From Brianna, Russell’s wife... As many of you might have heard, Russell passed away on Friday August 12th, 2022 while in Costa Rica. Although we might never know exactly what happened, we know that he passed away in the pool, we believe doing the breathing exercises for free-dive training that he had been proud of recently. It is all extremely horrible and confusing, but I am at least thankful that he passed away peacefully in an underwater meditative state, doing something that he felt proud of, close to the waves that he loved to surf... a true waterman until the end. Russell was truly my best friend since I met him over 17 years ago. He was so kind to everyone he met. No matter who it was (or how awkward the individual could be), he made it his goal to find some sort of shared thing they could talk about. I was always amazed at how he could make every single person he met feel not only comfortable, but valued and important. He was a devoted son and loving brother. But he also was a son and brother to so many other people who he befriended through his life. He literally couldn’t get enough of adventure and travel, seeing the world as his to explore and document. I feel so thankful that he literally has friends who love him all over the world. He was incredibly hard-working and found so much pride in providing for his family and being respected in his career. I always had a hard time saying exactly what he did, because I felt like he could do it all. He directed commercials and documentaries, surf movies, humanitarian projects... but also very often couldn’t help but get down and dirty with the filming, editing, producing, music, coloring, photography, etc. All those who knew Russell probably imagine him a lot of the time with some sort of camera in his hands. He also had dreams to make creative and poetic feature films, exploring the intricacies of humanity through his love of music, a 90s childhood, family bonds, and forever fascinated with what it meant to be the antihero, as I believe he saw a lot of himself in that archetype portraying the frailty of humanity... (Continued in comments)