Summer '07

Photographer and student Jeff Beard grew up in Texas, with his older brother and parents who live in Fort Worth. Since a very young age, Jeff’s family encouraged him to be an active child. He participated in numerous sports throughout his development. Later, Jeff found independent sports like skating and snowboarding, which he now says, are his outlets that help clear his mind. He claims to have appreciated art since he can remember and Jeff’s initial enjoyment in visual art led him to follow his passion, photography.

Jeff started experimenting with video at age six. By 2001, Beard began pursuing still photography. He says that he fell in love with the idea of documenting life, whether focusing on people, landscapes, objects, or anything else for that matter. He’ll capture anything that catches the eye. Jeff states in my interview, that he prefers film to digital photography due to the craftsmanship required in film’s developing process. Recently, Beard is exploring panoramas.

“I think they look more like people’s peripheral vision,” he says.

Preferring film to digital, Jeff has created an extensive portfolio, which includes a variety of photos. Many of his landscape pictures were captured on his family’s ranch back in Texas. He said, the ranch photos tend to have interesting effects due to the open outdoors, but also the historical feel. His panoramic photos have slowly grown in number. With these, Jeff usually uses his homemade camera, which he created in a class while studying at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His homemade camera contains numerous lenses, which capture a 180-degree view. Lately, Beard’s focus is on people, while incorporating a scene or story with his work.

This particular series started out of personal interest with a goal of documenting his summer, specifically photographing two of his greatest passions, skating and surfing. Jeff’s been an active skater for many years now. He competed in his younger years, but recently just skates for fun. A few years ago, Beard decided to pick up surfing. He claims to have instantly fallen in love with paddling out in the water with his friends. Despite the fact, this wasn’t originally a project directed toward an audience, it’s a series intended to keep the photographed subjects general.

“The pictures are about feeling the action captured rather that who the picture is actually of."

Unexpectedly, a gallery in Savannah, Georgia, gave Jeff the opportunity to put these photographs up in a show. Extremely satisfied with the way everything came out, he accepted the offer. His camera caught over one hundred photos of adventures skating different parks, and surfing a number of breaks along the southern east coast with close friend. On January 4, 2008, Dimensions Gallery displayed these photos from summer 2007. Out of respect for the anonymous theme in Jeff’s series, all the subjects in these photos will remain nameless.



The following day, Jeff and his friend woke up to–at best–some mediocre waves. With nothing else to do, the two of them paddled out to see what they could catch. Nothing seemed very spectacular. In the midst of a perverted statement he took this picture, while of his buddy was laughing while waxing his surfboard.


He took this picture on Jacksonville Beach. The surfer photographed here is a close friend who grew up in a house only two blocks opposite the water. It’s a small wave, two and a half feet at most. With Jeff’s education and experience however, he positioned himself in a place, which illustrates and intensifies what it was like at that moment.


Above, we see another one of Jeff’s friends skating in a pool-style bowl at Kona Skate Park. Passionate for many years now, this skater stands loyal to old school riding, incorporating a surfer’s style into his skating. In this picture he is busting out a backside air out of the bowl.


This is another photo from Jacksonville Beach, Florida. In this one, we see the view this surfer sees everyday when approaching the beach from his families home nearby. Jeff succeeds here in capturing that moment when the dunes open up, presenting the open ocean into vision. The composition stands solid creating significant depth with the green values in the dunes.


Kona Skate Park is one of the most important stops while traveling throughout the summer, and in this picture Beard caught one skater in the middle of a power-slide on a ramp in the park. Jeff keeps the photo general embracing the blurry qualities. The wheels provide an intense effect of action, intensifying the motion made while the picture was taken.


Here is another photograph from Kona. This picture captures another skater hitting up “snake run.” The photo above, successfully illustrates the traditional slalom skate terrain offered at Kona Skate Park. Also, it emphasizes the fast speed one reaches while shooting down the run. It shows us not who occupies the picture, but once again, motions the skater made while it was snapped.


This last picture captures that moment in which one pops up as they’re catching a wave. It provides yet another example of Jeff’s fearless approach when taking a photograph. His camera not only submerged under water when this wave came over him, but Beard’s entire body got covered in water all the way up to his wrists while capturing this image. Fortunately, everything came out all right considering the camera isn’t waterproof. Immediately after, Jeff ran out of the water to check if his camera was O.K. In fact, this photo was the first picture to sell during the exhibition at Dimensions gallery.

Beard claims, Harold Edgerton is the first photographer who really inspired him, because of his high-speed photos. Specifically it was Edgerton’s pictures focusing on bullets, and drops of milk as subjects. Additionally, Jeff mentioned Craig Stevens in the interview, as another inspirational figure regarding his own work. He claims, Professor Stevens–a teacher of Jeff’s while attending Savannah College of Art and Design–and his encouragement to pursue panoramic work proved beneficial.

When asked the question, “What do you look for when preparing to take a picture?” Jeff replies: ”Composition is key, I’ll usually go out of my way and risk hurting myself and/or damaging equipment to get the right shot, but when I’m editing it is all about finding a fluent aesthetic.”

His skating and surfing experience certainly helped inspire and better this series. And Jeff’s time living in a house with two other skaters with no cable provided a large amount of surf and skate magazines to research. His education certainly benefited his ability composing such balanced photographs. But, it’s the theme in this series, which makes it impressive artwork. While he’ll always have the option of looking back at these photos later and reminiscing over the great summer he once had, he is more importantly providing the rest of us with stunning artwork. These pictures are a form of art that the rest of us can universally appreciate and enjoy. And, most of that’s due to the impersonal approach Jeff Beard took while photographing his friends doing what they love most.