In 2019, I was helping a friend with his pool service business when a friendly customer struck up a conversation. As we chatted, I mentioned I was born in East LA. She asked if I surfed, and I laughed, admitting I’d tried a few times but never quite got the hang of it. I told her I actually became a professional BMX motocross racer instead.

From that point on, every time I showed up to service her pool, she’d ask if I’d been out surfing lately. I’d gently steer the conversation elsewhere, but somehow, surfing always came up again. Later, I told my wife, Elyse, about it and said, “It’s like she thinks I’m some… some misplaced surfer!”

I immediately turned to Elyse and said, “Write that down—I want to do something with that name.” A few months later, we launched our own pool cleaning business: Misplaced Surfer Pool Cleaning. It took off quickly and became a local success. We ran it together until the summer of 2024.

If you've read my bio, you know that in 2019 I also started getting into fashion runway photography, and little by little, I was building both my craft and my client base. Eventually, we realized it was time to pivot—from pools to photography.

I loved the name Misplaced Surfer so much, we brought it along for the ride into our next chapter. And here we are.