The biggest Billabong XXL ever?
There is no doubt this has been one of the best surf seasons in decades, but in the short history of the Billabong XXL I would have to say this is THE best season for judging big waves. I can’t wait to see some of the finalists!
Every year the Billbong XXL has a panel of surf industry folk, including sickshots, review the final shots and pick the winners. I am stoked for the opportunity and always invite you, the sickshots audience to help me. I will be receiving the ballots soon, so stay tuned and I will ask for your opinions. While I know many of the contestants, I keep it as unbiased as possible and ask you to do the same.
This is one amazing shot of Grant ‘Twiggy’ Baker at Mavericks last month and it was shot by Frank Quirarte who always seems to be scoring unbelievable Mavericks images. Congrats guys. Epic moment!
Go Pro and Let it Snow!
Here’s a few shots from my first run today at Mammoth. I’m using the new HD Go Pro helmet cam (set to shoot an image every two seconds). I also shot some video which I will edit and post later. The conditions were good, but it will be even better as snow storms are predicted this entire week!
You can see it was snowing and some of it was sticking to the lens cover on the housing. Overall, I’m impressed with these little cameras. The quality is great for the size and their lightweight enough that I didn’t even notice it was on my head after I got going (even though I looked like a tool). Pretty cool. Can’t wait to try these on some surf trips I have scheduled this spring!
I’m up here for a TV commercial, but the weather is so bad we may have to cancel. Either way, I hope to get some more sessions in and share the footage when I get it.
Big Wednesday – Waimea Bay
I think everyone knows I love me some Waimea Bay! Today looks to be pretty good over there and I am really missing it right about now. I tried to see it on the surfline cam and it is too busy- drats. I tried to call Sean Davey for a report and he didn’t answer (I don’t blame him I would be shooting too)!
This is a shot of Waimea from the water on a ’smallish’ day. It is real Waimea and not pinballs, but it is not big by any stretch. What I like is that you can see this is just the top of the wave. If you look down in the lower right of the photo you can see where the beginning of the bottom of the wave starts! This guy is in for a steep drop and he doesn’t know it yet. Most people eat it on the drop and get steam rolled by mounds of white water and get stuffed deep. That’s why I think making the drop is so rewarding, because you pull off what is often an air drop with your hands over your head and avoid total destruction!
HIRE A SURF PHOTOGRAPHER- This Friday and Saturday look good here in California and I am not hired yet, so let me know if you want me to shoot your session. The usual spots should be pumping including Rincon in the North and Pt. Loma in the South. Have fun wherever you go and charge!
Surf Contest at Swamis?
I just got this email and wanted to pass along the link to those of you that may be interested. Here is the explanation from the website calling for a petition:
It has come to our attention that a professional womens longboard contest is being proposed for Swamis. We think it is a bad idea, sets a bad precedent, and is unneeded, unwanted, and unsafe. There are plenty of other locations county wide including Cardiff, Oceanside, LJ Shores and Ocean Beach where contests are run. There has never been a contest at Swamis (well one way back in ‘67). The Swamis Surf Club makes sure they never run their contest at Swamis. Why? Because Swamis locals and visitors alike do not want one. A pro surfing contest does nothing for community surfers, does not benefit the city of Encinitas local surfers or make sense for the aesthetic and vibe of the wonderfully peaceful Self Realization Fellowship. What is the upside? A promoter makes some money, and the City of Encinitas promotes tourism.Please sign the petition below to STOP SURFING CONTESTS AT SWAMIS – FOR GODS SAKE – IS NOTHING SACRED?
Here’s the link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-surfing-contests-at-swamis
Swamis was one of the first waves I surfed when I came to California from Florida back in 89. I couldn’t believe such a place existed. I caught some great waves that trip and the crowd didn’t seem to bug me that much because the peak often moved around and let everyone get waves. Well now I know that only happens on certain swells and the crowd is thicker than ever. Still a great wave and if they do have contests here I might just have to enter! I mean can you imagine the place with 4 or 6 competitors? Incredible!
