Surfing Photographer Robert Brown Secures Its Digital Images

Seagate Technology
continues to play a key role in how people create, capture and consume
all kinds of digital media — and now Seagate is out in the lineup when
monster surf is making history.

Acclaimed big-wave surfing photographer Robert Brown
is an example of one professional who depends on Seagate hard drives
for storing, backing up and sharing his photos-including
once-in-a-lifetime shots of what could go down as the biggest day in
surfing history.

In early January, Brown was preparing to record an
assault on some monster waves forming off the California coast at
Cortes Bank, a chain of underwater mountains in the open ocean about
100 miles (170 kilometers) west of San Diego, CA. On January 4, a
powerful storm battered California — creating an ideal opportunity for
big-wave surfing.

That morning, Brown and four renowned big-wave
surfers, including Greg Long, who won the annual Mavericks contest the
following week in Northern California, headed out from Dana Point to
the open water of Cortes Bank. Fortunately, Mother Nature brought all
the elements together to give Brown the rare opportunity to document
Grant "Twiggy" Baker, Brad Gerlach, Long and Mike Parsons riding waves
as huge as 80 feet — the equivalent of a nine-story building —
believed to be the largest anyone has ever attempted.

Brown keeps those once-in-a-lifetime shots, and
thousands of other digital images from his portfolio, secure on a new
1TB Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus external storage solution.

"That day at Cortes Bank could go down as the biggest
day in surfing history," said Brown, 49, whose work has appeared in
Sports Illustrated, National Geographic and many other publications.
"They all rode the biggest waves of their lives. Those photos are
timeless. If I lose any pictures from any job, I’m done. Reliability
and performance are critical to my work; Seagate has never let me down."

Brown enjoys the beefy capacity of the Maxtor
OneTouch 4 Plus solution, which has room for up to 320,000 digital
pictures (or 1,000 hours of digital video and 16,660 hours of digital
music). He also likes the drive’s easy-to-use features (which include
automated backup and encryption software for added security) and its
sleek design.

"All I had to do was connect the drive’s FireWire
cable to my iMac," Brown said of the set-up process. "Within minutes, I
was loading pictures onto my computer. I never even read the directions
that came with the drive. I also like its beautiful design. This drive
just flows on my desk and looks great sitting next to my iMac."

Brown also uses a compact 160GB Seagate
FreeAgent Go portable hard drive to securely transport his files
while on assignment for commercial clients like Yamaha boats, Kawasaki
jet skis, or Quicksilver surf wear. Brown will bring along his laptop
for editing photos on the fly; he backs up and shares his work with
clients using the FreeAgent Go solution.

"The data-transfer speeds, as with the Maxtor
OneTouch 4 Plus drive, are incredible," said Brown, who shoots with a
21-megapixel digital camera. "I can load a full day’s worth of work on
the FreeAgent Go drive, hand it off to my client or editor, and show
them the results — without any technical delays."

While professional photographers like Robert Brown
depend on Seagate and Maxtor storage solutions to help them do their
job, any consumer can take advantage of the benefits of using these
external drives as well, said BenHur Castro, senior director for
Seagate’s Consumer Solutions Division.

"More and more people are pushing the technology
envelope like Robert," said Castro, "but you don’t have to be a
professional to need this level of storage capacity. Seagate’s research
has shown that more storage is now being consumed in the home than in
the enterprise space. We are addressing that need with easy-to-use and
dependable consumer solutions."

Robert Brown

Seagate Technology