Stories By Dalton

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Stories By Dalton

Photographer, filmmaker, and author specialized in telling untold adventure stories from around the globe

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06/08/2026

Calling a creative act a career has always felt, well, like a lie.

The "career" of photography fell onto my lap as I was a failing to become a writer. I couldn't break into the writing industry, but, once I added the camera, I started landed writing gig after writing gig. Eventually I was tapped for directing and dp, which now makes up the bulk of my creative work.

A decade in and I'm considered a career "storyteller" in an oversaturated world of performance marketing that feels as though the point has been lost along the way.

Instead of judging the art we create based on our own taste, emotional pull, and development of craft, we judge the value of our creative act by metrics.

🎬 That short film was measured by views rather than the lasting impact it had on the list of viewers

📕 That poetry collection was judged as "good" because it was an Amazon best seller, even though nobody may have made it to poem 32 in the collection of 51

📸 Those images you created only were a success if they helped reach the business KPI of 22% growth next quarter, regardless if the images are hidden behind text and the ad spend was improperly delegated through channels that did not reach the target audience

Is that really a "creative act" if these are the metrics judging success?

Why do we call ourselves creatives if the purpose of what we create is profit?

Doesn't that just make us a salesman dressed as an artist?

From my office, I want to shout, "art over profit" yet I recognize profit is how my creative projects come into existence. Without revenue, there is no plane flight, no adventure, no camera equipment, hell, no laptop to edit the images or voice this internal musing in a digital space.

Needless to say, this is an unfinished thought that I can't escape as I edit images from a three year old project that's been sitting on a hard drive, collecting dust. Not because I haven't wanted to pursue it, but because there is no financial incentive for me to finish it.

Which is a shame and flaw in myself.

I wonder what homeless, 24-year-old-me, who used to say, "I'd rather be homeless the rest of my life, than go to work everyday to own things" would think of me today.

05/08/2026

Two months in Alaska still feels like an insane thing to write.

But, it happened, so pinch me.

After filming a documentary on Denali, I took two months to explore the Kenai Peninsula with Kristin in my self-converted 2019 promaster van. Calling 72 square feet our home, we spent most days exploring the "backyard", for the sake of our relationship!

Sure the van was cramped on rainy days, but that also made for the perfect excuse to edit some photos and videos.

A few highlights from the two months :
~kayaking to a few different glaciers
~getting to go on a "wildlife" cruise and seeing orcas, eagles, puffins, seals, and a massive hunk of ice break free from a glacier
~going in a plane and checking out glacier run off
~staying at stillpoint lodge and helping them with a rebrand
~going for random hikes to lakes and always be nervous that a grizzly bear would be around the corner
~finding a remote cabin in the woods that we got to stay at for a few days

Needless to say, memories were made that will last a lifetime!

27/07/2026

Call it a second home, only I don't own anything.

Cerritos Beach, BCS might be the place I have spent the second most amount of time in my life. With 40+ trips down here (more than half attributed to visiting while growing up), Cerritos has been a place I get to test out and play with a camera.

From water shots in big surf to underwater images while spear fishing to drone work, I always find a way to pull out the gear and attempt to capture something special every time I'm here.

Now, with more than a decade of images from the area, I've started to notice the visual change of the landscape.

When I was eight, the beach was empty.
5 years ago, roughly half the homes and condos (see drone image)
This past year, the beach is filled with businesses and the landscape is dotted with condos

IDK if that is good or bad, I'll let you decide, I'm more realizing I have started to build a visual record of the area. Which I think is pretty cool!

PS if anyone has a few million dollars they want to loan me, I'm down to run the big yellow hotel on the point and run it. Just saying 🙃

PSS if anyone has a home in the area and is looking for artwork, send me a DM I have lots of prints

22/07/2026

The open road has been my teacher for the past decade.

Sitting in the driver's seat, navigating roads across the American West down to Baja and up to Alaska, I'm curious how many hours my rear end has sat behind the wheel.

Birds, bears, empty surf breaks, and mountain tops glowing in golden light all outside the windshield.

At times I have cried and others times laughed out loud.

Hours upon hours of podcasts consumed as though I sat in a lecture hall. Rich Roll, Steven Bartlett, Chase Jarvis, and Tim Ferris often the professors, but there have been guests I will listen to no matter which podcast they appear as they share universal wisdom.

Quite nights, starry nights, and nights the moon shines so bright I can hardly sleep. That is the small price you pay when your home has wheels.

I wish I could say I read many books, but honestly, I just went for hikes, swims, climbs, or surfs.

The road is where I found my voice, slept crooked a few too many nights, rediscovered my curiosity, and settled into a career.

The road is a place nobody can call home, but be gifted the knowledge that home was always to found in myself. Call it cliche, but that's a lesson only loneliness mixed with a lot of boredom can teach you.

Thankfully, that boredom lead me to a few crafts; photography, filmmaking, & writing.