Note: Who cares that the wave in the shot is actually Rincon…Swamis looks like this a lot in the winter..coming soon!
Winter Season kicks off with a bang!
Words and Photo by assistant, Jobi Manson
It’s a regular thursday in mid-October. Dave had told me the night before that there maybe was surf on the horizon… I shrugged my head and said, “Ha, yeah I’ll believe that S@#$ when I see it.” The night before the first big swell of the season is expected, it’s kinda like when you were little and you wear your pj’s inside out and pray for snow… 10 years later I pull the cob webs off my board and leave it with my keys by the door. Cob webs are probably an exaggeration, but when you can’t remember the last time you got in the water- that’s never a good thing.
The next morning true to form I missed my alarm and was so bummed because I was really keen to shoot and surf that morning. I called the boss (Dave) and asked in a very nice voice if I could have the day off to shoot. He replied gracefully, and insisted I go.
I arrived at Manhattan Beach’s El porto around 10 AM and quickly set up to shoot a few rounds before my session. The swell progressively built throughout the late morning and was not bad when the tide dropped out slightly. Having never surfed here before, the break proved to be fun, fast, and close out barrels. I probably caught 4 waves that day. I was stoked. It was heavy for sure.
ASP Hurley Pro
Photo and words by photo assistant Jobi Manson
3:45 am the alarm goes… I leave my apartment in West Hollywood to venture slightly farther south to Lower Trestles, to witness the only ASP event located in the continental United States. I met my friend John at Carl’s Jr. where we proceeded to make the journey down the path to the hidden gem located at the San Mateo State camping ground.
Not being a native Californian, I knew the legend of Trestles, but had yet to experience its magic. Now let me preface this entry by saying, the surf on Day 2 of the Hurley Pro was less then magic. However, that’s not to say that magic didn’t occur. Arriving at the break just before sunrise, John and I found a spot on the pebble-laden beach and set up shop in order for me shoot. Lurking just behind my left shoulder happened to be the athlete’s only tent, to which I gazed star struck at all of my childhood surfing idols (the boys). In the tent warming up slash playing hacky sack were Cj. Hobgood & Marlon Lipke. Fortunately for me a very nice gentleman who happens to be the highest voted surf repair shop in San Clemente scored me a VIP pass, which allowed me to get stalker status on these gentlemen. Some even said hello.
The morning heats started off well enough in my opinion the better surf for sure. Cj rocked out beating Lipke… Taylor Knox proved that age doesn’t matter at all when it comes to surfing talent walking all over Australia’s Drew Courtney. Take that Australia, not so seppo now eh mate? And now I’m skipping to the part where I do what Dave refers to as “hating”. I am gonna “hate” for a minute on the results of heat number 8 concerning my official favourite surfer, South African Umhlanga boy JORDY SMITH and Tiago Pires. Jordy pulled two 360’s and blasted a superman air and lost? What is the surfing world coming to when progressive manoeuvres are being shunned? Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say shunned.. But Tiago’s roundhouses and slashes off the lip were far less entertaining…very vanilla. Where as Mr. Smith’s manoeuvres are more easily equated with a banana split? How do you like your ice cream? Because personally I like a little flavour. Okay, done hating…
As the afternoon progressed I ventured into the VIP section to grab some free food (yes!) and linger. I happened to bump in Rob Machado who was intrigued with my tilt shift and began to inquire what type of lens I was shooting with. Pretty cool meeting and greeting some of the pro’s. All in all a very fun day, I even went home to discover I had a bit of sunburn. I guess twelve hours in the sun will do that to you.
Malibu Surfing Association Contest
The Malibu Surfing Association held it’s annual contest this past weekend with team MSA retaining the classic crown. The WindanSea surf club, the Santa Barbara Surf Club and the Ventura Surf Club placed behind the Malibu Surfing Association respectively.
