If you’ve spent any time at all looking at photographs of people surfing, chances are good that you’ve laid eyes on some of Morgan Maassen’s work. He’s one of the best in a very competitive business, and for one simple reason: the images he takes are absolutely consistently incredible. Of course, most of his work is done either in the ocean or close to it, and as it turns out, love for the ocean is a family tradition.
In his latest short flick, entitled The Urchin Hunter, Maassen focuses his lens on his dad, a sea urchin harvester. “For over three decades my father has been harvesting sea urchins from the Santa Barbara Channel Islands,” he wrote. “A day in his life can consist of anything as dramatic as dodging sharks and navigating foul weather, but when the elements align he can slip in and out of the sea effortlessly, gathering his bounty of the delicious shellfish. While this is a job cut out for for a select few of hardened men, he wouldn’t trade it for anything, as he considers it the ultimate office.”
