Site Info: Localswell.com is New Jersey's premiere surfing web site. While remaining photo intensive since it started, it also represents the voice, images and ideas of the New Jersey surf scene.
Localswell caters to the ever growing population of New Jersey surfers, their families and viewers from around the world.
With thousands of photographs already on site, most shot by NJ's top shooters, the archives continue to grow. It is the photographs that drive the site.
The voice of the NJ surfer can be found on the "open forum" and is often opinioned and gritty and it has a huge following.
Localswell enjoys over 1000 hits per day with that number nearly doubling in the days following a big swell with local photos to document it.
Local Surf Conditions with links to the cams and up to date ASP news is posted along with the very local surf news. There's even a free classified section for visitors to unload their surf gear.
The future of Localswell is wide open. Digital video is being explored and has been posted and tested and will be used more in months to come. More and more of NJ surf photographers are finding that exposure on Localswell is helping them get noticed by the industry and they are contributing on a regular basis.
Spader Bio: Localswell founder Tom Spader has been a photojournalist for over 20 years. He has studied photography throughout New Jersey, southern Florida and Philadelphia, PA.
His love for photography started in high school and followed him into college where, after a brief stay in the academic world, he found himself signing up for as many visual classes as possible. Changing majors from Science to Art and changing schools to find the right fit, he settled into the city life in Philadelphia and became a "street shooter" while pursuing a formal commercial photography education. Upon graduation he turned his back on his commercial training and set out to work in a more "real" environment as a photo-journalist.
Having grown up on the beach in New Jersey he hoped to set up anywhere near the ocean and the first full-time job offer came from a beach community's daily newspaper. He never looked back.
In 2002, Tom formed Localswell. Besides covering the NJ surf scene he is the head photographer for the Ocean County Newspaper Group, a Gannett owned property. His freelance work has been published in Time, People and USA Today to name a few.
His photos can be seen regularly in ESM and have been published in Surfer and Surfing. Industry heavy-hitters like O'Neill, Volcom, Lost and RipCurl have also used Tom's work.
While the magazine ink is rewarding, the photo dedication remains to Localswell.com.
Tom has lived in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey for nearly 40 years. He's married and raising three kids.
Site History: Localswell was developed by New Jersey based photojournalists Tom Spader & Doug Hood in 2002. Primarily it was a photographic answer to the constant, "Where can I see the photos?" question they'd hear while shooting the local breaks.
Localswell was first a simple photo site with the target audience being just the surfers interested in seeing and buying their photos. The contact pages with links to larger images proved to be a hit. Word of mouth had an instantly growing group of viewers looking for shots of themselves and their friends.
After the first year Hood decided he'd rather surf than shoot and hit the water. Watching the hit count grow Spader decided to develop the photo pages into a small local surf site. He added a cover page and a few links to conditions and the hits continued to grow.
After searching the web for any real NJ Surfing Sites, but finding very few and none with any regular updates or photos, Spader threw himself into developing Localswell into a site that would cater to all aspects of the Jersey Surf Scene. He began covering the local ESA CNJ contests, the sponsored clinics and anything else surf related.
Localswell was quickly noticed by Rob Nagel, co-founder of Surf Taco, a very popular local surf-themed restaurant. and ST became Localswell's first sponsor.
After Surf Taco came onboard, the local surf shops noticed the buzz and also came to Spader looking to get involved.
While Localswell maintains a great relationship will all it's advertisers, it is still all about the photos.
