Photographer Halvorsen, Stand-up paddle pro Trout InstaMeet at Manhattan pier

Professional stand-up paddler and amateur photographer Slater Trout shoots a selfie of fellow Instagramers on the Manhattan Beach pier Saturday at sunset. Photographer Pete Halvorsen, who organized the InstaMeet with Trout is at Trout’s left. Photo courtesy of Slater Trout
Professional stand-up paddler and amateur photographer Slater Trout shoots a selfie of fellow Instagramers on the Manhattan Beach pier Saturday at sunset. Photographer Pete Halvorsen, who organized the InstaMeet with Trout is at Trout’s left. Photo courtesy of Slater Trout

Professional stand-up paddler and amateur photographer Slater Trout shoots a selfie of fellow Instagramers on the Manhattan Beach pier Saturday at sunset. Photographer Pete Halvorsen, who organized the InstaMeet with Trout is at Trout’s left. Photo courtesy of Slater Trout

Over 100 Instagramers gathered Saturday at sunset at the end of the Manhattan Beach pier for a selfie. In the photo’s foreground were the InstaMeet organizers Pete Halvorsen and Slater Trout. Halvorsen is a commercial and documentary photographer. He  frequently shoots at the Manhattan Beach pier and has 112,000 followers on Instagram.

Pete Halvorsen, Instagramer Yeyen Ong, and Slater Trout.

Pete Halvorsen, Instagramer Yeyen Ong, and Slater Trout.

Trout is a professional stand-up paddleboarder who has been ranked as high as third in the world on the Stand Up World Series tour. He won last month’s Hennessey’s Paddleboard Series competition in Hermosa Beach. The 19-year-old, who recently moved to Manhattan Beach, describes himself as an enthusiastic, amateur photographer. His frequent posts of paddling around the world have attracted 42,000 followers. Like Halvorsen, Instagram has named Trout a Suggested User, an honorary designation that encourages other Instagrammers to follow him. Trout’s Instagram account got a boost earlier this year when People Magazine announced that he and model Ireland Baldwin, daughter of Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin, had split up. The  magazine reported that the couple had met through Instagram.

The InstaMeet was a benefit for the Roundhouse Aquarium.

The InstaMeet was a benefit for the Roundhouse Aquarium.

Trout photographed Saturday night’s InstaMeet selfie with a Gopro camera extended on a pole over the rail where two fisherman hooked the great white shark that attacked local distance swimmer Steve Robles last week, while the shark was still on the line.

Which in part, explains the InstaMeet at the pier.

 

Slater Trout exchanges photography ideas with a fellow Instagramer.

Slater Trout exchanges photography ideas with a fellow Instagramer.

Halvorsen, also a Manhattan Beach resident, organizes InstaMeets every few month and likes to tie them to a good cause. In March, he organized an InstaMeet at the Manhattan pier with the hashtag #powerfulpierpressure. Its cause was Earth Hour, when people around the world were encouraged to turn off their electrical power for an hour. Manhattan Beach turned its pier lights off during the InstaMeet.

Mira Costa student Pat Komick and Redondo resident Cody Spence share a common interest in water photography.

Mira Costa student Pat Komick and Redondo resident Cody Spence share a common interest in water photography.

In December, with the hashtag #givingpierpressure, Halvorsen organized an InstaMeet toy drive at the Manhattan Beach Pier for the Special Needs Network in Los Angeles.

Saturday’s InstaMeet hashtag was #goodvibespierpressure.” Its stated purpose was to raise money for the Roundhouse Aquarium at the end of the pier and repair any damage to the pier’s reputation that may have resulted from the previous Saturday’s shark attack.

Pete Halvorsen and Instagram North America Community Advocator Jeffrey Gerson.

Pete Halvorsen and Instagram North America Community Manager Jeffrey Gerson.

Halvorsen enlisted Trout because of his standing in the waterman and waterwomen community. The two met through Instagram about a year ago, when Trout began to get serious about photography.

Halverson readily volunteered that a secondary purpose of his InstaMeets is to give “internet strangers” who practice photography a chance to meet.

Slater Trout sets up a selfie with fellow Instagramers at the end of the Manhattan Beach pier.

Slater Trout sets up a selfie with fellow Instagramers at the end of the Manhattan Beach pier.

Instagramer Pat Komic, a Mira Costa High School sophomore, struck up a conversation Saturday evening with UCLA physics major Coty Spence, of Redondo Beach, because both have waterhousing for shooting from the water.

Aaron Weiss, a University of Illinois at Champagne, student who is interning at Paramount studios this summer, showed up because he is interested in learning to surf, but ended up talking to Neel Patel, another UCLA physics major.

More than a few women who talked to Trout about photography expressed familiarity with the gossip magazine articles about Trout’s recent breakup.

Following the sunset selfie, Seablood, a surf folk band from Venice, with Scotty Isacson on guitar, her brother Moses on ukulele and Joe Anderson on congas performed for the slow to disperse Instagrammers.

 

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