lukegartsidephotography

King Kelly.

2012-01-07T07:35:00.000-08:00

Aside from telling me that my silly British accent was the reason I wasn't getting any attention from french chicks, and that he would never be taking me up on my offer and coming and doing a shoot with me in Bournemouth, my experience of Kelly was amazing... particularly when he was in the water, and I was just watching or shooting, and not drunkenly spouting star struck induced rubbish in a French bar. As well as all his obvious qualities, his speed, flow, style, repertoire etc he also possess a way of holding himself, that conveys an air of 'this is all just a bit too easy', which , as it may in many cases, does not come across as arrogance but instead appears to be a justified and expected trait from a man who has been the dominant force in his sport for nearly two decades, and actually adds greatly to the pleasure of watching and photographing him. Here's a moment where that really came out:

Pigdoggin at Supertubes.. switch. After dropping in goofy and sitting in the barrel for a bit, he gracefully hopped round and pumped through the final section. Incredible.

Throwing the tail effortlessly in France.
I think next year is going to be an interesting year for the tour.. will the incredible newbies Gabriel Medina and John Florence be able to threaten the unwavering success of the aforementioned? or will whoever's job it is at quicksilver to come up with the slogan that goes on the caps and tee's after Kelly wins ever year be attempting to incorporate the number 12 into his name? My guess is the latter, as although Jon jon slays it Hawaii, and Gabriel is unstoppable in a rip-able waves, neither have quite got the spread of ability needed to take down King Kelly. But only time will tell. Lets see it.

Spain in Photos..

2011-12-21T05:47:00.001-08:00

Here's the best from Spain..

Iker Fuentes tweeking an air off an end section at his home break.

Home- Music.

2011-12-20T05:42:00.000-08:00

So I'm home, and currently going through thousands of Spain photos, should have some up by the end of the day, but in the mean time here's some music for ya.

Update...

2011-12-11T12:30:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lack of updates and photos from Spain, laptop has decided to join the long list of bits of technology not to make it through the trip and has given up the ghost. But scored mundaka and a few other spots pretty good over the last couple weeks and had an incredible fun time in general. Headin home soon.
Check back in a week or so for photos..

Mundaka ya bitch..

2011-11-21T12:02:00.001-08:00

I've always known Mundaka was a tricky bitch to score, But so far getting it good has been like trying to crack on a teetotal chastity belt wearing Moremon. So many factors have to come together to be in with a chance of getting a decent shot of her at her best. First and foremost you need a decent sized, clean groundswell from the NW, coupled with the right wind, and then of course a very specific state of the tide, which so far has fallen at a pretty inconvenient time, either when its dark or just about to get dark . As if these weren't enough, getting a good shot also involves having good light and a decent angle, be it from the water, or from the land. The trouble is the entry point for water shooting is about 35 minutes drive away from what I reckon is the best land angle (or 10 from a shitty one where you don't get any of the amazing scenery that surrounds the wave in). This means not only do you have to be super decisive, and commit to either water or land shooting, you also have to be pretty good at planning or you could end up spending the short window of perfection driving through rather dull Spanish towns. However the swell looks good for the next couple days, and because of the tide, that means three days of dawnys, and hoping that the sun comes out before the tide gets too high. So com'on Mundaka, lets see it. Check back soon x

Peniche In Photos

2011-11-11T10:18:00.000-08:00

Raoni Monteiro tucked up in a perfect barrel at the end of the first day of competition.

Taj Burrow styling it through a sunny left.
Damo Hobgood lining up.

The female fan in the blue jeans was extremely excited to be meeting Julian Wilson...

Mick Fanning racing through the inside.

Unlike in Hossegor, you only have to drive a few miles from the contest site to experience a bit of rustic local culture, here is a roadside meeting point in a small agricultural village near Peniche.

Pat Gudauskas on a backwashy one.

Micheal Bourez getting slotted on a perfect a-frame on the final day of competition.

Tom Lowe lining up on a hairy peak next to the contest area.

Kelly pulling in.

A perfect left going un-ridden at Consolacao
Adriano De Souza's 10 point ride in the Quaters

Adriano stroking the roof on the way to his win.

After all that shit with Kelly, Adriano holding up his trophy.

Supertubes.

Painting shadows?

Mental Consolacao left on the day the whole of Europe lit up

Jadson Andre throwing a massive air reverse at Mohlo Leste

One of the reasons I don't do a lot of documentary photography is because I think you can sometimes look a bit silly while doing so, and although this is in no way a sufficient reason not to do it, I always do try to avoid looking like a dick in foreign countries, when standing next to my van with a big GB sticker on the back, for the pride of Britian if not my own. However I figured since there was stuff worth shooting I'd go for it. After shooting this photo in the morning, a Welsh fellow came up to me in the car park at Lagide, and said "Me and the missus saw you taking photos of some bins earlier, and I was like, whats he taking a photos of bins for and me missus said you must be a photography student and I said yea, but whys he taking a photo of bins" and instead of explaining to him that I was in fact taking a photo of the lions head that sat sculpted in the wall above the bins, in an attempt to present the idea of how traditional, ornate architecture can often be impeded by bleak objects installed by institutions or the local council, I simply laughed, went a bit red and said.. "ahh no no, it wasn't of the bins.. I feel like a bit of a twat now."

Consolacao lefts line up, its bigger than it looks, see below.

The inside barrel section at Consolacao lefts.

Dylan Graves getting spat out of a foamy one on a tricky day at Supertubes

Uknown surfer on a huge foamy one at Supertubes

Small clean day at Supers.

Sunset over Peniche.

Arrived in Spain a couple days ago and already checked out Sopelana, where the standard of surfing is amazingly high, and the backdrop is sick, so really excited to try score that in the next couple of weeks, however currently at Mundaka, with my fingers crossed for a good swell sometime soon. Watch this space.

Waiting on Nazare.

2011-11-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

The van is shaking, and rain is splatting hard onto the windscreen. I'm sat in a pretty empty car park, as the various photographers and other tourists scattered when the ran began, on a headland, connected to a mysterious wifi source, watching waves breaking at Europe's premiere big wave spot. Nazare. Its big. But its super messy, and I would say at the moment pretty un-towable. 4 days ago however it was on, along with Aliens, The Cribbar and most other big wave spots in Europe and two weeks before that, a ride was filmed here that made it onto the list of Billabong XXL nominees.
I left Peniche yesterday, and after a wild goose chase that enabled me to sample the delights of Leiria and Caldas de Rainha (again), I managed to obtain the cable I needed to get my Sat Nav working. In the end it had to be 'crafted' by a man in Sonigate, as it appears to be the rarest cable in existence, and could not be bought anywhere for love nor money. Yesterday evening I arrived in Ericeira, as I really wanted to score Coxos before I head for Spain, however when I woke up this morning it was a blown out mess didn't look like it was going to be very promising on this current swell. On inspection of the screen shot I had taken of the MS forecast for Ericeira, I noticed the title of an article in the corner of the page, entitled 'Nazare goes XXL'. I recognized the name and on typing it into my newly functioning sat nav, I discovered it was just an hour and a forty minutes away, so with a 20 foot swell, and the wind dropping, I observed the dulcet tones of Thomas (the voice of my Sat Nav) as he lead back north up the coast and straight to the car park in which I'm sitting. Whether I'll score it tomorrow I don't know, but I'm pretty keen to find out. So check back ite.

Before the rain came- The little white van in the left of the photo is where I am now sat.

Hossegor In Photos

2011-10-30T12:53:00.001-07:00

You've all had enough of reading I shouldn't wonder, so here's a summary of my time spent in Hossegor in picture form. Enjoy, if you read all that rambling beneath, you've earned it.

The drive down.

An unknown ripper at Hossegor, hes stuck this.

La Graviere shorey' (pretty sure I ended up getting beached after shooting this one)

Alejo Muniz styling it at La Graviere

Braye Mihimana throwing it off the lip in between the comps.

If you wondering why there are no attractive girls in your home town, particularly in the first two weeks of October, its because they are all in Hossegor.

Mick Fanning throwing buckets in the early rounds.

Tom Joncour busting out at Centrale.

Shacked at VVF

Inside a La Graviere pit

Wild card Marc Lacomare with a massive layback snap in the early rounds.

Michel Bourez sniffing out a little shack

Comp winner and quite possible the future of surfing Mr Gabriel Medina, felt quite honored to have him to a re-entry so close to my face.

Was so stoked to see Dane on the bill for France as didn't think he was planning to do another CT event till next year, and he did not dissapoint, here's a hack and an air reverse.

Equally pleased to see Jordy back on tour, also surfing super strong.

Throwing up some orange spray during an evening session at La Centrale

Alejo Muniz free surfing at La Nort during the comp

Nate Yeomans busting a huge air at Les Bourdains.

Jeremy Flores with a massive layback hack before his injury.

Miguel Pupo, fresh of the QS from the mid season cut, with a big backside throw tail.

Alejo again off the top in his heat.

Gabriel's 10 point air in the semis, the best air that I've ever seen in competition.

A stoked and soaked Gabriel Medina

La Graviere sunset.

Check back soon for Peniche in Photos.

Backtrack to the 18th..

2011-10-27T03:44:00.000-07:00

Its Tuesday night and I’m sat with the sound of whistling ringing in my ears. The portugese love to whistle, when their happy, when their irritated and even just when their bored, they do it to express most sentiments us English waste our time composing a sentence for. Like ‘Excuse me would you mind moving a little please, your blocking my view of the surfing competition’ or ‘Oh look there is a set approaching, we’re probably about to witness some great surfing’ or ‘How exciting to have 10 times world champion Kelly Slater run passed us on the beach’. It does however lead to some confusion as when you hear a cacophony of whistles, which is every few minutes, you do find yourself inadvertently ducking down, checking out the back for an oncoming set, checking you didn’t just miss someone getting spat out of the barrel of the day, and looking up the beach to see who it in the next heat, which can get quite monotonous!

The Portugese do however absolutely love their surfing, they regard Tiago as a god, even awarding him his own tv show, which although im not aware of the scheduling of, or what is featured, seems it could have the potential to get a little samey.. if it is just Tiago surfing and chatting to camera, but hey, I've never seen it, it could be the best thing on TV. Matt Wilkinson declared in his acceptance speech for his expression session prize that Portugal had the best crowd of any of the events, although he also told me and my mate during one night out in france that if he was to win in Portugal he was doing it for us, but then denied any recollection of saying so when we asked him about it the next day, so im not sure we can believe a word he says. However I can vouche the crowd was massive, and the whole event was absolutely sick.

