My name is Mike Leech and I’m originally from Ellicott City, MD but my family has always wanted to live on the Outer Banks. Me on the other hand, I was more of a mountain/snowboarding guy and couldn’t stand sitting on the beach alllllll day long. But after living on the Outer Banks for the summer back in 2017 where I worked as a photographer/videographer at Farmdog Surf School, my family (me included) decided that Maryland was WAY too far from where we knew we were meant to live! We moved to Nags Head almost 3 years ago. I’m no longer a mountain person! I was homeschooled for pretty much all of my school years. When you are homeschooled, much like public school, there are a certain number of classes you need to take and I needed one more elective. We attended a homeschool co-op where we went to classes one day a week and were given homework to complete by the following week. My mom just told me I was taking the photography class that was being taught by my friend's mom and that I could use my sisters camera. I wasn’t excited about that news at all! I thought it was going to be boring because I was not an artsy person. I just didn’t look hard enough to see the beauty in simple things at the time. Since I had always enjoyed playing in the water and letting the waves crash on me, I decided to take my Go Pro with me into the ocean during the summer of 2016. I ended up with some cool shots and the rest is history. Since then I haven’t been able to put down my camera! I became obsessed with capturing the beauty of the ocean/coastline and sharing it with people that may not be able to see it for themselves. I use the Canon 7D Mark II. The 7D is my main camera for surfing and other sports because of its capability to shoot 10 frames per second. For the in-water I use a GoPro Hero 5 Black for video, and the AquaTech housing that holds the 7D mark II for still shots. And I use the DJI Phantom 4 drone for all of my aerial stills and videos.