Surfing families from up and down the California coast and beyond (i.e. Australia and Hawaii) made their way to the point for the event which feels more like a party and get together than an actual contest. But don’t tell that to the competitors- Hundreds of heats went off in the fun waist high plus waves. From Senior Legends (70 years +) to the Menehunes (12 and under) there was some serious ripping going on in the long point surf. Go to the MSA website to see the contest results.
For more photos, look for our coverage of the event on Surfline this week
80’s Party goin Local!
Written by contributor and talented photo assistant Jobi Manson
Just to set the tone: The super 80’s party was held at “The Local” in the gaslight district of downtown, San Diego.
Ya with me?
So we rock up to the scene early by 2 hours…After having only stepped foot in this vintage gem of a watering hole, myself and Dave began to suss out the landscape. What we came to find was that this venue would prove to be a challenge in the lighting arena. As we set up our equipment i.e. the radical and slightly wrinkled seamless along with 1 off camera flash the locals at “the local” were very liberal in their offering of beverages. Everyone was very classy San Diego.
The party kicked off with the arrival of the host Laura, dressed as Doc Brown, in a state of the art delorian from back to the future. 1.21 Jigawatts. Like I said, classy. The Dave and I snapped a few shots of the time machine and headed inside for a much needed portrait session. We were grabbing guests left and right, and not one left us disappointed. We had everyone from The Predator to Pretty in Pink…Overall very entertaining and such a fun gig.
Grandpa Chris back in Hollywood
You may remember Grandpa’s story. The short version is that he was living in Bali and got into a motorcycle accident. His jaw was broken. His shoulder had torn ligaments. His elbow bone was poking through his skin. Oh yeah, and he lost some teeth! Here he is nearly 4 months since the crash and the only thing not repaired yet are his teeth!
Chris stopped by the Studio the other day to say hello. He’s lost some weight since I last saw him, but looks pretty good despite all that he went through the last few months. Here’s an excerpt of his notes as he traveled back to Los Angeles.
travel time…………36 hours, not counting customs at LAX………….the joys of traveling………like an 11 hour layover at the Singapore airport…………although a great airport to be stuck at as there is a pool, gym, free movies in a theater…………..free internet………not bad……except for the 11hours……..well only 6 hours left……….getting tired as I am trying to stay up, to beat the jet lag……..probably will not have any as I have only been here in this time zone since January…………..fun stuff the Indo to LA side of traveling…………..Singapore air is alright with me, forgot I ordered Indian vegitarian back in January, although they did not forget…………managed to stay awake for about 9 1/2 hours of the 11 in Singapore. f-ing with youtube……..a new experience………I might have to upload a few things my self soon……….heading to Hollywood via Japan…………6 hours from Changi to Narita……so that leaves……..about……..an hour to Japan…………..my brand new passport is almost full………..it’s good till 2018………..at this rate it will need more pages in 2010……… indonesians like the 1 page visa’s and lots of stamps for extensions…………..have to use the other one from now on…….it’s empty……….so Narita -LAX must be 11 or so hours………..getting close to the half way point………..it’s 2 hours to LAX……….must have slept for 4 hours, or so, not the good sleep, as the shoulder does not like the economy travel…………I still wear the sling while sleeping, it’s 4 weeks now so I’ll ween myself off that thing, it’s such a hassle…………just off the coast of San Francisco………I am going back to Cali………to Cali……..to Cali……….when I left George Bush was the President, and the Obama hoopla was in full effect………hope……..and……….change were the buzz words……….I hear it’s still getting worse as predicted………….it will be interesting to see what is going on………it will be really nice to see my friends……….and to hang out with my parents……………I am not having to watch for shoplifters, and hand-cuffed(golden of course)to Melrose………….the chinese………or anything else…….a new sense of freedom………freedom from the bondage of corporate America………..it was a good run in the fashions……….8 + solid years…………I saw one of my former Teenage Millionaire clients in Narita Airport while doing the disembark, re-embark shuffel in Japan………he’s on the plane now, heading to LA to rent a car surf tomorrow, then drive to Las Vegas for the Magic Show……….I wouldn’t mind going for a look, actually…….but probably will not……….Hollywood hear I come………..LA at last and the plane is touching down………the stewardess is handing the hot towels around……….from the terminal gate to the Todd limousine………….wow what a journey………..hopefully customs will not be a problem…………what constitutes food?