Since the rather depressing post yesterday my luck has turned around completly. After sitting on the forecourt of the garage for six hours yesterday in the sweltering heat, missing epic supertubes and just talking shit with my mate all day, we were told the van would not be fixed that day, nor did they know when it would be, nor did they know how much it would cost to fix, with the only thing I could get out of them was that they would let me know manana (or the day after). I was pretty bummed to start with, but then I discovered that on the bloody excellent European breakdown cover, that had already sorted me out a shitload, me and anyone I was with could comp a hotel while our vehicle was being fixed, as well as a taxi to it. As he was leaving I gave the mechanic a ‘take all the mananas ya need’ thumbs up.. although in hinesite maybe a whistle would have communicated the message better. After that I got straight on the phone and a lovely chap over at the RAC (the cover is with AVIVA and the RAC sort everything out for you- recommend the shit out of the both of them) and he sorted everything out, finding us a nice little bungalow (as all the hotels in Peniche were full) and a taxi straight from the garage to it. He was however a little nervous that the bungalow might not be up to our standards, offering me a nice hotel elsewhere as an alternative; however I reassured him that we had been living in a van for the last two weeks so it would probably be fine. Which it was. Sick little place with a pool right outside, warm shower, comfy bed, microwave; luxury. I have since also found out that my van will be fixed in the next couple days, and wont be costing as much as I first thought (an estimate based on nothing, aa no one would give me any kind of idea of a price). So that’s great news. The next day was very much in keeping with my new found good luck. Apart from a slightly harrowing hour long walk from our lodgings to the comp site, which included a 1 euro 30 can of fanta being totally ruined by the fish factory stench, as it seemed to mix together with the taste of the fanta in my mouth creating a cocktail I doubt we will soon be seeing on our shelves, the day was pretty perfect, with sun, sick waves and the final day of competition. Here’s a photo of Adriano in the final. Check back soon for more.

Portugal..

2011-10-17T03:38:00.000-07:00

I'll write about France and stick some photos up at a later date, but for now, here's the story of Portugal so far.

After a pretty hairy drive down through Spain from France, where for about 100 miles all we saw were brothels, truckers and trucker hotels, we arrived in Peniche. Kinda weird little town that reaks of fish because of a large fish processing plant that sits at one end of the main break Supertubes. But we figured we wouldn't care about that when Supertubes was on, and it was only really unbareable for about 20 seconds as you drove past the plant itself. It was flat at Supertubes on the first day, so we had a nice mellow surf at one of the town beaches. It was after this surf that stuff started to go a bit wrong. First the sat nav broke, but I figured I wouldn't be using it for a while and could probably get it sorted before Spain, so it was no biggy. Then one of the fuses in the van went, but after cutting the zip tie which had been used to hold up the fuse panel, that was also relatively easy to sort. However then the van would not start, and this has transpired to be a bit more of a problem. I called out some mechanics who after a lot of hand gesturing and speaking loudly and clearly in our respective languages managed to communicate they would not be able to fix it and it would have to go to a garage. The next day supertubes was on, so we made the half an hour so skate to the contest site, and I shot the comp in near perfect barrels all day, which was sick. After the comp we decided to skate into to town to get some food, which was a horrendous experience as Peniche county council (or whoever makes such decisions in Portugal) has decided that cobbling all the streets is the way to go, creating one of the most un-skateboard friendly towns I've ever experienced. Through a combination of this cobbling, and the careless placing of my board on the beach in France, which caused it to get a thorough rinsing from the incoming tide my trusty longboard decided to add itself to the list of broken possessions. As I'd just left the town centre of Peniche and done just under of a quater of the distance back to the van, my baring snapped and the wheel flew off, making my only remaining transport un-rideable.

Last night we decided that it would be a good time to check out the nightlife of Peniche, and after 4 hours of red herrings, closed clubs, a vip party and having some Portugese guy, who his friends informed us was on acid, laugh hysterically in our faces we found a little beach bar, where we enjoyed some cheap (comparitively to Hossegor) beer, and met some cool people.

This morning I was awoken by a large Portugese man who had come to tow the van, so we rolled out of bed, and got into his tow truck and without a huge amount of optimism, headed for the nearest garage . On arrival I was greeted by two workers telling me to come back around 4 to discuss what the problem was. That was at 10 am. Which brings me to now, sitting in the Maccies in Caldas de Rainha, with about 4 hours still to kill, (missing epic supertubes) before I can find out whats even wrong with the van, whether its fixable, and how much its going to be... Fingers crossed eh...

Buisnessy..

2011-09-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

Business cards and new website are done. Check the new site here:

http://lukegartsidephotography.co.uk/ - If its looking a bit weird (slideshow not in the middle of the page etc) just delete your cache (CTRL+ Shift+ DEL, then hit delete cache data)

Keep an eye on this blog over the next couple months, as provided I can get on the internet ( I'll try find some places with free WiFi to park my van outside) its about to get a lot better.

Working..

2011-09-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

Been working very hard recently to earn last bit of cash before I head off... been super tough.

But somebody's gotta do it.

Van is done..

2011-09-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

Off a week today. So so amped.

Building

2011-09-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

Been a real productive couple days for my new living quarters, with everyone pitching in with drilling and sawing and other such super manly jobs. Pimp my ride eat your heart out.

♫

2011-09-05T06:19:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been spending a lot of time working shooting at a bar, and a lot of time driving. These two activities have very little in common, however they both do involve listening to the same shitty pop songs over and over again (my new vans' predecessor was only kitted out with a broken tape deck, and a radio- so it was the radio or nothing). After hearing these songs over and over, you begin to take notice of the lyrics in a way that you wouldn't were you to just listen to them once or twice, and in doing so realize how piss poor some of them really are. Here are a few of my favorite shit lyrics:

"Me not working hard?

Yea right picture that with a kodak
And better yet, go to times square
Take a picture of me with a kodak
Took my life from a negative to positive
And I just want y'all know that"

Pitbull- Give me everything.

In this 'banger' Pitbull cleverly ryhmes Kodak with Kodak, and tenuously links one couplet to the next by using the vaugue theme of photographs, with a clever double meaning on the word 'negative'. Oh Pitbull what a wordsmith you are.

"Think the city towed my car
Chandelier is on the floor
With my favorite party dress
Warrants out for my arrest
Think I need a ginger ale
That was such an epic fail"

Katie Perry- Last Friday Night.

Katie seemlysly slides from describing some quite serious issues, including admitting she'd commited an offense bad enough for a warrant for her arrest to be issued, to using a light hearted phrase usually found on the bottom mildly amusing photos of general mishaps, and then uploaded to facebook by people who don't have anything better to share with the world.

"Peebe, Peebe who's Peabo Bryson

Two years ago I renewed my license
Anyway why'd I start my verse like that
You can suck a dick, or you can suck on a ballsack
No no I don't endorse that, p-p-pause that, a-a-abort that"
Nicki Minaj (& David Guetta) - Where them girls at.

Certainly saving the worst till last, the entire song in which this absolutely dier verse slots into is indeed absolute tripe, with the chorus making no sense at all, however these three bars have to be a stand out. Its as if she wrote the first couplet, and despite the fact she realised it was shit, decided to put it in anyway. Possible nervous that we as the listener would have this very same realization, she segues straight into irrelevant and needless obscenity, before informing us that she doesn't actually endorse sucking on a phallus or indeed a 'ball sack' totally voiding the previous line where she suggests 'we' do just that.

Hectic..

2011-09-03T09:51:00.001-07:00

Been a pretty hectic couple weeks, hit up Bournemouth for a few days, then came back to shoot the opening nights of a new bar, then headed to Newquay to shoot with James Taylor and finally came home and bought a van. Here's a few shots from all that.

Oli Adams alley-oop- Fistral, Newquay

'The Haven'- Bournemouth.

Wonderlounge- Banbury

Luke Dillon fins free- Newquay, Fistral.

Off in just under a month yeeewp.

Recent.

2011-07-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

Currently trying super hard to save so I can get a van and make it to the Europe legs of the CT this year, which is the reason for no photos from anywhere that involves any traveling (and none at all until today). But if the lack of updates have infuriated you, then feel free to boycott by not visiting for a few weeks, I will forgive you. However do be sure to pop back in October, if not before!

Bournemouth 7/7

2011-07-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

Fun little wave in the morning, and when the sun came out in the arvo felt pretty good for July. Surfed for most of the day, but did get a little bit of shooting done first thing. Here's a few;

Weverson hitting the lip

Glastonbury..

2011-06-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Absolutely incredible as ever, and the 5 year old little kodak digi I borrowed in the end managed to do an alright job. Here's a few;

20:56- Wednesday, view from the park hill, out over about a third of the fest site.
00:46- Friday, Cube henge.

6:31- Friday, Sunrise burning off some cloud.

01:16- Saturday, Arcadia.

22:04- Saturday, Leaving stone circle.

04:13- Sunday, Quite possible the highlight, Shy FX at Shangri-la

So that's it for another two years now, which I'm pretty gutted about, because even now, after three years, there's still places on the site I haven't been or seen enough of. S'pose that's the beauty of it though, so I'm going to keep going until my knee's give in... because I do reckon it might be a bit tough with bad knees.

Check back soon, this blog will be coming out of its spring hibernation soon.

Glasto..

2011-06-13T05:49:00.000-07:00

In 8 days.

Photos to follow (if I can find a little digi to take).

Good lord..

2011-05-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

I cant wait to go to France..

Well done Angus Dion/ Globe, well done.

Recent..

2011-05-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

Passed my driving test on Tuesday which I was super happy about. Then headed down to Bournemouth where it was 3-6 inches on Wednesday (submitted my entry for the Billabong XXS awards)and completely flat on thursday but the weather was super nice so it was a fun couple days. I would have a nice generic sunset photo accompanying this post, but cant get the photos of the camera as my girlfriend sat on my card reader and broke it (she's not fat, it was 3.50 from Hong Kong, and was very fragile).

I'm now down in Plymouth, having another crack at surfing the smallest waves it is possible to stand up on. Looks like Bournemouth might be starting to wake up after its very very long period of hibernation, so will hopefully bring you some photos from that area soon. Check back xx

Some Lomos..

2011-04-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

Because..(Part 2)

2011-04-04T12:11:00.001-07:00

Wanna print?

