Thursday, October 2, 2014

Interview - Photographer Dylan Wynne

Dylan as shot by L. Holt. 
I want to start of with Skateboarding. Most skateboarders that do photography that I know are heavily influenced by skate photographers. Would you say that the same was true with you when you started shooting photos, or were other types of photographers more influential to you?

Well the first skate photo I'd ever seen was an Atiba photo (Atiba Jefferson) so that's the obvious answer. But I've been influenced by numerous photographers around Jax, such as Logan Rigby and Eric Staniford. But as far as them making me want to start taking photos I would say not so much. I honestly started taking photos cause me and the homies never had anyone to take photos/videos, so that's how all of this came to play, but once I picked up my camera and took that first photo I fell in love.

Your nighttime photography is great. I saw that they used some of your photos on the display at Everbank field, how did it feel to have your photos shown in such a dramatic way?  

Aw, man-seeing my photos up on that mega screen was such a blessing. It was an indescribable feeling. I won an @Igersjax contest on Instagram. That's how that came into play! I won regular tickets to the game plus the cabana tickets which where reallllllllly nice on top of 2 of my pictures making up on the screen at halftime. So, shouts out to Stephen Stears for that.

Tell me about some of your favorite photographers and why they are your favorites. 

Well as far as skating wise, my favorite photographer would be Chris Jolly. Hes also one of the guys in Jax that I grew up admiring. Whether it was skating, videos or skating pics he kills it all around. As far as landscape and everything that goes with that, my favorite photographer would have to be my buddy Lee Holt with Holt Media Productions. I met Lee a while back when I was still a buster to the photo world and he showed me basically everything I know about my camera. I'm thankful these dudes always looking out and helping me in any way they can.

Let's talk about Skateboarding. So you come from a small town outside of Jacksonville. Are you still living out there? What was skateboarding like out there?

I'm from a little town outside the city called Baldwin. Yes, I still live out here in the boonies, its quiet and peaceful but so far from anything. I'm 20 miles from downtown and 40 from the beach. So I have a love/hate relationship for it.


Does the skatepark out there still exist?

When I was in school they built a small prefab park (Baldwin Rails and Trails) that had a lot of the skaters at school pretty hyped. It did pretty good for about 2 years, then everybody kinda fell off. The park is still there but only a few of us locals still hit it up. Sad, but at least its never packed out.

If you could go anywhere to shoot photos and to skate, what would be your first 3 choices of places to visit?

Hmmm-that's a hard one. Well I would definitely love to go to Africa to shoot all the wildlife-lions zebras and such. Skating-wise, I'd love to go to Japan simply because every video I've ever seen from there, skating-wise and landscape-wise, I've seen some of the dopest spots ever. Then the last spot I'd want to go to for both skating and photos would be Italy. The cityscapes there are so mind blowing to me, not to mention the food and culture. I've seen some pretty dope videos of spots there that look amazing.

Okay, say you had an unlimited camera gear budget. What would you put in your camera bag?

Oh man its like that? First off I'm a Canon man so I'd definitely have a Canon 5D Mark III body. The Canon 8-15mm Fisheye/wide angle. I'd have the canon 70-200mm for Portraits and the 24-105 for landscape/cityscapes. Plus a number of Canon high-speed sync flashes. I could go on and on for days about more stuff, but those would be the main ones I would use!






Do you have any projects or big plans in the works? Any clues for the readers on what to expect from you in the near future?

I don't really have any projects in the works. I'm going down to Miami next weekend so hopefully I'll be able to get a bunch of dope photos, landscape and skating-wise! You can look forward to me just staying consistent with photography and keep flooding your feeds with sick photos. Photography is what I think I'm meant to do, so God willing I'll be doing it for a long time.

Can't thank you enough for your time and patience here. Lastly - You've already mentioned people that have helped you out in getting to where you are now with photography. Any more shout-outs, hellos, or last comments or Oscar style speeches?

Yeah man, like I said before: I owe the world to my buddies Grosser and Lee. They basically showed me how my camera worked. I forgot a person who I grew up looking up to, Trevor Stevens. That guy always had the sickest photos out of Jax in my opinion. He's the homie and such a sick dude all around. Definitely gotta give you a big shout out for doing this whole interview Norm, thanks for always getting hyped on my stuff. Crazy how time flies. I remember meeting you at a Kona contest years ago and being hyped on your stuff. You had Jax on your back, back in the day with busstopmag.com. Glad we got to do this brotha! Thanks to anyone who helps and supports me. One love!