………….we’ll they let me slide……..no hassles at customs……….sympathy…..for the guy who had an accident abroad………nice………..welcome home Sir he said………..home huh?……..it’s been 12,000 miles from where I was yesterday……….and yesterday is but a long long way away………….and my home is twelve thousand…….twelve thousand miles away…………….but I am here now………..now………..and Todd was at the airport to scoop me up………..a few wrong turns…………and we drove through South Central Los Angeles………..well let me tell you…..it was a nice…….to know………..I do not miss that………the first sign is that LA has nothing for me anymore……….a bunch of idiots hanging on the corners with 4X white t-shirts, and wearing blue, and red shoes……..up to no good………..crack heads………….hookers……….and 100+ degrees out……..late lunch with Digger, Adrienne, &Todd at Swingers……….good ol swingers……….and a stroll down Melrose………..one person is doing great in this economy…….Mr. “for lease”………many signs from South Central, city wide, and all the way down melrose, “for lease” are signs everywhere………first nite……..4 hours sleep, second nite………about 5………..third nite the jet lagg kicked in…….slept 2 hours. then up for 3 more………….sleep maybe another 3…………..here we go, and I thought I had the jet-lag beat……….yeah right………..well
Dusty Peak R.I.P.
Yesterday I loaded up the family and headed to the beach for Dusty Peak’s paddle out. I was so looking forward to going to the beach and getting out of the heat and smoke from the fires. When we got down to Little Dume the place was like a big party. There were people everywhere laughing; kids were playing and friends were surfing. It was a great atmosphere. I didn’t know Dusty, but am friends with his son Skylar. They had his funeral service the day before and I heard hundreds of people showed up. Dusty was obviously well liked in his community.
At 6:30 everyone hit the water and started to circle up. I went to the top of the cliff for the overhead shot. The only other circle I had ever seen was the one they do at Waimea for Eddie during the Eddie Aikau opening ceremony. I have to say this one was better. Why? The crowd was so alive. As the circle completed and a small set rolled under everyone a low chant started. dus-ty, dus-ty, dus-ty. Then it got louder until a roar echoed up in the cove DUS-TY, DUS-TY, DUS-TY! I got chills. Then lays were thrown and everyone splashed the water. The whole time I am thinking to myself, “Man, if I ever go, this is the way to do it.” Afterwards, Everyone just hung out on the beach and talked story or surfed the little peelers like Dusty would have. I warmed up by the bon fire as the sun set with my family. It was a great day at the beach.
July 4th remnants
There are remnants on the streets near my house where the battle went down last night. Bombs were bursting in air. Now burnt paper litters the gutters. I had planned to get out of town for the holiday, but got stuck in the last place I wanted to be on the fourth of July – my house. There are serious professionals/pyromaniacs living in my neighborhood and they are using the same fireworks the Dodgers use at the stadium! This photo is from the street behind ours who was competing with us for the loudest, biggest and most colorful fireballs. This blast was a dynamite stick that blew up right over the hood. It shook my house. Good fun. Happy 5th of July!
William Eggelston
I saw this video on one of my favorite blog sites called aphotoeditor.com. This is Winston Eggelston talking about his Father the famous photographer William Eggelston who is one of my all time favorites. Just look at some of these images! They are absolute genius. It is truly inspiring to see how Eggelston frames his images. Look at what he includes in the frame and where he places it to make it ‘look cool’. He made the mundane-everyday look unusal, no, artful. He saw art in life. I love it! Enjoy!