This Isn't....

2011-03-31T15:12:00.001-07:00

The blog of someone who used to shoot surfing and has now turned all arty and pretentious..

Its just been flat for absolutely ages.

74 days till happiness.

Because..

2011-03-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted a photo of someone surfing in the sea for like a month, and I'm starting to feel resentment towards to the content of my own blog, what with all the arty shit I've been posting lately.

So here's some chocolate barrel perfection from Costa Rica last summer.

Also now taking donations for my travels next year.. so check out the websites being advertised by google over there on the right before you leave and contribute to making this blog a bit more interesting. Cheers, have a good week.

Oooh..

2011-03-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

Artist Paddy Mafham, or 'PadMaf' as he's know on the internet, draws his inspiration from all over the proverbial shop, however he cites his primary influence to be street artist extraordinaire Banksy, with his elusive, anonymous persona really earning him Pad's respect.

If you, like Paddy, have a passion for fashion, and enjoy reading edge'y rants (that show the writer ent conforming to no mainstream views) head over and check out his blog at http://padmaf.tumblr.com/

See that hand in the photo, that's deliberate.. because he pisses on the conventions normally associated with posting art on the web.

LostSD..

2011-03-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

Before reading, look at THIS

I've never been into video games, and up until about 2 months ago I've only ever had a PS1. However after being coerced into some time on fifa whilst stranded during the snowy period, and secretly quite enjoying it, I decided it might be time to get a PS2. So I asked around if anyone had one to shift and got plenty of offers- £10 or £20 was the general consensus but I didn't really want to spend that. Instead I ended up trading an old digi camera with a broken screen for the console, which now sits proudly atop its younger brother.. although after I completed Tony Hawk, rarely gets played with. However that is not the point. The traded camera is currently sitting on the arm of my sofa, and has found its way back to my house after I accidentally brought it home from the Bowl , where its new owner had been using it.

Recently I have been looking at the work of Larry Sultan, who ideas are just as phenomenal as his photos. One set in particular, entitled Evidence, which features a set of carefully selected images found in the photo archives of hundreds of industrial, crime prevention and product research companies, really caught my attention. The idea was to take these photos, which were all shot for a very specific purpose, out of context, providing no caption, source or date for each, and create a thought provoking set of images that encouraged the viewer to create their own narrative.

I decided to remove the card from the re-obtained camera, and have a look at some of my mates bowl shots. As well as the folder that contained the Bowl shots, the camera also had numerous other folders, which appeared to be rather strangely named.. with titles like "Me&muqaddaas posingxxx2010". Well curiosity got the better of me, and after a brief moment of consulting my moral compass, as the mouse hovered over one of these folders, I went for the double click. What I was confronted with was hundreds and hundreds of photos of an Indian family. Mostly typical family photos, lots of adults and children standing next to each other smiling (which ironically ties in with Larry Sultans first set of images; Photos from home). My first reaction was to laugh hysterically, simple at the fact I could think of no logical reason these intimate snaps of a family from the asian sub-continent would be present on my mates SD card. to. So I rang the owner, still in hysterics, to see if he could shed any light.. he couldn't and was as baffled as I was, simply telling me he'd stolen the card of his brother- who is yet to release a comment.

So, In Larry Sultan style, I have decided to publish these photos, and after trawling through them, I've selected the 8 most interesting, and have uploaded them to my site, which, if you followed instructions, you will have already seen. If not, click here.

Notebook.

2011-03-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

Film Making..

2011-03-23T05:12:00.001-07:00

Filming is really what got me into photography. Watching the surfing at Boardmasters the first year I went, I just felt compelled to capture it (I know you usually only read sentences as cliché as that on tumblr, but its true) and a video camera was all I had on me with a long enough zoom, and I stuck with it for a while because I really enjoyed the editing as well. But with this Severn Bore project, I'm finding it a bit of a drag. Don't get me wrong, the Bore itself and everything that goes on around it is amazing, but It's really something that lends itself better to photos (as shown by Greg Martin in his latest County Limits article in length, which I deff suggest you give a read) and after 4 filming trips, I've been left with a bunch of pretty uninspiring footage (with the exception of an interview with Stuart Ballard, who is really interesting). The lights bad, and my filming skills are minimal, so now I've got to the editing stage I'm a bit down, especially since I don't have the choice of ditching it and not making the edit (its for my A level media.) Still, I'm going to stick with it and hope a bit of music, informative voice-over and the aforementioned interview salvage the project and turn it into something I at least don't mind sending off to a board off boxy examiners.

Weekend.

2011-03-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

First sunny bowl sesh.

Portrait of Pad Maf (click it)

Severn Bore- No photos, cuz filmed the whole day for the edit, so you'll have to make do with this gammy screen grab.

Chess.

2011-03-18T05:20:00.000-07:00

New..

2011-03-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

This week..

2011-03-09T12:04:00.000-08:00

this page has received visits from people in;
The United Kingdom, The United states, China, Italy, Japan, Germany, Australia, The United Arab Emirites, Brazil, and Indonesia.

So;

Thanks for looking!

感谢您寻找！

Grazie per la visita!

探してくれてありがとう!

Dank für das Schauen!

!شكرا ليبحث

Obrigado por olhar!

I appreciate every last one of you.

Have a nice day x

Hamburg- Part 2

2011-03-07T09:59:00.000-08:00

Click here for part 1.

26/02/- 5:36
Today started well as I discovered a setting on the shower head that turns the flow into a sort of hot mist, which you can then immerse yourself In. The day then commenced with some typical tourist site seeing, where I took the kind of photos where you have to work to not get another photographer taking the exact same photo in the frame, before putting my camera away and deciding to not get it out again till I saw something worth shooting.
After the touristy sightseeing tour, I hopped on the Ubarn (what they call the tube) to head back and was (for the third time this week) told off by a stern German man. This time he was not an official and it was not for having the wrong ticket, but for simply resting my feet on the edge of the seat across the isle. I found this dressing down rather hard to take, not only because the man reeked of alcohol, but also because I had observed many times that same day people (and when I say people I don’t just mean tramps, I mean regular members of the Hamburg public) removing things from bins, prompting the conclusion hygiene and cleanliness weren’t top of the agenda. The items removed from the bins varied, for example I saw one perfectly respectable women delve into a bin at the train station to retrieve a newspaper, however the other instances featured slightly less respectable looking gentlemen (that probably were tramps) diving in to fish out empty bottles or cans, as they can be exchanged for a tiny amount of money at the super market. Anyway, I was tempted to explain all this to the man, as well as to tell him that I found Hurmburgers?.... people from Hamburg a very unfriendly bunch, who only seemed to be nice to you when you were purchasing something off them... and then call him a ‘hooganzoon’ which is one of the five or so German words I know and means ‘you son of a whore’, but I thought this might cause more agro, So in response to his ‘In Germany, the people have to sit on the chairs, so we don’t put feet there’ I thought id fly my flag with a bit of sarcasm and simply replied ‘thanks for letting me know mate’ and got on with the day. (I hope you didn’t think that story was going to culminate with some cracking come-back.. I imagine if you did that was somewhat of an anti-climax). Walking through the streets we came upon a protest against to road systems or something, in comparison to recent protests around the world, and indeed the student ones in London, it was rather underwhelming and, with the exception of the person who had made a pair of large papier mâché buttocks and a large pile of papier mâché shit and towed it behind their car, it required a bit more effort.

Statue of liberty..

Chilli and Wasabi flavoured chocolate.

27/02/11
Today there was a mental fellow on the train, shouting abuse at other train users, spitting, and banging on the windows, I couldn’t help but feel a little resentful after my telling off yesterday that no self righteous man took It upon themselves to explain to him that’s not they way they do things in Germany.. possible because it is, as this is not the first person I’ve seen of this variety. Anyway, after a couple stops he hopped off, and peace on the train was restored for about 3 minutes, at which point a busker appeared with a guitar and began singing and playing loudly in Spanish. Although this impromptus performance was a little intrusive, it was nice to hear a language I actually understood for a change. After a quick walk on Hamburgs windy wasteland, masquerading as a beach, when in fact its just a river bank, I headed over to check out the official red light district of Hamburg (thought I might as well complete the tour) called the Reaperbarn. Strangely it was probably the nicest, most interesting place I visited for the duration of my trip, however there were far less hookers there than on my street, which made me feel weirdly smug.

28/02/11
Today my stay grew to a close. The day began with one final delightful hot misting and walk down the street on which my hotel lies which I have actually become quite fond of, passing the familiar sex shops, which were already open, and prostitutes, who were already fixed to their posts outside said shops, presumably to offer an alternative to a morning job for men wanting to keep in shape and have a bit of fun whilst doing it. As I arrived at the airport and headed through security, I was stopped by one final stern German, who told me that he had to test my laptop (refusing to give me anymore information until we were safe inside the little glass test room). On entering I had a short wave of fear that his plan might be to slip one of his bratwurst like digits up my bottom to check I wasn’t smuggling anything, but thankfully, all he did was ‘test laptop for explosive’.. which turned out to be just a brief swabbing, which shockingly yielded no results, after which, in the same tone of voice with which he had summand me, he informed me that my laptop was in fact not an explosive, at which point I had to refrain from telling him this was something I could have told him 20 minutes ago, as my laptop is filled with important files, and so blowing it up would be quite ridiculous.
I proceeded to the gate and boarded the plane, and squeezed myself into a ridiculously small seat, along with the other thousand people on board, only worse because I had a nauseating couple in front of me who not only ignored the put your seat in the upright position request, but also ‘snuggled’ in a sickly manner throughout the entire journey. And then that was it. Touched down and headed home with nothing but good things to say about Munich... and plenty of stories and an idea for a new photo project from Hamburg.

