No offense to Mikala Jones, but this is the worst photo I’ve ever taken in my life.
Mikala is a great guy. And I probably should have listened to his the subtle complaints he made and shot this differently.

First I had his sunglasses off, but the gold reflector was shining his eyes so bad that he couldn’t keep his eyes open. So I told him to put his sunglasses on.

“Yeah, that looks good…” I kept saying.

Really? Fucking sunglasses?

Standing awkwardly on the top of some restaurant in the middle of Marrakesh? Golden reflector sticking out like a sore thumb? Yeah, Nate, looks good…

Luckily this photo has been in the hard drive vault for over 7 years and is only now showing itself to the online world. But I’m glad I shot this photo. It was fun experimenting in a foreign land and trying something new. But it’s super important to constantly look at your body of work and find out what you like and what you don’t like. The sooner you realize that it looks horrible when you ask 3 surfers to go walk over a hill with their surfboards, the better off you’ll be. —Nate Lawrence