South Swell approaches
It looks like our first south swell will be visiting this weekend and it is predicted to be at least head high. Here’s one of your options – Malibu! Just don’t expect it to be a solo session! ha ha. Wherever your south swell spot is, check it out starting Saturday (probably more like Sunday/Monday). Does this mean the water is going to be warmer? Hope so.
Hey, I am always getting updates from the Surfing Heritage Foundation. This place has some of the classic boards of our sport in their ‘museum’ and it is definitely worth a visit. You may even want to see their website for some Ron Stoner images and other cool stuff.
I just saw that Joel Parkinson won at his home break at Kirra in some good looking waves. Congrats to him, but really, it is about time! Dude is a great surfer and that is his local. He should have taken this one years ago. I think the real surprise is that Kelly slumped in with a 17th. Does that mean he has some supermodel he’s tuning? Looks like the usual suspects in the top 10 with the Hobgoods, Mick and Taj. Next stop – Bells Beach.
Best of Slideshow
Here’s a few of my favorites from last week’s swell. While it wasn’t big or really even epic, it was definitely good and there were some great moments if you were in the right spot. I think I went to different places at the wrong time on this swell after seeing some of the other photos around. San Diego looked really good late in the swell and the direction sure seemed right!
Hey, I want to welcome the Ventura Surf Club to the site! These guys are the coolest! Thanks for the link and I want to welcome all of you to Sickshots that have never checked out the site. One lesson I learned from this last swell is to post the galleries in increments of time rather than the whole thing at once. Sorry for all the work sorting through the 1,000 image! Next, time I will go like this ‘part 1, 9am to 10pm’, etc. Just to help you out with this gallery, I started shooting at about 7:30am and finished at about 11:30am. If you remember when there was smoke from a local fire you can see it in some of the photos and that was near the end of my gallery.
Thanks again for checking out SickShots and with all the rain forecasted it might be time for the mountains to go snowboarding! Get up there!
Where’s the massive swell?
I think we got downgraded. I feel like I had a first class ticket and got stuck in coach. Where is the swell? Usually it is a good sign when Waimea breaks over in Hawaii, but this time it looks like the macking sets got lost on their way to California. Oh well, it is still in the fun zone just about everywhere and you didn’t have to look very far to find a wave.
I shot at a break I will call ‘Bulls Balls’ to protect its identity. If you were there you know where I am talking about. If not, then I can’t tell you. Here is a shot of it this morning. It is located somewhere between Morro Bay and Point Loma. Go search!
The gallery will be up tomorrow. There are some great photos with some of you pulling in. Check back and check them out!
Ventura’s C street is fun!
When I cruised through the mountains this morning on the way to ‘C’ street, it was so clear you could see halfway to Morro Bay! It was a beautiful day and perfect lighting was met with fun surf. While it was on the inconsistent side and a few surfers got out of the water claiming the crowd was a bit much, it sure looked good from the beach. That’s why I shot around 1,000 photos! Now I am uploading them, which could take awhile. Plan on seeing them in the next day or so as I continue to shoot around LA and Ventura. It is supposed to come up more, so get out there!
The Ventura ‘C’ street gallery from January 17th is NOT loaded yet, but is coming soon!
El Porto gallery loaded
The El Porto gallery from January 7, 2009 is up and running and fully loaded. This photo is one of over 400 from the session. The waves were good and there was some ripping going on in the cold water! Check them out and see if I caught you making a solid turn like this unknown surfer.
I spent the better part of the morning shooting in front of the bathroom on the north end of the beach, so if you were surfing between 7am and 9:30am there’s a good chance you have a photo in the bunch. If I missed your wave, sorry about that. I am trying to shoot as much action as possible and sometimes two people take off at the same time (and even then I sometimes can get a shot of both)! The other option is to hire me for a private session which is really affordable if you get some of your friends together.
Looks like the surf will stay on the fun side and this weekend I hope to make another appearance at a mystery location on Saturday. Get out there, have fun, and no drop in!