Some scenic ones:

Hamburg- Part 1

2011-03-04T05:52:00.000-08:00

24/02/11- 11:56PM

As I sit, staring out of my hotel window, passed the barb wire surrounded balcony, at the street below, where two hookers are standing outside a shady looking bar, propositioning passers by, It strikes me that Hamburg iss possible not quite as nice as Munich, with its extravagant architecture and ridiculously affluent shops.
Still, my rooms been serving as a pretty good vantage point for the activities of the street below, so I’ve ditched the badly dubbed into German (which if you don’t understand a word of it, which I don’t, is not exactly pleasing to the ear) films on tv, put a chair in front of the window and just watched.
At first I found the antics of the aforementioned working girls very amusing, but as the night drew on and it got colder and darker, a bit of guilt started to set in as I watched them jig from foot to foot, scowering the street for potential customers. This guilt was not only founded by my prior flippancy towards their situation, but also the fact that I was sat in the warm, laptop on lap, grands worth of camera gear in hand, with my only worry being getting the focus and settings right for the particular photo I was trying to get (more on that after this unsuitable serious prose).
Now I hate all those realise how lucky you are lectures, they wind me up because they’re usually just an attempt by the pretentious speaker to make themselves seem charitable and wise and educated in the ways of the world, describing to us their superior perspective on life that we couldn’t possible have comprehended without said speech. So I’m certainly not going to give one of those, just thought it was a story worth telling.
Anyway, as well as this hoe watch and ‘deep thinking’, I was also taking some photos. Here they are:

Barb-wired balcony at sunset.

Club security and academic. Click here to see it big.

25/02/11- 3:25PM
I feel a bit bad after that last post, judging Hamburg on that one street, especially since I have since realised that my hotel sits on the outskirts of one of the cities red light districts. It became apparent today as walked down the street from my hotel past numerous sex shops with women with drawn on eyebrows, skin tight leather trousers and knee high, high heeled boots milling around outside.
Anyway I have since had a chance to sample some more of Hamburg, heading down today to check out the docks which boast the longest stretch of warehouses in the world, which for me was a major selling point..
It reminded me a bit of Wales or Southampton really, where they’d had a crack at putting some nice cafe’s, shiny railings, and concrete sculpture in to try make the place a bit nicer, but at the end of the day it was still windy and cold with the view of the water totally dominated by cranes. Still, hate to have a whinge because it is in fact an alright place.

A small portion of a very long stretch of warehouses..

The docks..

A slightly odd gentleman..just trying to make an honest living.

25/02/11- 4:00PM
After having just returned from a quiet walk round the red-light district, where I saw all manner of interesting scenes, im tempted to take my camera out and do some documentary stuff, but I don’t really fancy getting pimped slapped by any large angry German pimps, after I took a photo of his girls. Nor do I want to get my camera nicked and pawned for smack money. Could just take my lomo as I can just whip it out and put it away when necessary but its hard to take fisheye lomo photos seriously as documentary photos, as its more suited to taking super close up fisheye photos of cats, or photos at party’s....

25/02/11- 5;30
Begger with a child and other storys:
Its approaching dusk and I just popped out to go get a maccies. I think it’s safe to say im going off the street on which my hotel is situated, which is now crawling with hookers warming up for the evening (doing stretches etc), some already have fat clients ‘chatting them up’ whilst others proposition innocent passersby’s . When I arrived at maccies I was fleeced by a worker, who knew for well that I wanted to buy a meal, as he pointed out in perfect English with a malevolent smile after I handed over the money (‘you could have bought a meal there my friend, saved 2 euro’), but instead charged me for my chicken nuggets, drink and chips separately, as I’d had a crack at ordering in German, and couldn’t remember the word for meal (despite having looked it up on google translate, and listened to the automated women say it a couple times before leaving my room) so instead I listed off the things I wanted. Still the ordeal was put into perspective as I left and passed a beggar in the street cradling her baby, at which point I figured it was wrong of me to complain about having to spend an extra two euros.

The area in which I'm staying, as well as being filled with sex shops, is also home to a large ethnic community, so seeing women in headscarf's, or indeed full body vales passing pictures of women with no kit on at all is a common sight.

Check back for part 2 coming soon..

Some Lomos..

2011-03-03T03:07:00.000-08:00

Munich River Wave

2011-02-25T10:37:00.000-08:00

Such a sick couple of days shooting Munich's standing river wave. Such a cool vibe around the wave, with surfers turning up about every 20 minutes to surf this ever-breaking wave, and so many of them absolutely killed it as well, popping airs and big sweeping hacks and making it all look super easy. Here's the set up:

The wave stands in front of a bridge on an otherwise very regular urban road, close to the city centre. The river flows super fast out from under the city, on the left and down a submerged concrete ramp and then over a some concrete humps at the bottom of the river.

Paul, Backhand air.

Alex Neumann taking a backhand slice out of the wave

Spectators of all ages rock up to watch the wave.

Quirin Rohlender in (without a hood) for a couple.

Paul backand re-entry

Front side hack

Paul Gunter, sponsored by Nike6 and one of Munichs best river and ocean surfers, busting a back hand air reverse off the end section.

Max Schwarzkop cavemanning on from the bank

Paul again, frontside air.

Frontside cut back

Paul, Frontside fins free
Check back soon for an edit.

German arrival..

2011-02-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

Just arrived in Munich, where I got the the tube from the airport to where I'm staying near the river wave. I was impressed with the tube in some ways, for example they've managed to make the gap between the train and the platform small enough that you cant fall down it, and subsequently don't need to put 'mind the gap between the train and the platform' announcements out every 5 minutes, or it could just be they think the public are intelligent enough not to fall down said gap, which they obviously don't in the UK. I did however receive a dressing down from an (unnecessarily) stern large German fellow who was (in a team of three) prowling down the large aisles of the tube checking tickets. He seemed perplexed that I had not stamped my ticket using some machine ,after I bought it, before getting on the train, something which I cannot for the life of me work out the purpose of, as it had the date and time of purchase printed on the ticket!

Still I am pretty tired from the days travel, so maybe I will understand the reasoning for the hushed lecture by the morning.. when I plan to hit the aforementioned river wave. Check back for something other than drivel about the tube.

Bore- Day 2

2011-02-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

Another real good day at the Severn today:

Munich tomorrow.

Super super rough promo edit..

2011-02-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

Here is a (as the title suggests) super rough edit for a promo of the Severn Bore film that is now in the production stage, footage, levels and.. well everything needs work, but just to give ya a taste:

Interviewee is Stuart Ballard, who is a Bore surfer and enthusiast and a super nice bloke. So much more great stuff in the full interview (which I may release on here in parts as well as most of it going into the final edit) so its worth checking back just to see more of that.

Severn Bore..

2011-02-20T06:17:00.000-08:00

Had a lot of fun filming the Severn Bore today, and heading back again tomorrow, so will try grab some stills as well.

Here's one from today:

Sat 12th..

2011-02-13T14:54:00.000-08:00

Another epic day for waves in the Bournemouth area, with most spots working, and a few absolutly firing.

Been so spoilt with waves recently, enjoying it a lot. Here's some from the pier:

A lippy one

Miles killin it on an evening right

Russ slotted!

Weverson flying on his YDNA fish.

Miles off the top

Mason lining up

Smashing the lip of a rare morning left

Weverson picking off a left

Slicing a foamy left
River wave tour starts with The Severn Bore this weekend, shaping up to be pretty exciting!

Check back

5th..

2011-02-07T02:46:00.000-08:00

Started off of the day on Bos' new regenerated promenade, with Gary and Paul, staring out at the very windy sea, watching slightly larger white horses than in the surrounding area of water wash over the multi million pound phenomenon that is Bos reef. As spongers started to appear , the boys were forced to make the call, and 'the chief of the reef' was put to bed.

So I headed up to Sorted, jumped in Masons car and headed for Bournemouth:

Mason curb crawling.. Picking up local sponger Harry, who did not take much convincing to get in and accompany us to Bournemouth pier, Here are some from the rest of the day:

Harry and his balloon hands. If anyone could shed any light on this rare medical condition I'm sure Harry would appreciate it, as apparently girls don't find it as much of a turn on as one might expect.

Mason soaking up some February rays.

Severn Bore and Munich river wave in two weeks. Check back.

When its blown out...

2011-02-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

Gordon and Mason enjoying a 'surf' film...

More photos from yesterday coming soon. Check back.

Two Blogs..

2011-02-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

That are much better than this one: Click here and here (they will open in new windows, so you still have the chance to enjoy this ones inferiority). I particularly recomend the 'Junk mailin the junk mailer' posts in the latter, as not only is Ben Selway a great photographer, he is also extremely funny.

Hoping to score the epitome of man made technology breaking in Bos this weekend.. however its not looking overly promising. Check back.

Mags,

2011-01-30T06:48:00.001-08:00

Some published work from January;

Oxford times and Wavelength

Gear

2011-01-29T09:06:00.000-08:00

Some of my equip- past and present.

Apologies for the quality of the photo.. although this was always going to be a problem because of the content of the image..

1. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18- Broken- An great camera, that I used when I first got into surf photography (as it had a super long optical zoom) and really helps you hone your skills as it has no sequence mode so you've gotta get your timing on every turn spot on. Unfortunately it broke after falling off one of my many shit broken tripods..

2. Canon 40D- My main SLR body, absolutely amazing camera, with the exception of one little hot-shoe problem I had with it, its worked absolutely flawlessly since the moment I bought it. Well done, Keep it up.

3. Canon IXUS 900ti- Broken- After survivin two glastonburys and several water outings in its housing, I broke this one attempting to climb a wall with it in my pocket in Cumbria-

bloody Cumbria.

4. Vivitar 3800N- Borrowed this one of a friend of mine in October, still haven't shot a single frame with it..or given it back, obviously.

5. Fisheye Lomo- Relatively new addition, and pretty sick from what I've seen of it- although that's not very much as, aside from a little trip to New York it made with on of my mates (where he took some lomos I was very jealous of), I've only actually got one film processed successfully. As the one I shot over Christmas and New Year, turned out to be a dud (it was given to me at same time as I borrowed the Vivatar.. which I think may well be why I haven't given the camera back as holding onto out of subconscious resentment)

6. Some old fisheye- just there to beef the photo out if im honest

7. Canon kit lens- 18-55mm. Broken- No-one thinks these are good lenses, not even the boys at canon who slap em on the front of all their mid range slrs. Motor stopped working in this, and apparently when it was opened up it was absolutely full of sand... so maybe my fault a little bit.

8. Tamron 18-200mm, F/3.5- F/6.3- Sick zoom, with a massive range which proves very handy when you want to switch between pulled back line-ups and relatively tightly cropped shots (off a pier or of a shorey). If I had a spare (camera) body, this would never get taken off it.

9. Canon 430exii flashgun, Relatively knew, and if I'm honest know very little about how to use all of its (I'm sure) super helpful features, and I always just stick it in manual and use it like the Vitivar.

