Gretchen Beehler
Behind the camera
How it started
I grew up in Indiana, swimming in lakes and mud bottom ponds, and spent my summers in northern Michigan diving for crawdads and running around in the woods. I swam competitively growing up and didn't end up taking my first photography class until high school.
After college I taught outdoor education on Catalina Island and posted my snorkeling adventures on a little Instagram called snorkel slut. When I moved to San Diego, I was still learning to surf, so on big swell days I swam out with a camera instead and started shooting friends and locals.
Surf photography can be pretty male dominated, so I wanted to do something just for the girls: powerful, joyful, and getting more women out in the ocean doing what they love. One day my girlfriends and I sent it to Blacks Beach, eventually other women asked to join, and the meetups began from there.
These days I work at Just Get Wet, a freediving and spearfishing company, which brought me back to underwater photography. Surf slut is still a passion project, and I try to keep it about what it's always been: surfing and playing in the ocean with my friends.