Snow, TSA, Books…
Welcome home from Hawaii. It’s snowing. C’mon. Are you kidding? Snow? Really? Yes, snow. Right behind my house in the mountains. So close I could drive half an hour and touch it. I am freezing my ass off. I talked to a friend who is driving to Colorado to go snowboarding and got stuck in San Bernardino. Snowed in. Didn’t even make it out of California yet. He’s got the whole Rocky Mountains to deal with.. “Dude, you should be flying..” I said as if he hadn’t thought of it.
So my wife and I made it home after a 5 hour flight with a 1 year old. Thing is, he was the easy part. The worst of the flight was clearing TSA security. Now they are an easy target and I know they have a tough job, but the whole thing is just so silly sometimes. When I left California I was told to ‘take the laptop out of the thin protective cover’ for scanning. I did so and started to explain that radiation should successfully penetrate the cover, the entire bag that I removed it from, and probably our complete luggage load placed in a pile. I trailed off and realized it was useless. Then I removed my shoes and shuffled through the metal detector. I was thinking if TSA would have been on hand for George Bush’s speech then he probably wouldn’t have gotten shoes thrown at him.
As we were clearing security in Hawaii, I knew we were in trouble when the family in front of us with an infant was getting hassled for caring too much liquid. What was the dangerous item? A bottle of breast milk. They let her go with a scolding. (until you have a baby you have no idea how valuable breast milk is). With our son in a baby sling sleeping, we were told he had to be removed and passed through the metal detector separately. So there we were passing sleeping baby through metal detector wondering what happened to our life as travelers. Meanwhile, I was preparing my computer to go through the x-ray machine and even took it out of the cover when the guy says ‘oh, don’t worry about that..the machine will scan right through it’. I laughed and said, ‘Exactly’.
So today I made a book of my son’s first year on the planet. I used the ultra cool site ‘Blurb’ to create the book, but unfortunately I didn’t make the Christmas deadline. Looks like a coupon for the folks, but the damn book is so cool they will forgive me. In his first year our son has been to Hawaii (twice), Japan, and Indonesia. Mommy and Daddy are pretty stoked about that and want to continue to travel with him as he grows up. We want him to experience the world. We just hope TSA will let us through to catch our next flight.
Happy Birthday!
Sixty and still going strong…Dr.Robert Johr is not afraid to admit his age and why should he? He is in great shape and surfs Malibu like a champion! Every year he makes the trip from his home in Florida to surf his favorite wave- Malibu. Today I was lucky enough to shoot him with all the conditions cooperating on his birthday! Pretty good stuff. This guy is as stoked as the little groms running around in the sand when it comes to long right peelers and he got his fair share for sure.
If you would like to hire me for a session just contact me through the website. It is a lot cheaper to hire me than to buy photos off the site. Dr. Johr received a couple hundred shots in just 2 hours (including a few protraits and scenery photos). Compare that to $25-$40 per photo and you can see that hiring is the way to go. Even cheaper if you get a few friends together. My rate is only $150 per hour (minimum 2 hours) and I will usually do both water and land shots depending on conditions.
Again, thanks to Dr. Johr and Happy Birthday my friend!
Sunset Beach, California
The truth is that I never planned on shooting Sunset Beach today, but I was just too late getting out the door to make it down to Newport with a few of my friends. They reported head high sets with overhead waves and lots of closeouts with the odd hollow corner for a head dip. Sounds pretty good to me!
I gotta admit I was kind of stoked on Sunset today. I mean there were some good sets in the head high range and despite the lulls when it came there were some fun long lines! Here is an unknown surfer girl catching a wall and showing what I am talking about. Hope you had fun out there. The photos will be posted either tonight or tomorrow…
Don’t forget next week is the Trestles contest and your opportunity to see the best in the world compete for the Title. Kelly could put a lock down on it, but I am not going to jinx him like I did in Bali. Instead I will pick Mick Fanning to win it all. If so, it will again be a contest coming into the final stretch, but if he flames out Kelly will have an easier road to Hawaii. See you down there.
