Featured Artist: Quinn Saine

QUINN SAINE

Chasing Sunsets

 BY LAYNE RANDOLPH

Few professional photographers begin their career in photography; like many creative callings, it is often a passion project that turns into an occupation. That is what happened with Napa Valley-based photographer Quinn Saine.

Quinn was already a successful tennis pro when he began dabbling in photography. Originally from Indiana and a former NCAA Division I athlete in men’s tennis, Quinn started his professional life as a traveling instructor with Peter Burwash International. The job took him around the world teaching tennis at luxury resorts in places as diverse as the Austrian mountains and the Hawaiian Islands. In 2016, he moved to the Napa Valley, where he joined the tennis instructors’ team at the Silverado Resort. Almost immediately, he became enthralled with the Sonoma Coast, driving for miles along Highway 1 and stopping to take hundreds of photos along the way.

Photography soon became his passion. He knew his hobby was becoming something more when he upgraded to a professional camera. With coastal horizons as his muse, he not only taught himself to shoot, but he also began to experiment with photographic effects to make his images more poignant. At this point, he said, “I have to stick with this to find my rhythm and unique style.”

Quinn realized that sunrise and sunset not only created spectacular images, but they also spoke to his soul. He started camping on the beach, not to miss a minute of either one. What happened next set his trajectory in stone. One evening at Dillon Beach, as the clouds started to block out the sun, Quinn changed the camera lens without realizing he had the wrong manual setting. After shooting, he stared in awe at an image of a low tide reflection. He later found out that his unintentionally used technique had a name - Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). This technique creates a striated viewpoint of the coast and ocean that intensifies the colors and linearity of the view—in short, an abstract coastal panorama. He defined his new artistic aspiration as “transforming a simple aesthetic using the naturally warm and cool colors of sunset and feeling the presence of the Pacific.”

In less than five years, Quinn has accomplished quite a lot for a self-taught, start-up photographer. In collaboration with a Grand Junction, Colorado CBD company, KAI, the still full-time tennis professional created a custom collection of abstract ocean images that the company licenses for its branding. It is a natural fit for a company whose name means “ocean” in Hawaiian.

You can find Quinn’s work at Heron House tasting room, greeting cards featured at Napa BookMine, custom orders through his website, and until April 30, his work is on display at the Gallery at Yountville Community Center in an exhibition titled “Flow.”

Quinn loves learning from other creatives and considers his photography “work that is more fun than fun,” he laughed. He is excited about what will come next—art installations and branding opportunities are high on his list. Until then, you likely can find him somewhere along Highway 1 chasing sunsets.

“Quinn realized that sunrise and sunset not only created spectacular images, but they also spoke to his soul.”