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Matinee: 'Freezing Time' With Mark McInnis
28 January 2017
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 172nd in our series of Saturday matinees today: Freezing Time with Mark McInnis.
Matt Kleiner's Freezing Time paints a profile of his friend Mark McInnis in just five minutes. But it's no cartoon.
McInnis, who was born and raised in Oregon, studied journalism at the University of Oregon. He now works out of the Pacific Northwest where he has built a long list of clients including Clif Bar, Pendleton, Red Bull, Hurley and O'Neill, among many others. His work has also appeared in a number of publications.
But Oregon wasn't the only place he knew growing up. He spent some time with his biological father in Hawaii, too, where he developed a love of surfing.
It all goes back to his mom, he says, 'picking the two raddist men on earth to raise me.'
In fact, the clip begins with his observation that photography has taken him all over the world. "I owe almost every unique and memorable experience over the last ten years to my camera," he says.
"Surfing is my biggest passion," he says but admits that wasn't always the case. Despite his visits to Maui, he didn't surf until he was 15 and it took him another five years "to really fall in love with it."
If you listen between the words, though, you may pick up on McInnis' affinity for nature in general, not just the ocean. There are some gorgeous landscapes accompanying his remarks that make exactly that point.
We wish this short movie would have lingered a bit longer on some of the stills. There is, for example, a breaking wave framed by snow-covered trees that you barely recognize before it's wiped away. Sometimes we think there ought to be a three second rule for stills with an instant replay option on the toolbar.
In 2004, McInnis' father was attacked by a tiger shark while he was surfing in Maui and didn't survive. To honor his memory, McInnis decided to surf the world.
"It's all kind of crazy," McInnis reflects. It all goes back to his mom, he says, "picking the two raddist men on earth to raise me."
There was his biological father who gave him his love of adventure and appreciation for the natural world and then there was his second father, who has raised him since he was two, gave him his first camera and showed him a work ethic that helped him succeed in his career.
Putting two disparate things together is an art in itself. But McInnis has profited from doing just that. And it has taken him around the world, too.