10. Tokina 10-17mm fish-eye. This lens is the business (gay phrase I know- but it originally said 'Is the shit'.. but that looked too much like 'Is shit' and I'd rather sound like a knob than have people think this beauty is shit.. even if it is only for a second until the re-read it). Everything looks better in fisheye.

11. Super cheap flash remote from hong kong or somewhere, £10 on ebay. Does the job.

12. Water housing for Canon 900ti- pretty useless without the camera (which is broken) inside it.. obviously. Was good while the camera worked though, but now, having this makes me want to spend a stupid amount of money on getting a very average camera fixed..

13. Liquid eye water housing. A little faffy with the wingnuts but all round a very good housing, and comparatively to others, quite cheap.

14. Canon L Series 300mm, F/4- Love this lens. Absolutely perfect for shooting a huge variety of stuff, and so so sharp. Only downside is people often ask me to take a photo of them when they are far too close, and cant seem to get their heads around the concept of a fixed focal lens, or why anyone would want one.

15. Vivitar 285HV- Broken- An amazing flash gun, especially for sports stuf, really easy to use once you get your head round the manual controls (none of this ETTL nonsense), unfortunately it had been on the way out for a while, and I was a little heavy handed with it whilst shooting at a party, somehow managing to snap off the hot-shoe connection.

Btown photogs..

2011-01-25T06:00:00.001-08:00

Its mental how many amazing photographers they seem to be in Bournemouth; Seb Schofield, Gary Knights, Jake Moore, the list goes on, and the best thing they're all super nice guys- and not those pretentious elitist dick'eds you seem to find everywhere else in the country. Recently also stumbled across James Bowdens blog, who's also originally from Bournemouth, pretty phenomenal coverage of a life definitely worth shooting.. and he seems to create amazing photos with every bit of photographic equipment he touches!

Also just sorted some pretty exciting plans for the end of next month; when I'm heading to Germany to shoot one of the most interesting waves in the world.

Reef..

2011-01-19T01:34:00.001-08:00

I've always known about this reef, but never really bothered to go check it before, safe to say, I will from now on. It's super hard to shoot from the land though, so may well do some water stuff on it a bit later this year.

Monday 17th,

2011-01-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

After I checked the pier first thing with Weverson, it was looking like it was going to be just as good as the charts predicted, super clean lines, a nice shape and thinning cloud at the pier, all boding well for the day. So I jumped in the back of a generous local surfers van, and after a bumpy ride, alot of which was spent calming down his large, (but very sweet) Doberman, which, without the froth of the light at the end of the tunnel, was not particularly enjoying the journey.

The reef wasn't quite as good as we'd hoped but the standard of surfing in the water was still super high and the waves could be described as ripable at worst.

Weverson frothing on the morning line up.

Journey to the reef.

Unknown surfer flying off the lip on a beefy one.

Gordon hitting a section.

Gordon hitting an air reverse on the inside.

Weverson killing it

After surf portrait of Weverson- Ye.. Im a portrait photographer.

More shots of a different local reef from Monday coming soon, check back.

Pow..

2011-01-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

One from the archives, Ali taking a lip on the head on a epic October morning at Bournemouth Pier.

2 Angles...

2011-01-10T09:39:00.001-08:00

Here's two photos of Mr Ben Jones taking a drop at the pier on Saturday, with the pier angle shot by local surfer Weverson who's currently out of the water because he's just got his eyes lasered, and did a pretty cracking job at shooting, producing far better images than the middle aged photog's who regularly rock up with their big lenses but no knowledge of surfing or the break!

Click the photo to see it big.
Jake Moore was also out shooting some amazing water shots in the evening, like this one, check it!

Bournemouth Pier, 8/1/11

2011-01-10T02:13:00.000-08:00

Its very rare that the forecast gets it spot on, for anything really, snow, waves, the end of the world etc

But Saturday was one of those rare days when the retarded snotty nosed cousin of all forecasts (magic seaweed) got it almost bang on. Day started with overhead typical winter waves as predicted and then the period lengthened and it cleaned right up into the middle of the day and the sun came out and it ended up pretty epic.

Miles off the top in the morning.

Miles stoked

Mark throwing some spray in the arvo

Mason lining up on a clean one.

Lee busting out on his log.

Mason cutting back.

Mark hitting the lip on the inside.

End of a pretty sick day.

First of 2011..

2011-01-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

Not a bad start to the year, real nice morning at this reef:

Found;

2011-01-02T15:56:00.000-08:00

The trail of some absent minded classy bird.. on the back seat:

YES MASE.

More photos of today coming soon, check back.

Merry Christmas..

2010-12-29T11:11:00.000-08:00

Super white Christmas where I was, with still about 20cm from earlier that week, which was pretty sick.

New Years Day

2010-12-22T06:54:00.000-08:00

2010

3 Story's..

2010-12-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

Just found this when I was trawling through old 4 corners articles, I remember writing this about the night after the comp at bos last year, and then showing it to the guy in question before I sent it to length to get published... turned out he was not at all happy with it, so offered me an alternative.

So here's three versions of the same story, mine, his, and the one that went in the mag.. I'll let you guess which is which (and decide which is the truest).

"With one of the local competitors getting caught taking a school boy piss (trousers round his ankles) out in the street by some middle aged women who were not at all impressed and gave him a serious dressing down and walked of muttering about the state of the youth. This was further made worse by some surfers who had travelled down deciding to make their walk from one bar to the next a bit more exciting by jumping off the roofs of cars...."

"With one of the local competitors taking a walk on the wildside after offering to reduce the que for the toilets by watering the plants, went for the schoolboy (trousers down around ankles) it was all going well until he was approached by the cougar who gave him a right bollocking although he did live to tell the tale and was seen at the bar beer in hand five later!...."

"One particular un-named local, who was out on the pull and managed to ruin his chances with a group of birds by going for school boy piss (trousers round the ankles) out in the street, which apparently is not as much of a turn on as one might think as when he got caught and the girls were not at all impressed.. and to add insult to injury he’d got knocked out in the first round of the open mens earlier that day!.... "

"The next day was sunny and flat, with the odd sup race to help shake off the after effects of the night before (and of course build core strength) which rounded off the weekend pretty nicely."

Could do with some waves soon.

Home town..

2010-12-11T06:00:00.001-08:00

Recently I was set the task of producing 8 photographs of the place where I live, with a theme or narrative running through the images, with the deadline two weeks away. Ironically in the 3 years I've been shooting, my home town is probably the place I've shot the least photos. It was stipulated 4 of these photos had to be portraits and after spending a while stressing for a theme that was a little bit out of the box, a tricky task as the place I live could not be more inside the box, I gave in and just embraced the clichéd nature of the project brief, choosing the theme of pride. Here's a couple of em;

Fingers crossed for some swell soon.

Projects..

2010-12-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

Currently working on two very different projects..one from each:

Hermosa..

2010-11-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

A couple from Playa Hermosa in July.

Damien Fahrenfont, fins free.

Damien Fahrenfont, pulling into a little chocolate keg.

Heavy.

Falling from the sky.

Original post from the session here.

Lomo Fauxmo...

2010-11-23T15:53:00.000-08:00

(Fauxmo)

(Lomo)

Also.. read this.

I didn't know goths were even into surfing.. (Day 2)

2010-11-17T12:24:00.001-08:00

No matter what time of year you go to Newquay your bound to see two things; Odd conduct and attractive girls (only in the day, they all disappear at night, especially in the summer, when they are replaced by a pretty fowl group of females).
Some of the weird stuff I saw this weekend whilst down included but was not limited to:

The aforementioned top British surfer striking a pigeon

A pair of full on goths (im talking whole nine yards, dreads piercings etc goths) standing for a considerable amount of time keenly observing the surf comp.

And a tiny dog emerging from its owners hand bag in Fistral blue to be fed chips.

Anyway.. comp coverage;

Day 2- Animal Newquay Open.

Sunday saw the start of the Open mens and womens comps at Fistral.

The event saw some early standouts in the form of Reubin Pearce, Micah Lester and Johnny Fryer, who were all killing it from the early rounds right the way through to the final, along with Egor who also surfed solidly throughout the event. There were also some upsets as Russ, Gordon and Joss Ash all failed to make it past the quarters (with Russ and joss going out in round one). However in the end it was Russ who took the title for the tour and Reubin who took it on the day. It was typical British weather for most of the day, super rainy and windy making it pretty hard to shoot, but just as the sun started to go down the weather cleared up, making for some super nice light for about 20 minutes, which was a pretty sick end to the weekend.

Andrew Griffin sticking an air reverse in his round one heat and securing himself the Relentless Money Move award for the comp.

Reubyn Ash throwing a backhand air reverse in the quarters.

Oli Adams in the quarters

Gordon in the quarters.

Johnny setting the bar high in his round one heat.

Micah Lester killing it in the final.

Reubin on his winning wave in the final.

Luke Dillon rode flip at sunset

Joss Ash busting an air reverse at South Fistral

Joss Ash also on the rodeo hype.

So that's it for the UKPST for this year, reckon i'm going to try and cover more of it next year if I'm in the country when the events are on. Check back soon.

Animal Newquay Open- Day 1.

2010-11-15T13:43:00.000-08:00

What a boring title for a post, think I'll call the one for day 2 somthing a bit more interesting..

Anyway, contest got under way in tiny conditions at Towan on the Saturday morning and to be honest the most interesting thing I saw before the contest moved, was Toby Donachie punch a pigeon, which was pretty funny (It made a loud slapping sound).

Little Angus Scotney popping a little air on a little wave..

Soon after the call was made I headed over to Fistral, along with all the eliminated U16's who paddled out for a free surf, while the remaining competitors battled it out in 0-1ft surf at Towan. The comp moved over to Fistral for the Pro Juior which commenced in 3-4foot and messy-ish conditions. However the competitors got stuck into the conditions and put on a seriously good show, showing the excitable crowd of onlookers that the future of British Surfing is very bright.

Arron Evans back hand slash

Josh Piper hitting the close out section on his first wave of his first heat of the comp- he went on to clench 4th in the Pro Junior division.

Stuart Cambell warming up for the comp

Stuart Cambell showing that the warm up payed off, on his way to winning the Pro Junior Division.

Josh Piper killing it in the free surf.

As the light started to go the comp began to rap up with the u16's finishing with a lot more style than it began with:

Luke Dillon flying off the lip on his way to finishing first in the U16's division.

Miles Lee-Hagreeves warming up for the U16's final, where he just lost out to Luke to clench second place.

