A Tale of Two Covers
When it comes to cannabis photography there isn’t really a pinnacle achievement. There isn’t an award like an Oscar or Emmy, sure we have the Emerald Cup photo contest but no one really ever knows who the winner is each year. Since “cannabis photographer” is somewhat of a new full time career notoriety usually comes from social media and followers, but that doesn’t always paint a great picture of someones work or success because of the shadow ban on our specific community. So aside from the reward of making a living shooting content for brands what kind of accolades are out there for this niche career? What can a cannabis photographer accomplish that someone outside the industry would understand? It has to be something mainstream, a household name, something that has been synonymous with cannabis for decades. Perhaps the publication that has been the center of this counterculture far before social media. The publication where cannabis connoisseurs could learn about the plant and culture they loved, you’ve most likely heard of it, High Times Magazine.
Finding my niche back in 2014, having a magazine cover never crossed my mind. I was too worried about finding and creating a new career after skateboarding. Helping people build their brands with my content was how I could be a source of value, all of which was happening on a new app called Instagram. This was a special time, pre-recreational legalization in California, the Wild West and a golden era often talked about in our community. Back when the High Times Cannabis Cups and events like Chalice were places everyone met in real life to build for legalization looming in the near future. What a beautiful era to cut my teeth and start sewing a flag that we would eventually plant as Highrise Agency in January of 2018. After launching the agency with our already existing online presence, I created content for hundreds of brands as we started throwing events. This was a perfect storm providing real life safe spaces for our virtual friends to meet up, consume and network, eventually leading to our historic tenure in Beverly Hills. Smoking out our mansion in the hills with events almost 200 times we built an amazing community. One of the amazing stoners we build a friendship with over the years in the hills was the VP of Content at High Times Magazine, Jon Cappetta. Over dozens of events we built an organic friendship over joints rolled in the OG zig zag papers and conversations hitting every topic you could imagine. I quickly found out Jon was one of the few people I would let talk my head off for 45 minutes at our events in the hills. His wealth of knowledge and New York swagger was perfect to sit back and listen to when I was 9 blunts and 4 dabs deep. Towards the end of our lease and countless times of Jon telling me to let him know if I ever wanted to contribute to the mag, Jon and the boys came up with a plan. They schemed on throwing some of my photos in the magazine. I don’t know how it escalated but it got leaked to me they were going to use one of my images for a cover photo. I immediately went into action stressing out about what photo it was, do they even have access to the print size image??? I got on the phone, hit up Jon and he put me in touch with the High Times editors, who basically said, this is going to be the science issue, if you got any ideas run it up. After some light brainstorming and a 7 day deadline I hit up Avery from Fresh Baked to see if I could barge their cultivation to shoot some photos. Meanwhile I was running around looking for somewhere to buy beakers in LA or OC, they were surprisingly a pain in the ass to track down. With beakers in hand I was pulling up to the Long Beach facility with Steven Fish to help me bring this idea to life. If you’ve never been in a cannabis grow, it’s magical. It’s even more of a pleasure getting to pluck whatever plant you want to use as your model for the day. Fish and I set up our mobile studio, got the shots and I head home to get the images touched up and sent over as soon as possible. A few emails back a forth to see the mock ups and the mag was off to print. A few weeks later I had October issue in hand wishing my pops was still around to see my accomplishment.
Having a cover of the biggest name and publication in my industry was a something I’ll forever be proud of. More than anything I wish I could have handed my father a copy. My dad was a career commercial photographer and more than having shot the cover, sharing that moment with him would have been the pinnacle of my photography career thus far. Being in that $10 million mansion in the hills holding that magazine I could have felt like I was on the top of the world, but really I just wish my dad could see my work, I wish I could thank him for being a great dad and raising me in his photography studio. Even though I wanted to be a pro skater not a photographer, somethings were just meant to be.
As a skater we celebrate “NBDs” tricks that have never been done before. Having shot the cover of High Times and been on the cover of a skate magazine is definitely an NBD. This puts me in a small category of skaters who have graced a cover in front of and behind the lens. As a former “professional athlete”, a term I use loosely, it’s a common struggle to find your next career. When you’re a black belt in something for so long it’s tough to go back to being a white belt. Swallowing my pride, starting from the bottom, shooting in a taboo industry for almost a decade to have my work featured on the cover of the biggest magazine in the industry is a testament to a mantra I’ve used for 20 years now, “Passion, patience, perserverance”. These two covers are more than just a tangible accomplishment, its 3 decades of hardwork. When I hold or see them, its a reminder to keep your head down, eat the shit, work your ass off and maybe, just maybe if you’re lucky, the world will bless you with something to remind you of your journey. I’m just a lucky guy who never quit.