When I moved onto a bicycle almost a decade ago, I never knew where this could go, but looking back the dots make it clear.

PS these images come from a recent 3 month road trip from Tahoe to Cabo and back

17/07/2026

In pursuit of the of the perfect day of adventure photography in Joshua Tree, I called upon on my dirtbag friends.

The year was 2021 and I was in my dirtbag era.

Making only a few hundred dollars a month from spec work from Arc'teryx, Big Agnes, Patagonia, and a few other outdoor brands, my focus was more on creating fun images than making money.

All I cared about at the time was being outside as much as possible and playing on rocks or with my camera. Often both at the same time.

Magazines were dead and the rise Instagram was upon us. Almost everyone around me wanted to be a professional rock climber, so they needed somebody like me, who was hungry, to come out from dusk till dawn snapping photos.

While most of these images are now buried in my archive, I am having fun digging these oldies up and now getting to share them.

Any other photographers at the stage in their career where they are looking back at older images and saying, "dang, that was a fun time and place!"?

16/07/2026

There is an art to coercing talent into waking up early for sunrise photos.

Often, I do it with a massive smile on my face, the promise of coffee, and, if I can, some kind of sweet treat, but that isn't always a given they will bite.

I've found donuts to be unattractive to most, but bear-claws, danishes, or chocolate croissants often do the trick.

So, the next time you are begging somebody to join you for a pre-sunrise photoshoot, bribe them with a little sugar ;-)

Also, if you can't get anyone to come with you, just wake up early and snap landscapes.

Photo 1: some dirtbag friends dancing on the diving board of Glacier Point
Photo 2: sunrise over Baja with a fishing boat heading out
Photo 3: a lobster fisherman loading up pots for the day
Photo 4: perfect barrels from a strong Baja swell
Photo 5: a freak snowstorm in Utah leaving the desert covered in snow
Photo 6: Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay looking stunning
Photo 7: a surfer at Black's Beach in San Diego regretting his take off (PS yes, this is unset)

15/07/2026

As crazy as it sounds, cold is the easiest of all the environments to create within.

Cameras thrive, just keep the batteries warm
Moisture doesn't matter, if it's cold enough

The only thing that holding you back is yourself, most likely.

Photo 1: Bill Bradley on his 11th or 12th attempt at Arrowhead 135
Photo 2: Northern Lights lighting up the sky in Churchill, Manitoba
Photo 3: Walk in a white out on Denali
Photo 4: A look over my shoulder at the Sami reindeer farm in Norway, the northern lights came out to say goodbye

14/07/2026

Stories don't just fall out of the sky, you have to go looking for them.

Road trips, cold calls, chatting with PR, hanging out in local bars, and sitting on public transit are great ways to find stories worth telling.

And, how do I know this?

Well, a little flashback here, but I was on a climbing project in Joshua Tree when the opportunity to tell a story on Denali "fell into my lap". That became an award winning film now on PBS for free. But, that's not the flashback.

After filming on Denali, I took two months to explore the Kenai Peninsula searching for stories and gosh did I find them:
-surfing the bore tide
-conservation stories in the ocean and on land
-hidden cabins lost to woods
-a luxury adventure lodge looking for a rebrand
-water taxi drivers who drive up and ski backcountry lines during the winter

All of these stories (some told and some still waiting to be told) occupy space in my mind because I took the opportunity to slow down and listen to what was around me.

Needless to say, time is the privilege all storytellers need to find something worth investing in.

13/07/2026

When that childhood dream of seeing the world gets the best of me, I end up in places like this.

After filming a documentary on Denali, I stuck around Alaska for two months with my van to explore the Kenia Peninsula to "invest" in my photo career and, of course, selfishly scratch that travel itch.

Attempting to do both of these at the same time feels like a fool's errand in the moment, because you are either working or taking in the beauty, but years later, I can look at this trip and realize the balance between working and playing was done quite well.

Outside of the two assignments I had during those two months in Alaska post Denali, I have been able to build a portfolio of work that has landed me more and more work. Showing that I can be on fishing boats, wet landscapes, and enjoy being miserable for extended periods of time.

But, more than any of that, I flip through these photos and realize this trip is what cemented my relationship with Kristin. Which means more than any job I land. For it was during this trip that we learned to live in 72 square feet together, adventure together, and talk through frustrations together.

If you haven't lived in a tiny space with anyone for a month, or two, I challenge you to give it a try. It's hard!

09/07/2026

Less polished, more honest.

In an effort to regain the love for snapping photos, I dusted off the first camera I ever owned and just said, "leave it on manual, set it to center auto focus, and snap frames to capture the moment as if it was going in a family scrap book."

4th of July was a good time to start this :-)

I'd say all of these images belong in the trash can, but they make me smile.

Grateful for friends and family who like doing things outside!

Captured in snaps:
Hiking in Lake Tahoe to an alpine lake in Desolation Wilderness
Family 4th of July
Friends 4th of July
Fireworks
People being weird

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https://dalton-johnson.com/

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