After the event I floundered my way across the hand shredding barnicle covered (but super slippery none the less) rocks over to middle Firstral to go shoot Stokesy, James Hick and Russ Winter in the dying light and booming swell, which although may not seem it but is actually a pretty irritating combination. Here's some:

Stokesy taking flight on a big one

This wave feels like a 2 footer to James Hick..

Russ drawing inspiration from the rotary blade of a helicopter that flew over earlier in the day..

Or just Russ making the most of a familiar section.

Stokesy whipping it back into the pocket.

James attacking a close out section.

So Day 1 came to a close, and day 2 was shaping up to be a good'un with sun forecast and the open mens comp. So everyone was frothing. Check back for a round up of Day 2's action (which will have a more interesting name).

Kernow..

2010-11-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

Just arrived in Kernow for the Newquay Open, although it was a trek to get here, pretty amped as its shaping up to be a sick event. Here's one from the journey down of an istallation by the side of the road that when driving past really looks like someone with their legs in the air (which is obviously the idea), so pulled over to have a closer look.. pretty surreal.

Check back for comp round up..

Chat..

2010-11-07T09:20:00.001-08:00

The other day I heard someone on the pier say 'Look at them all, you can see why sharks attack them'... To be honest makes a nice change from 'Where's this wave machine then?'

There have been a lot of good days for water shooting so far this season.. But Thursday was not one of them. Here's one of Mason:

More swell on the way though, yeew.

Just some...

2010-11-04T15:29:00.000-07:00

Photos.

RIP Andy Irons.

2010-11-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

I've read and seen some amazing tributes to Andy over the last 24 hours, and as their ten times meaningful as anything I could write, have a watch of this video from Brian Bielmann, it contains some incredible shots and really shows Andy at his best:

Andy Irons Tribute from Brian Bielmann from M. Scott Mortensen on Vimeo.

Although essentially this blog post counts for very little, I think its a true testiment to what a ledgend he was that everyone from King Kelly to a land-locked aspiring surf photographer from England (and everyone in between) is devastated by this loss. Everyone's thoughts are with his family and friends at this horrible time and I hope they cant take some comfort from the fact that Andy lived a life that most of us can only dream about.

Lippy

2010-10-31T09:14:00.000-07:00

Pitching lips and blue skies.. I think everyone wishes Bournemouth was like that more often:

Check it..

2010-10-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

Weverson ready to smash a foamy lip. Photo by Jake Moore.

Mason working his way through to the inside. Photo by Jake Moore
Here are a couple photos taken by Fellow Bournemouth surf photographer Jake Moore (click here to cyber fly to his website, do it his photos are sick!) of me shooting from the water on Saturday. Kinda like those shots you see from pipeline, minus the big gaping barrel, crystal blue water and other 100 photographers. Which reminds me, anyone who is remotely interested in surf photography, make sure you watch the film Fibreglass and Mega-pixels, its absolutely sick and super inspirational.

Cranking..

2010-10-24T14:13:00.001-07:00

The forecast for Saturday was poor, although it changed a bit depending on where you looked, the prediction was pretty much for sloppy blown out 1-2 footers. So I wasn't exactly optimistic about my weekends shooting as I headed down to Bournemouth on Friday night. None the less I got up for the dawny on Saturday morning and sat for a while, still pretty pessimistic, squinting at the dark Bournemouth pier webcam stream. As it started to get light it looked alright, I could see the odd pealer, and there were already a fair few people on the peak (which says nothing about the conditions in Bournemouth). So I headed out. On my way to the pier I rang local surfer Mason expecting him to already be there, or at least on his way.. instead what I got was a uncharacteristically subdued grunt and a mutter about heading down at 10 as he had some new board to pick up. This was a seriously bad sign as I've never known Mason to stay in bed when there's a wave (a couple of weeks ago we went for a dawny in 1 foot blown out chop in the rain). However after a little bit of convincing from other surfers, he got up and said he'd meet me down there in a bit.

As soon as I got their I could tell it was going to be a sick day, the swell was lined up all the way to the horizon and the pier looked as good as it gets as waves peeled of the banks, lips pitching as they went. I headed over to meet up with Adam and Mase who were already getting suited up and after a lot of unavoidable water housing faff (which meant I missed Weversons barrel, which people in the water kept telling me about) I got in and joined them. I water shot for the next 4 and half hours, until every muscle in my legs was cramping and I was too hungry to swim. Fully worth it though..

Mason duckdiving.

Weverson smashing the lip on a little insider.

Ben on a lippy one.

Mason hitting the lip on his new 5'9..

The sun breaking through a pretty tenacious rain cloud.

Tris.

Weverson tailslide.

Pete lining up.

Mason busting out on the inside.

Weverson in the barrel!

Stoked Weverson..

Sunset at Boscombe.. a nice end to an epic day.

Yesterday morning..

2010-10-24T01:11:00.000-07:00

Was epic, best waves I've seen at the pier in ages.

More photos coming soon, check back!

Spoilt..

2010-10-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

For choice on the webcast front today, with the ripcurl pro Portugal on for a bit and of course the miners coming up, which I've been watching for the last hour and is just amazing, and I bet everyone involved's pretty amped on how its panning out.

Weirdly watching it reminded me of somthing totally unrelated which happened to me in Newquay. Id just been shooting a dawny with James Taylor, and I'd popped to the news agent at South Fistral to get some breakfast supplies. When I came out James was chatting to a guy in a high vis jacket, about surfing (James was still in his suit) and the guy made some joke about watching out for sharks. He then asked us if we remember the photo of the great white, that started out on the front page of the Newquay guardian before the rest of the nations press picked up the story and the photo:

The answer didn't really matter to him, as he proceeded to tell us that he'd been the one who took the photo.... in South Africa! and that he'd just sent it in as a joke thinking that no one would believe it, but once the big papers started offering him large sums to tell his story he thought he'd let the joke go a bit further, although he told us that unfortunately he hadn't managed to cash the cheques before they found out it was a hoax which he was pretty gutted about. And although it did pretty quickly come out that it was a hoax, it was in the press long enough to cause a stir, and subsequently he managed to land himself a spot on the most annoying people of 2007! After telling us the story, along with his new plans to take a picture of a crocodile and pretend it was in the river that comes out at Crantock (plans which his wife had apparently forbade him from carrying out) he left, disappearing off into a building site and that was that.

Only today did I think to check up on his story, and so I googled him to find a picture.. and sure enough it was him. Haha, what a joker.

Bournemouth weekend.

2010-10-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

The weekend just gone was one of the funest weekends spent in Bournemouth I can remember.

I'd spent the last 4 days up in Cumbria looking at different types of grass that grows on Sand dunes, so by comparison just to be on a beach where my face wasn't being raped by the wind, and I didn't need to wear 4 layers would have been nice. But what I got was a bit better than that.. On friday I travelled almost the entire length of the Country sampling the delights of numerous train stations along the way with Birminham new street and Wolverhampton possible being the highlights, and eventually I arrived in Bournemouth.

Saturday.

Got up for a dawny on saturday, and headed over to a local reef that was meant to be pumping with Mason Alderman and Sam Plank... We were greeted by double overhead sets peeling off the reefs at either side of the bay, so after watching in awe for a bit Sam and Mason suited up and got stuck in.

The sight that made it all worth it..

Getting in and out proved pretty difficult, and shooting from the cliff I saw numerous people get washed over the rocks.... which to be fair was very funny

Dropping in on a big one..

Sam heading out

Throwing buckets.

Mason on his first wave of the day.

Afterwards we headed up to the main car park, with a view to going and checking out the reef on the other side of the bay. As we got up there it struck us how few people there were around and after talking to a few locals who were sitting around in their vans, we found out that there were just two guys out on the reef.. which was pretty rare in conditions like this. After some phone calls we decided to head back to the piers, where there was a fun easterly running. Where it transpired that everyone had tried to get out to the reef, but failed due to roadworks that had created a two or so hour tail back, so they'd just had to sit in traffic getting more and more frustrated about the epic waves they knew they were missing. By the time we got to the pier the sun had come out and feeling pretty smug with ourselves and our ability to get up early based on this recently acquired knowledge, we all suited up and I jumped in to take some water shots.

Mason's never too tired to smash a Bournemouth lip.

The waves dropped off as afternoon turned to evening so pleased with the days results, we decided to head home.

Sunday

On Sunday we got up for another dawny, this one yielding less good results than the day before, heading out to the same reef, where it was quite a bit smaller and after walking almost all the way out to the reef on the west side of the bay we got blocked off by the high tide, so we begrudgingly headed back to the pier.

The wave we couldn't get to..

Back at the pier we hang around for a bit waiting on the tide, and when it eventually hit the sweet spot, the easterly swell started to throw up some nice waves.

Mike hanging 5

Mason cutback.

Mike styling it.

Mason flying off the lip

A sunlit wave.

So a good weekend of shooting all in all and nice to get another water shoot in before the water gets too cold to press the camera trigger.. although hopefully there's still a while till then. Next goal is try get in at the artificial reef.. check back.

Ropes and wires photos..

2010-10-12T03:03:00.000-07:00

A couple shots from Ropes and Wires last weekend..

Lee Debuse

Jonty Green.

Edit coming soon ish..

British Snow Tour- Big air Champs,

2010-10-03T10:49:00.001-07:00

Photos from the Big Air champs in the MK snow dome last weekend:

Started doing some filming at events now as well, so some edits may well start to pop up shortly. Nice sunny mornings shooting and filming at Ropes and wires on Saturday, although clouded up a bit as the day went on, super high standard of wakeboarding especially from the pro mens, with guys like Jonty Green killing it as usual. Expect photos and an edit soon (although maybe not for a week or so because my laptop's just packed up). Bournemouth next weekend and if the forecast swell materializes could be a banger. Check back.

Sunday- Windfest Weekend

2010-09-29T14:16:00.001-07:00

The Sunday of the Windfest weekend, which was absolutely ages ago now, was a really good day. After a pretty late start, I mosied around the event for a bit, and shot one lot of pool gap and the red bull planes for a little bit. It was pretty much flat at the pier, but the sun was out and there wasn't too much wind so after meeting up with Mason and some other local boys we decided to go do some tarp surfing, as one of the guys, George happened to have the tarp in his boot, as they'd tried it a week or so earlier. Tarp surfing is both more fun and more difficult than it looks on film and on photos, here's some shots from the day:

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii106/Lukedreams/4-3.jpg

Headed over to the British snow tour's big air event in the MK snow dome on the Saturday jus gone was a really good event with three sick kickers and an insanely high standard of skiing and snowboarding throughout. Photos coming soon. Hitting Boxend park for ropes and wires this weekend, which if the sun is out promises to be a good start to October.. also got photos in the new Carve and the new Length, one of Bournemouth local Mason (pictured above) in Length and one of Bournemouth local James in Carve, both sponsored by Bournemouth company Pigeons Bay, so stoked on that. New website is now also finally done and up and running.. Click here.

