Insomnia

I seem to always notice the time at about 2AM. I have been sleeping very little lately because I have been working too hard. Hopefully I'll have some time to rest soon. No rest for the weary I tell ya!

I started planning a trip today to go diving in Malaysia today after spoeaking at the Asian Dive Expo in Singapore in April. I should be able to come back with some amazing underwater photos. Stay tuned...

Even Brooklyn Can Be Beautiful

Image of the day, a Brooklyn Sunset.

I don't often have the opportunity to take pictures of New York, one of the more interesting places in the world, and of course my backyard.

The other day I was walking to the bank at the perfect time when the sun's light was being broken into its various color spectrums, and thankfully I had my camera with me.

Shark Fin Soup, Media and Society

I was recently at a friends wedding, a Chinese wedding in New York, where they served Shark Fin soup. It is amazing to me that we as humans have such a drive for status, that we would both torture animals and destroy the environment that we need to sustain our very lives, for the perception of status or to carry out old and outdated traditions. The shark fins in that bowl of soup were cut off of a live shark that was then thrown back in the ocean to die a slow and painful death. And we as a society are so blind to it because CNN would rather report about the war in Iraq and trivialities of celebrities' lives, rather than help the world. Helping the world just doesn't get ratings, and without ratings, the media become less attractive to advertisers, and without a large revenue stream from advertisers, the media can not afford its infrastructure to cover the ongoing demand for global breaking news. Ultimately advertisers just want to reach as many people as possible with their messaging. Therefore, the fact that educational and important environmental news is only marginally covered by the major media is more of a statement of our society, than of the media itself.

Anyway, it's a sad state of the world that we live in. This is why I travel as often as I do. I want to see the world before we destroy more of it. For years now, scientists have been claiming that coral reefs may not be here for our grandchildren to see. Some species of sharks and turtles may end up being so rare that they become mystical sea creatures of the "good old days". We as a society can prevent this. Through simply being concious about it....but on a whole, as a global society, we are not. So it will be the bold and noble gestures of the few to educate and save the rest of the world that may be our saving grace.

Guatemala Wedding

Guatemala has become a special place to me.

Our wedding down there was such a memorable time, one of the most memorable and meaningful I will ever remember, for many reasons. Obviously, first - I married the love of my life, the most beautiful and special woman I could have ever imagines. Second - Some of my closest friends and family were all together on an adventure in Central America for my wedding. I finally got everybody to see some more of the world. It's therapy I tell you! And I now have a large extended family in Guatemala. It's really a beautiful place.

Here are the photos:
http://guatemalawedding.shutterfly.com

Underwater Photo Competition

Together with Eric Cheng from Wetpixel.com, the team at DivePhotoGuide.com has organized the first instance of an annual international underwater photo competition.

Details can be found here: www.divephotoguide.com/contest06

Imagery

Photography has been an insipration to me over the last few years.

I have been insipired by the amazing images I have seen of the colors, shapes, patterns and textures of the natural wonders around us, above us and below us.

I started a site, in part to showcase some of the best underwater imagery from some of the top profesional underwater photographers in the world. I hope that everyone can enjoy it as much as I do. http://www.divephotoguide.com/

Random Shot...

I was looking through some photos while organizing my computer and found this image I took with my crappy camera on my cell phone. As I woke up halfway through one of my earlier 30 hour flights to Indonesia, I realized that we were flying right over the middle of Afghanistan. Mind you, this was during a time when there was still some conflict. So there we were, halfway between Kabul and Gandahar - two names made infamous by CNN and every other media outlet in the world. It's amazing to have thought of what was going on 40,000 feet below me.

Life is an adventure...

Welcome to My Blog

So I finally decided to start my own blog. Now I can spew my opnions and thoughts about all sorts of things from scuba diving to photography to media to economics to the universe to love to life and more...

Stay tuned as I find the time to post. The adventure begins...