ABOUT
As a Los Angeles native I spent much of my youth living the typical Southern California lifestyle-near the water. The South Bay was my playground and if I wasn’t on the beach I was usually racing sailboats on the Santa Monica Bay and beyond.
My love for the sea and music was followed by my passion for sailing and photography. Though encouraged by my Jazz musician father to pursue music, my desire to pr
oduce interesting photographs was unyielding. Sailing and seascape photography were a natural progression since I seldom traveled anywhere without my camera and was always on a sailboat.
One evening while I was still in high school, my favorite band The Rolling Stones were performing for one night only at the Hollywood Palladium. I borrowed my Dad’s Chevy Bel Air and a few dollars from my mom so I could buy 3 rolls of Tri-X film and headed up to Hollywood. It was quite a scene in the Palladium and I had to fight my way to the front edge of the stage to get an unobstructed camera angle. I processed the film when I got home that night and by morning I had printed some stunning 11 x 14s that I was very excited about. My passion for photography had just shot up a notch.
You’ll be able to view some of these early images on the Classic Rock page. Besides Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, there are some photos of a few other bands such as The Faces, Dave Mason, J.Geils, Robert Palmer, Alice Cooper, Marc Bolin, Papa John Creach and Ian Hunter.
A few years later I photographed the start of the 2225 mile Los Angeles to Honolulu Yacht Race from the air and followed the fleet as they were rounding the west end of Catalina Island. Then I flew to Hawaii ten days later to photograph some of the finishers from the air. Some of these images are included in this site as well.
Somewhere along the way I developed an interest for portrait and fashion photography. I’m sure that I was influenced by the images I admired as a kid that I found in the magazines on the family coffee table - Life, Look, Vogue, The Los Angeles Times. Later I also enjoyed the pictures I would find in Bazaar, Interview, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. Inspiration also came from legendary lensmen such as Richard Avedon, Guy Bourdin, Hiro, Irving Penn, and Edward Weston among many others.
The Travel page shows images of Mexico from the many excursions to that wonderful country either by land or sea. The Yachting page includes images that were mostly shot while racing or cruising within the geographic triangle of San Francisco, Hawaii, and Manzanillo, Mexico.
Gene Prizer
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Gene currently resides in Huntington Beach, California where he enjoys sailing and raising his young son Jack.
All images are ©PrizerPhoto 2009 All Rights Reserved.