Busy..

2010-09-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry, for the lack of Sunday Windfest photos, been super busy either working or skating this absolutly sick little bowl we found recently. Heading to MK to shoot the Big Air champs at the Snow dome on Saturday, will try get the photos up by next week. Website is getting there slowly...

Saturday..

2010-09-17T02:02:00.000-07:00

I love days like Saturday at the Pier. Days when a nice little swell sneaks under the radar of the masses, and thanks to the local knowledge of local surfer Mason Alderman you manage to score the better side of the pier, in the sun, with just you and 3 others out.
The day started with a pretty unrewarding dawny, so we got out after an hour or so and headed into town for some pancakes at maccies. Mason reckoned, despite the choppy one footers he'd just surfed that later, on the right tide it was gonna get good, and he picked at 3 o clock as the time when everything would come together (sun included) for us to get some good shots. I was a little skeptical, but thought it was worth hanging around to find out.

The dawny.
After breakfast we headed over to YDNA skate shop, and then next door to the new boardroom which opens late September and is already looking so sick. At about 1 we headed back over to the pier. It was still pretty overcast and the waves were still very average, but frothing on the prospect of improvment, we suited up, and headed in. After about half an hour of being in the sun started to break through, the wind had dropped right off, and it started to clean up. Here's what happened next:

Mason's triumphant vert re-entry

Mason lining up.. taken at bang on 3 o'clock.. just as it was starting to get good, not a bad prediction eh.

Photos from sunday coming soon.

Weddings..

2010-09-16T02:59:00.000-07:00

Newquay 1st-3rd September..

2010-09-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

So they've been a long time coming because I've had a hell of a lot on, but here are some shots from the three days I spent down in Newquay at the beginning of the month.

A pretty nice way to finish off a long day of travelling. James and Karley at sunset.

James Taylor, My host for the week hitting a backhand re-entry on the wednesday evening and a big frontside hack on the Friday morning. Really enjoyed travelling around with him and Weverson, flying the Bournemouth flag, with Weverson sponsored by YDNA and James by Sorted and Pigeons bay.

Egor in a pretty foreign looking barrel... at Fistral, got a couple second cover up before getting spat out- was sick.

Egor again, floating a section on a big one on the friday morning.

Lee Barlett throwing up some spray on a sunny one.

Matt Capel busting a air reverse on the end section- Matt's such a good surfer to shoot, because not only does he catch loads of waves but you get a good shot off almost every single one.

Luke Dillon- u16 and u18 British champ throwing the fins out on a back hand re-entry.

An unknown surfer at Fistral throwing a big frontside air as the sun came up, not bad for 7 am.

Fistral looking like France..

Stokesy throwing buckets.

Matt again popping a little double graber on a end section.
New album entitled Cornwall Surf Sessions launching as soon as I get my site up and running again with all the best shots from this trip, amongst others.
In other news website re-design is going average.. and very slowly. Got loads of shots from the weekend, had a really nice water shoot with locals Mason and Adam on Saturday arvo, then shot a little bit of Windfest Sunday and then went tarp surfing, so a pretty sick weekend all in all, photos soon.

Weekend..

2010-09-10T11:06:00.001-07:00

This weekend is Windfest weekend, so heading down to Bournemouth tonight, light/weather are looking no good for tomorrow so not gunna hit the fest till Sunday.. going to try and get a surf in (and possible a water shoot) tomorrow, in the 2 foot onshore dribble, so pretty amped for that.
Photos from Cornwall are almost ready, still haven't finished editing them all and the mags are still having a look. Here's one of Fistral at Friday lunch time:

Crankin Kernow..

2010-09-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Been down in Newquay for the last couple days, its been so sick, pumping waves and perfect weather. LOADS of photos on their way soon. Stay tuned...

Predictable...

2010-08-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

The Bournemouth chart went flat.. so Newquay it is. Gonna head down Wednesday and stay down till Friday lunch and then dash back for a party Friday night, then was going to head to Bedford to shoot the Euro flowrider champs on Saturday, but they've only gone and moved it to the flowrider in Kernow. Building one in Bedford makes sense because its slap bang in the middle of the midlands, but I don't even know why they bothered to build one in Kernow (go in the fucking sea?!) let alone why they are choosing it over the Bedford one to hold the comp on, so Im pretty annoyed about that. Still waves should be sick for the end of the week so overall super amped.

Fistral on a big autumn swell last year.

A dilemma..

2010-08-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

So I'd almost given up on checking the charts, I mean why bother at this time of year? Instead I watch longboarding videos on youtube, read what people I don't really like are up to on facebook and begin to write my next 'its been flat for ages.. again' article for Length about Bournemouth. But earlier I decided to have a browse.. and spotted something on the horizon- a fifteen second period. The swell height was average, and the wind was not ideal but the period was 15 seconds. And last time I read a Bournemouth chart with 15 seconds on it the spot in England that I enjoy scoring the most put on a pretty good show to say the least.. which I unfortunately was not there to see. So I vowed if I ever spotted that number on the chart again, nothing was going to stop me from going (at this point I must pause and say that It is magic seaweed chart that has fed me this info, and so its more than likely that this swell will not materialize, or not make its way up the channel, or any other of the reasons that make the magic seaweed long range forecast wrong 80% of the time. Which would make me look like even more of a twat than I already do with all this stupid I vowed bollocks..) Anyway, ever the optimist I managed to sort myself a lift with a mixture of promising a pretty skint mate of mine lots of petrol money and showing him photos of last time this spot was epic (which there is no way this swell will match up to)- And was feeling pretty pleased with myself, because if this swell did materialize.. I was on it.
At 23:10 this seemingly pretty good situation turned complicated. I was sat watching In Bruges, which has just reached its rather ridiculous climax, and sitting on facebook when up pops Weverson, the brazilian ripper from Bournemouth, inviting me to head down to Kernow with him at the end of next week, initially due to lack of funds and my previously made plans that I was amping on, I thanked him for the offer, but declined. A little shocked he linked me to the chart on seaweed... which did throw a bit of a spanner into the works.
So here's the dilemma: Do I..use what little money I have to get to, and stay in Newquay for a couple days, almost definitely score some fucking cranking waves and get all the swell I should of got on my week down there earlier in August (which was flat), all together in one big hit (I'd say spaced out over seven days, the way the swell for Thurs and fri is looking at the moment would roughly accumulate to 7 days of solid 3 foot waves).
Or do I keep an eye on the forecast and chance it and possible score my favourite break to shoot, and be able to put the line 'an epic session went down at a spot just outside Bournemouth (see photo above)' in my next length article. Or get there to see it blown out, or flat, with hoards of (well meaning and very friendly locals) telling me I should have been their earlier..or simply shrugging it off, mumbling something about how they never got it wrong before seaweed arrived and heading for a blown out choppy two foot wave at the pier.
only to get home to find photos of Fistral on seaweed that bring a tear to my eye as I realise I missed out on a perfectly obtainable epic session (ironically like what happened the day I missed out on scoring this spot in Bournemouth). If any-one's bothered to read all this I'd be interested to know your thoughts, as it appears you have a lot of time on your hands so I'm sure wouldn't mind sharing them.. but if as I fear it will be me making the ultimate decision, Im going to have to do some serious thinking... Maybe it will get easier as we get closer to the time.

Sunday morning..

2010-08-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

I woke up early on the Sunday morning after a heavy last night up at Watergate (the music bit of Boardmasters) to the piercing sound of my phone alarm, and although I had always been determined to get down to shoot the final of the surfing, I wasn't really thinking straight when I set my alarm In the early hours of sunday morning, just before I konked. I managed to quickly silence the alarm, as I don't think my tent mate, who had very little interest in watching the final and later that day described surfing as a bit boring and samey, would have been best pleased with his two hours sleep. I somehow managed to get my stuff together, and get down to Fistral for about 9... Where there was absolutely nothing contest related going on at all. It was a standard sunny summer morning at Fistral, mushy waves and the entire population of the northern British counties lying around on the beach, and running into each other on foamies in the sea. I decided the best course of action was to choose a spot on the headland where I could open one eye now again to check if there was anything going on at North Fistral, and using my camera bag as a pillow get a bit more sleep in.
I woke up at about 12, and glanced down at North Fistral, where the shoreline was already littered with photographers and the line up filled with free-surfing QS surfers. Extremely grateful for my extra couple hours, I headed down the beach and set up. Here are some shots from that free-surf:

Its almost as if the families lining the shoreline didn't care about the super impressive free surfing displays going on straight out in front of them..

Backhand shove

Klee Scratchen- air reverse

After an hour or so the contest got under way.. see photos in the previous post.

Boardmasters..

2010-08-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

Relentless Boardmasters went down last weekend and although I only sampled the goings on at Watergate (the music),and the final 2 rounds of the surfing, I can tell you with certainty that the whole thing was once again a sick event. Once again a British surfer fell at one of the final hurdles, this year it was Russ Winter, who was knocked out in an insanely close semi by Marc Lacomare who went on to win the comp. Although the standard of surfing was perhaps not quite as high as in previous years, the Frenchman definitely deserved putting on a very impressive display of power surfing in the tricky conditions. Here are some photos from the final day:

Saturday night sunset at Watergate bay

Marc Lacomare warming up for his semi-final

Russ Winter pulling a massive floater on the end section in his semi-final against Marc.

Russ making the most out of a familiar fistral close out section.

Two photos from Marcs 8.93, which secured him the heat.

Consolation and congratulations.

Marc surfed extremely well in his final against Jay Quinn from New Zealand, in what was once again an extremely closely contested heat, with only 0.23 separating the two finalists.
Check back soon for photos from the pre-contest free-surf on the Sunday morning.

Categorically..

2010-08-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

I'd like to state categorically that I reckon Gabriel Medina is going to be world champ one day. You heard it here first...

Los Animales..

