9781422277355

And that’s why Woodman still takes pride in making, what he calls, “the world’s most versatile cameras” that enable people to share life through photos and videos. “The vision now is to enable as many stoked consumers as pos- sible with GoPros so they can document their lives and share it on- line,” he says. “Seeing GoPro grow and become as successful as it is feels really good. The vision wasn’t to do this, but to keep resetting and to get there it just feels really good. The most personally satisfy- ing thing for me is when I go on Facebook and on the GoPro page and see how many people in the world are so stoked with their GoPro.” But it didn’t start like that. Getting GoPro Going T he idea, Woodman says, was bouncing around his head since the late 1990s, but it was that 2002 surf trip in Australia with friends, living out of a Toyota van, hitting the east, south, and west coasts of the island searching for the best waves, that pushed him. “I was spending most of my time in the water, sharing amazing moments and waves with my friends,” he said. “I was also shooting photos—this is pre-YouTube—from the beach, but from that distance my shots weren’t doing the surf or my friends justice. Some of the most intense and memorable moments in cranking surf were just that, memories.” At that time, only professional surfers with professional pho- tographers could capture any photo of quality in the water. The harsh environment of the water called for specialized gear. And floating in the water to capture the images meant a level of expertise that most people just didn’t have.

1: GoPro

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