NICK LAVECCHIA

Yes, it's true, Nick spent his childhood years growing up in North Jersey. After a stultifying stint in a graphic design shop in Vermont, he threw over his cubicle for a carriage house on a sea cliff in York, Maine. It's from there that Nick travels the world photographing the unique people and places that are the focus of his interest. Nick's work gives a true sensation of being there and feeling it with immediacy. His work has been published in publications including National Geographic Adventure, Surfer Mag, Surfer's Journal, Transworld Surf, Stab Mag, and Monster Children. If his photographic work isn't enough, Nick also currently runs the website Get In the Van with a couple close friends.  For more of Nick, head on over to his DOT COM, his blog, and getinthevan.com for endless content and entertainment.

Interview by Keegan Fong

K - I'm quite jealous of your life in Maine from what I see in your photos. What's your daily life like living on the coast of Maine?

N - It's a nice life here in Maine, especially in the offseason. Today….wake up, make coffee, walk across the street to check the surf, flat, walk Charlie down to the beach, work on Grain Surfboard photos, emails, more photo editing and emailing.  When there's surf…the daily life goes to shooting and surfing from sun up to sun down.

K - You used to work in graphic design, how did you change your focus to photography?

N - Throughout the years I put in doing graphics for Burton Snowboards I would save up all my vacation time and take one big trip a year. I would leave for a month with a bunch of film, my camera and my passport.  These trips helped me focus on what I really wanted to be doing. It guess it was time for a change.

K - What are your favorite subjects to shoot?

N - I enjoy shooting a variety of subjects. People, landscapes, the ocean….Lately I'm really enjoying shooting people while they are working in their craft. It's really satisfying to capture someone who is truly engaged in what they are doing, especially if they really love it. Similar to my favorite subjects, I find a lot of inspiration in people who are living and doing what they love. I know it's cliché. But it really shows in their work, as well as the images that are captured of them doing it. Showing a sense of place and a real feeling in an image will always be what inspires me to keep shooting. I do have a thing for shooting bare trees in the wintertime too.

K - You have a website called getinthevan.com...tell us a little about that and how it got started.

N - Brian Nevins and Joe Carter are both close friends who live near by.  The three of us seem to share the same mentality when it comes to living and enjoying life. We spend a lot of time together and when there's too much creativity in one room it has to get channeled somewhere. We'd collectively done so many trips together and on our own, that never saw the light of day in print or online.  Even when those words or photos did get published by some other creative outlet, they never told the whole story of how things really went down.  That gets frustrating as an artist, hence Get in the Van. It's our place to spill creativity all over the web without any other distractions.  It's free for anyone to take in at anytime.

K - What is it about the ocean that draws  you in?

N - There's so much to it.  Breaking waves are mesmerizing to stare at for hours.  But I think it's also all the different faces it can put on. Living in the Northeast we seem to see it all. Kinda warm and glassy, barreling, empty and cold victory at sea, tiny waves frozen solid along the shore.  All this stuff is constantly tugging on me, my camera and my boards.

K - Do you have a hefty camera collection or do you prefer to keep it simple?

N - I guess the collection of tools is growing slightly. It's addicting. I prefer to shoot with my Polaroids, a Hasselblad and this new Fuji x100.

K - Are you sad to hear the collapse of Kodak under the crushing convenience of digital photography?

N - Lame. Currently stocking up on all kinds of film.

K - Anything else you'd like to say to the world?

N - Hi world. Thanks for looking.