Editor’s Note: The following piece first appeared on FvF.
Cross paths with Dylan Gordon in his home city of Ventura and chances are that you’re lucky you’ve managed to find him there.
Dylan is best known for his photography that centers around surfing, skating, and motorcycles. At any given time, he could as easily be found at an art show in Japan, biking across the Himalayas, or piled among friends in the van he’s used for impromptu getaways for years, driving up and down the coast in search of the unfamiliar. “I’m gone 70 to 80 percent of the year,” said Dylan. “In two days, I could fly to Nepal. I don’t ever really know.”
The community he’s found after six years in Ventura helps obscure the line between work and play. “It’s about surrounding yourself with people who inspire you. Fortunately, here in Ventura, we’re surrounded by such amazing, talented surfers, photographers, filmmakers—it’s all here. We have created a very unique community of like-minded people. We all want to live, surf, and adventure—that’s why we stay here and that’s why we have this cohesive bond. There’s no ego and no competition. Everyone’s just here because we love to do what we do.”
FvF has always been drawn to the California lifestyle, shaped by the energetic coastline and endless summer days. Together with Visit California, they’re proud to follow the creative community who has settled in the Golden State, with natural wonders right at their doorstep.
Further fostering a sense of togetherness, Dylan regularly opens his studio—a converted mechanic’s warehouse—to his peers, transforming the space as needed to a gallery and burgeoning hub for the area’s growing art crowd. “It’s not a big space, but there’s such a need for this in our town,” he says.
Back in his studio, Dylan selects some recent photographic prints—work that he perceives to be an extension of his main creative passions—namely surfing, skating, and exploring. His goal is always to spark conversation with engaging photography that’s far from throwaway. Even his Instagram tagline is “Let’s tell a story worth remembering…” And shooting on Polaroid is one aspect of this everlasting approach. “What’s fun about doing the whole Polaroid thing is that not only do you have a tangible positive that you can give to the family you just shot, but you also have a negative that you can either enlarge…and it gives it another life—for me, it’s a fun, artistic outlet.”
