Necessity is the mother of invention… for the unimaginative. True genius rests in concocting something the world has absolutely no use for. Like the Spruce Goose, Hinduism, opera or Scott Aichner’s 270-degree water camera.
Scott dreamed up his feckless masterpiece one day while pondering the been-there-done-that nature of barrel shots. Everyone was doing fisheye in a closeout. “Yawn yawn, look at the Occ-meister in that cavernous pit yawn yawn.” What if, though, you could actually see the closed out section? Or the all-watching almond eye? Or Andy Irons giving a scowl-faced fuck you finger on the shoulder and the Occ-meister in that cavernous pit? Well that’d be something new and flamboyantly unnecessary.
A typical panoramic camera was not going to cut the mustard. For one, the shutter speed is too damn slow, and for two panoramic sounds French which sounds gay. No, Scott knew he would need two cameras pointing away from each other, both fisheyed and both in the same water housing so they could be fired at the same time. He doodled his thoughts for five years and came to the conclusion. “This is gonna have to have one fucken grade A water-housing.”
Luckily, there’s a man man who builds those, his name Taro Pascual and he lives in Hawai’i’i. So Scott took his two-cameras-in-one-hand-smiling-Occy-scowling-Andy napkin drawing to monsieur Pascual for some dream realization.
Taro pondered and fiddled for a year, finally coming up with a fiberglassed cloth resined number that was small enough to swim with yet big enough to hold two first-rate cameras. It was still a cumbersome motherfucker, like all great nonessential brainchildren (remember Nike Air Pressures?). Scott likened it to, “Holding onto a parachute in the water.” But it worked, and soon 270-degree images were trickling out into the surf world.
What if you could actually see Andy Irons giving a scowl-faced fuck-you finger on the shoulder and the Occ-meister in a cavernous pit? Well that’d be something new and flamboyantly unnecessary.
Stab, another brilliantly useless contrivance, first featured a ¾ of 360 shot of Kalle Carranza milking a long closed out Puerto Escondido section. You can see Kalle, crouched on his board and you can see the whole rest of the wave; lip dancing and crashing, another tube opening up down the way, the Mexican flag fluttering on a hill. Other magazines followed suit, but before long, the 270-degree picture pipeline dried up.
What had happened? Had Scott been busted shipping cocaine in his wanton 270-cam housing like John DeLorean had been busted shipping cocaine in his wanton stainless steel cars? I called to find out.
What’s the story with your 270 cameras? I haven’t seen any new pics. Did you get busted moving coke?”
“Nah, it just needs a little work and I would like to make it a digi.”
“When?”
“I haven’t put any energy into it.”
“Were you happy with the results?”
“Yeah, I was super stoked. I got the results I set out for. It just got damaged in a flight and needs a little fix
.”
“Were the mags happy?”
“Yeah, they were psyched. They did some pages on it.”
“Is it coming back soon?”
“Hmmm not yet. I just spent a bunch of coin on buying Canon’s MK3. Maybe sometime next year.”
Sometime next year is gonna be like New Year’s Eve. I can’t wait. – Charlie Smith.
