This month’s Inspired By feature introduces us to Tommy Moore — the creative mind behind DAYBREAK Magazine and studio DAYBREAK. A visual artist and director with a deep love for outdoor lifestyle and music media, Tommy’s work blends movement, light, and story in ways that feel both timeless and alive. When he’s not behind the lens, you can usually find him chasing sunsets, watching the moonrise, or enjoying a well-earned margarita.
At Slowtide, we’re constantly inspired by the creators in our orbit — the ones shaping culture, building community, and bringing beauty into the everyday. Tommy is no exception, and we’re excited to share more about his perspective, process, and what inspires him most.
Tell us about yourself
Hey all, my name’s Tommy Moore and I’m the head of DAYBREAK Mag and studio DAYBREAK. I’m a visual artist and director specializing in outdoor lifestyle and music media, and a lover of sunset, moonrise, and a good marg.
What inspired you to start Daybreak Mag?
For years when I was in college, my friends and I would roadtrip West from the Midwest on any breaks we had to get out into landscapes we were vastly unfamiliar with. Over the years, I started shooting a lot more on these trips and slowly started hustling small and medium sized outdoors brands to give us gear or gas money that none of us very broke college kids could afford. Fast forward a couple years and I’m working a corporate architecture gig and already feeling the need for something more. I had so much work archived and had so many friends doing rad things, and I figured it would be a fun thing for all of us to build up a magazine of sorts. At first, the whole goal was to create something that could live on all of our friends and families coffee tables, and pretty quickly things progressed far past that.
Since then, DAYBREAK has grown into a beautiful platform for so many up and coming and deeply established creatives of all sorts to live on the pages amongst each other. From illustrators and painters in the likes of Jess Mudget (who recently partnered with Slowtide), DJ Javier, and Terry Urban, to photographers and videographers in the likes of Mak Crist, Giulia Avila, and Brian Chorski, to musicians in the likes of Houndmouth, Caamp, Royel Otis, to athletes like Mikey February, Holly Wawn, and Rowan Zorilla, and brands from Vans, to Seager, to Sleeping Bear Surf, we’ve been able to shine a light on so many deserving people in the creative and outdoor fields. We’re 7 mags in with the 8th on the way, and can’t wait to ride this out as long as possible. The goal has always been to be an old man surrounded by magazines and books we’ve produced to show off to all the little ones. I’ve always said the goal is to be a badass grandpa someday, and I think that’s a pretty cool way to start.
What first pulled you into this field — was there a specific moment you knew this was your path?
I was lucky enough to have been raised by a family with a deep history of creatives. My great grandmother was a landscape painter, who’s paintings are now split between my mother and I, with likely almost all of them hanging on a wall somewhere. Her son, my grandfather, was a photographer, camera repairman, and tinkerer of all sorts, who after he passed, I was passed down all of his cameras, some of which he had with him in Korea during the Korean war, which is the same camera some of my favorite images have been crafted from.
My mother always had a camera in hand back in my sports days, and at the end of high school while I was sidelined by concussions I really started to dive into photography. It wasn’t until halfway through my time in design school studying architecture and furniture design that I realized photography might be an option, and then not until 5 years into working in the architecture world that I realized I desperately needed to take the leap into photo/video full-time.
Who or what continues to inspire your work today?
Ah man, there’s so much happening now that is continuing to drive me forward. From so many people catching print fever and crafting beautiful and thoughtful publications and books, to a handful of people rethinking how concerts and musicians are captured, to some of my dear friends in Montana integrating fashion, editorial, and outdoors lifestyle work in ways I’ve never seen before, so many people are pushing insane boundaries.
Over the past 18 months I’ve been pretty nonstop working with a handful of musicians, and watching a gem of a song slowly be written, workshopped, and recorded a year or so later has been a beautiful thing to see. Similarly, working, living, and existing so close with so many musicians who are going through the gauntlet of being a touring musician has been so comforting and inspiring to have so many people around me to understand the chaos of this end of both the creative industry, but the creative process within the industry.
Is there a recent image or project that feels especially meaningful to you? Why?