2010-08-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

So I've never really bothered with wildlife photography, far too much waiting around, and if im abroad there's usually something more interesting to shoot... and back home (in a country famous for its pigeons) there are very few species worth shooting. However this was not the case in Costa Rica, I saw loads of proper interesting animals, wales, dolphins (which are incredible difficult to shoot), frogs, toucans, crocs and monkeys, with the highlight of my wildlife venture being watching a huge group of monkeys, jumping, one by one, across this massive ravine on the edge of the rain forest, which was genuinely one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

Tree frog

Whale tale, the whales were easier way easier to shoot that the dolphins, because they were huge, swam very slowly and came up for air every couple minutes.

Salamander

Spider monkey jumping the ravine.

Capuchin, or white face as the Costa ricans call them, jumping the ravine.

White face chowing down

Spider monkey sick of the papparazi

Baby croc- taken from about 4 feet away.

Cant remember what these fellas were called.

So that's pretty much it from Costa Rica, such a sick place with amazing waves, great surfers, super friendly people and pretty cool wildlife, not bad for a country about a quarter the size of England ay.

Heading off to Newquay tomorrow for Boardmasters and then gonna stay down for a week after. Unfortunately not sure how much shooting of the actual surfing comp I'll do as I'm going to straight to Watergate bay for the music and because it's camping I'll probably stay up at the festival site for most of the weekend, but will try and get down to Fistral to shoot the last couple rounds, especially if the Brits feature (Russ is surfing sick, and so far blasting everyone out in the early rounds). Then hopefully hook up with some of the Bournemouth boys and some locals to do some water shooting the next week. Should be good.

Burkla

2010-08-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

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Costa Rica- Playa Hermosa

2010-07-31T07:42:00.001-07:00

I don't even know where to start- I only got to spend one morning shooting at this break because it was just a stop over, but what an insane morning it was. Something I have often dreamt about (sort of) happened on that morning. It started pretty normal, waking up about 6:30 (I've kept my body on English time as much as I can, as its very helpful for dawnys) and looking out the window of my b+b, it was very sunny so my eyes couldn't really focus on the sea, so I left the room, and walked out on to the beach. I was immediately confronted by a perfect light and 6-8 foot barrels. So things were already looking pretty damn good.

I walked along the beach a bit to find the busiest and best peak, and was informed by a passing surfer, that there was a guy out on the peak straight in front of me who had grown up with Jordy smith, and ripped. This guys airs were insane, he was trying absolutely everything, backflips, rodeos, sushi rolls- every newly invented backhand air you could think of (apart from a kickflip). He even busted a little pop shove it on the inside shorey, which I unfortunately didn't photo because I thought, ahh he's just riding one in. He helped bring a bit of diversity to the lineup whilst everyone else was just going for barrels, with one guy in particular getting, more and longer shacks than anyone else, at one point making an impossible ducking a seeming impossible backdoor section and getting spat out.

'Jordys friend'- Unfortunately didn't get this guys name, but he was definitely more than just a friend of jordys.
It was starting to drop off a bit into mid morning when I spotted someone take off on a peak a little down the beach, and then pop two airs on the inside. I immediately moved over to a spot from where I could shoot this guy, and on closer inspection of the photos saw he had a big rusty sticker on the bottom of his board. I then noticed a camera guy a little way up the beach, dressed in all Rusty and after shooting the rusty surfer pop one of the biggest airs I've ever seen, I walked up the beach to speak to this camera guy. He casually informed me that he was filming for rustys new film and that the surfer in the water was Jay Davies. He also casually mentioned that Josh Kerr was just over there, sitting down. By this point I was pretty flabbergasted and I'd say almost star struck. I managed to get out a sentence along the lines of, oh wow this is so sick, please get Josh Kerr to come out (as he is without a doubt one of my favourite surfers in the world and possible the one I'd like to shoot the most, with a arial repotoure that in my opinion is better and more impressive than any other surfer) to which the camera guy replied that he would try in a bit.

Jay Davies- Massive front side air

Damien Fahrenfort- busting out of a sandy wedge
Amped on my luck I continued to shoot. Seeing how excited I was by the mentioning of these pro's the camera man decided to slip in one final little fact. And Kelly staying just over there he said to me, as if he was telling me the time. Now im pretty ashamed with my response, but I hope you will understand it was simply a measure of disbelief (and the sweltering heat) opposed to a demonstration of the highest level of ignorance for a surfer... "Kelly who?!" I replied, the camera man looked round with a puzzled look and once again in the most nonchalant tone imaginable replied "...Slater, and Andy Irons and Shane Dorian, they were out yesterday morning". Once again my jaw dropped, I didn't even know what to say.
Im very sad to tell you that here is where the story ends, Jay and Damien got out pretty soon after, and Josh didn't seem sufficiently impressed with the worsening conditions so simply retired to the front garden of the extremely plush beach front lodgings the team were staying in. Here are some shots from before the pro's turned up:

Now I still don't really know what to make of the entire event really, in some ways I'm disappointed I came so close to shooting the best all round surfer in the world and one of the worlds best aerialists (amongst others,but Josh and of course Kelly are the ones I would have liked to have shot most) but didn't manage it, because I had to leave. But on the other hand I still scored and got to shoot a couple of the Rusty team and it was still pretty cool to even be at the same beach as those surfers... although I really don't know how I'm going to be able to go back to shooting in Bournemouth after this...

Costa Rica- Playa Negra

2010-07-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

The first break I stayed at was Playa Negra, although the waves weren't all time there, its was still so sick, sandy beach, the beach break to the right of the reef was really good for water shots, and threw up some nice clean little 3 footers for the locals and tourists, the vast majority of whom ripped, to get stuck into. Here are some shots from the week:

Styling it at sndy beach

Logging perfection

Backhand snap

Joey busting a big frontside air during an afternoon shower

Good early morning waves on the main reef

Making the most of the end section- main reef

Check back soon for a full round up of the Hermosa sesssion.

Costa Rica..

2010-07-31T07:22:00.000-07:00

So haven't written or uploaded anything for ages, and for this I'm sorry, but have been extremely busy. Just landed at some new lodging just up the coast from Dominical, which is the break I'm heading to later today. This place is pretty insane, I'm sitting on some decking dug into the edge of a mountain surrounded by rain forest with a panoramic view of the ocean. Not a bad place to blog from. To get back to my room from here I have to walk down some very steep steps and a very narrow path. Last night I decided to come up here after dinner and upload some photos to seaweed (which didn't work). The place I'm staying is an Eco lodge, which means they're proper into the environment, and one of all environmental enthusiasts main course of action is turning the lights off, so at this place all the lights that like up the very narrow, very steep path that winds down the mountain side to my room, along with all the lights on the decking itself, all went off at about 9:30, thus last night plunging me into absolute darkness, no moonlinght, nothing. Didn't even have my phone and my laptop doesn't work unless its plugged in so no light from that either. I've never had myself down as someone who was scared of snakes, or any animal for that matter, but last night walking down this extremely dark path, after seeing signs very nearby warning you to watch out for poisonous snakes (which are nocturnal) and after hearing a tale last week (granted it was from an 8 year old) of how her grandmas chickens had been killed by a boa-constrictor, I was a little nervous. But I obviously lived to tell the tale. Anyway, now lets back track...

Costa Rica..

2010-07-25T13:09:00.001-07:00

Been here about a week now and its so sick, the break which I'm staying at, called playa negra has a super nice right hand reef break and some sick lefts in the bay next to it. Got some better shots today but misplayed my card reader, so here's some from yesterday: Despite the fact the place with internet at the hotel is the only air conditioned building in the vicinity and its the first time ive experience cold since i've been here, I want to leave and go for a surf, so will upload more tommorow.

Bournemouth Friday..

2010-07-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

Went to Bournemouth friday to shoot a bit of blown out slop, here's two.

Bos reef was... err doing this.

Mason Alderman making the best of the deminishing swell.

Mark throwing up some spray

A lake..

2010-07-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

Spotted this super secluded lake in the middle of a bunch of fields near my house on google maps a few weeks ago, and today me and one of my mates decided to go on a mission to find it. After about an hour and half of trekking through fields, jumping over rivers and getting stung the shit out of we made it and wow, was it sick. Looked really good for a lot of water sports (although not surfing unfortunately), but absolutely ideal for whinching/wakeskating, as its surrounded by trees to block out the wind so would be pretty glassy all the time, and we found a really good spot you could put the winch. Although access would be an issue. Enough description, here's some photos:

Google maps view:

The first of many photos of the Lake (hopefully the others will have blue sky in the background and wakeskaters in the foreground)

Costa rica trip in 8 days- so amped.

Summer..

2010-07-05T06:29:00.000-07:00

22nd July - 22nd August is going to be a extremely good few weeks, Costa Rica for 2 weeks then kernow for 3. Seriously lookin forward to surfing in boardee's and a t-shirt in the 30 degrees C water at Playa Negra and having a pint and listening to Newton Falkner at Boardmasters.

Having a website..

2010-06-30T14:53:00.001-07:00

feels like having a small child... it requires so much looking after. Unfortunately that's as far as I can take that analogy, and am too tired to think of a better one, so you'll have to make do. My site has been down for absolutely ages now, and I have no idea why. Despite emailing weycrest who host my web space, numerous times, nothing seems to have been done which is very irritating. As well as the obvious annoyance caused by the fact you can no longer view my photos online a friend of mine pointed out to me the other day that people may see the shitty pirate space add site that has replaced it and think it is mine, which considering the amount of time I have spent trying to make my website look good, I just cant stand the thought of, so im hoping it gets sorted soon.
Anyway, enough whinging.. Costa Rica trip in 20 days. So amped.

Glastonbury..

2010-06-30T13:57:00.000-07:00

So just got back from the most amazing place in the world.. I met some of the most interesting people in the country, so far removed from the bubble I seem to have been forced to float around in, chilled in the most exciting and surreal places and of course watched some insane live music. I can say without a doubt it was the most incredible 5 days of my life so far and to try and encapsulate it in words (and even photos) is an incredible tricky task, especially since all I took was a little digi. But here are a couple:

Sunset at the Pyramid Stage- 8:16 PM

Sunrise at the park - 3:26 AM

I know its incredible cliche but the early hours of the morning at glasto really are some of the best, its the time when the most weird stuff happens, and you meet the weirdest people. Here's a photo from sunrise at stone circle- 4:28 AM. Click to see it big

Dizzee Rascal on the Pyramid