Recently, I just photographed and led the art direction for The Last Revel’s new record ‘Gone For Good’. This was shot up in the mountains outside of Livingston, MT at the lead singer Lee Henke’s ranch amidst a heavy March snowstorm. Over a year after we shot the photos, I built out the design for the record and that’s now out in the world to listen to and stocked up in record shops across the country.
There’s such an interesting connection between music and the outdoors, and working closely with musicians who have a deep connection to the outdoors has been so rewarding. So much of the work I’m the most proud of has come from capturing these relationships, and helping to formulate how that visually pairs with the music they’re crafting.
There are so many projects halfway through or in the infant stages right now that I’m so excited about. From full creative direction to book production and direction, to photo and video production projects, there’s some really fun stuff coming down the pipeline. It’s been a very full year of music, and the next 6 months or so are starting to course correct to evening out between music and the outdoors, which is my favorite balance to find.
Any advice you would share with someone interested in entering the creative / photography world?
Find your voice and your thing. It’s far easier said than done, and it’s something I’m still searching for and constantly reassessing where I’m at, but it’s the one thing you can do to define your place in a very saturated field of creatives.
The other piece of the puzzle is hustle—and pinpointed hustle at that. It takes so much drive to find and refine your voice, make meaningful connections that will benefit you both professionally and personally (finding your people and support system in the creative world is so important), and keep your head above water in an ever-changing creative field. My body is not thrilled with how hard I’ve pushed it for years of working two demanding full-time jobs at once, spending months on end on tour, and night after night of hitting the pillow at 3am to wake up and get back at it by 8am. But that said, I would not be anywhere close to where I am and getting the opportunities that I am without pushing myself to the limit for a long time.
Outside of your work, what grounds or excites you most right now?
Rest. Seven years of professionally sprinting (working that is) has caught up with me quickly. Especially now as I’m spending 9-10 months on the road bouncing around planes, tour buses, stuffed full vans, and a wildly varying degree of hotels, AirBnBs, and friends’ couches, the handful of quiet days at home in Montana I get every month or two are invaluable.
I never expected the thought of coming home off the road to wrap up in my Slowtide robe on the couch with a hot bev, lit candle, and a movie or game on the tv to send shivers down my spine, but here we are.
When you’re seeking fresh inspiration, where do you find yourself turning — a place, a memory, etc?
There’s a few places that are near and dear to my heart.
Growing up, Lake Michigan was always my escape. Second Street Beach, in my small, touristy beach town, was where I’d find myself in the mornings before school, every night I could get away for sunset, and at night under the moonlight listening to the soft melody of waves.
Since then, that escape has gotten fuzzier as life has grown messier. A long, sunset drive through the mountains is always a key to turning my brain off these days. That’s often paired with listening to a new record in full that my ears haven’t had the stamina for (most recently this has been Heavy Metal by Cameron Winter and 6 Volts by Fred Eaglesmith).
On the same note that time at home is so sparse these days, I find my local coffee shop has always been my comfort place. When I was still living in Milwaukee, WI this was Anodyne (Walker’s Point) and now in Montana it’s The Gem in Livingston. I’m a creature of habit, and that really comes out when I’m off the road and at home, so you can find me sitting at the same table, at the same time, nearly every day that I’m home.
What do you hope people feel or carry with them after seeing your work?
I want people to feel like they know the person they’re looking at on the page or screen. Whether it’s a musician, a rancher, a badass videographer double dutying as a momma at the same time, I want what I see in their eyes when I’m sitting in the stillness or running through the chaos with them to translate through the camera and to the person experiencing the image.
As for DAYBREAK, I want to be a pleasant part of someone’s slow, off-day, morning while they take a breath, sip their coffee, and turn their brain away from the hectic world around them. From the texture of the pages to every detail of the images printed on them, DAYBREAK is meant to be a break from the digital world we’re all consumed by, and not only encourage us all to take a break, but also to dive back into your creative hobby or pursuit, as well as get out of the house and get into the lake, onto the mountain, or out into whatever landscape makes your heart flutter and your anxiety fade away.
Follow along with Tommy Moore here