Photoshelter Collection
I know a lot of photographers (whether aspiring or full time pros) read my blog and I try to mix in some things that have helped me along the way. One of them is Photoshelter. I am a big fan. In fact the sickshots site is built with the Photoshelter Archive.
There is also a great way to market your images with another product they have called the ‘Photoshelter Collection’. I have started to send my images in for review to be marketed to people outside my industry/contacts that I could not attract on my own.
It takes some work to prepare images and they edit them to keep the collection professional (which is a good thing), but I think they have a great concept and I see a future in their idea. I have a personal page of my images (see the little viral slideshow in the accordian above where it says ’stock image slideshow’) you can see the Photoshelter website here.
I have never really had anyone go through my photos and review them before. I always kind of do it myself and determine what I think is most ’saleable’ and submit to my usual contacts. It is interesting to see what their editors determine are accepted, rejected and ‘editor’s choice’. Ideally, you want the least amount of rejections and the most amount of Editor’s choice which determines a rank for the photo (and a behind the scenes ‘Photographer rating’ - currently mine is 3 of 4 stars, which is good). One gets a ‘gold star’ for an Editor’s choice kind of like in Kindergarten, but more fun.
An outstanding photo makes it on the website ‘front cover’. I was surprised to find this photo of mine in just that place! This is a shot of my wife and our son in a pool in Bali. I was testing out my housing and shot a bunch of photos and this one was in the batch and I thought it looked cool. Did I think it was epic? No. Did I think it was ‘gold star worthy’? Not really, but again what do I know. I am glad they selected it and I am learning what their editors like (which isn’t always an exact science). I sent in some photos I thought were great and some got rejected. It is humbling and a good exercise. If you are not involved. Check it out.
Hey, by the way, the last I checked this was a surf website and I want to mix in a little about surfing. My buddy Chris got a few in Newport yesterday and claimed ’shoulder high fun ones’ and there may still be some leftovers…so get out there and go!
Sorry, I missed your email…
Hey, I just found out that my contact form wasn’t working! Bummer. If you sent me an email through the form then I probably did not receive it and you should try my address directly info (at) sickshots (dot) com. Why do I write it like that? Because there are actually programs that pick up email addresses written on webpages and use them for spam. Unreal. I just saw that a judge handed down some long sentences for some ‘king of spam’ schister. Can’t say I felt sorry for him. I mean, dude, put away the Viagra and the fake Rolex and the misspelled and botched idioms and large sum of cash from your Nigerian cousin…
Just a few hours ago I was sitting at my desk taking ‘traffic school online’ and an earthquake rocked us a little bit. The first rolling tremor was minor, but then a few shakes after that started to escalate before it stopped altogether. Grandma was watching our son and was standing in the doorway when I went to the front of the house. I just heard the quake was a 5.8 on the richter scale. While we were in Tokyo, Japan in May we were staying in a high rise (floor 27) and we had a 6.2 quake at 2am! My wife and son didn’t even wake up. I just kind of stayed in bed listening to the steel building creak and watched as we swayed in the skyline.
Today’s image is from my friend Chris formerly of ‘Teenage Millionaire’. They had the famous shirt that all of Hollywood’s stars were wearing that said ‘Jesus is my homeboy’. Now they took that idea…and, there you have it. Obama is my homeboy for sure. I mean nothing says the same old thing like some senior citizen(McCain) bumping around like a frat boy in D.C., but I will save the rant until we get closer to the election (I know I have already offended some of you!). If you want one of these bad ass shirts head down to ‘Buck a Roo’ on Melrose in Hollywood and tell Chris we sent you. He may charge you more, but it is worth it to acknowledge your love of the SickShots blog.
Ok, back to my traffic school. Save yourself some time and money- don’t run red lights with those damn photo cameras (or better yet, don’t run red lights at all)!
Save Trestles…Again!
MEETING HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED!!!
This is a public service announcement I received from Surfrider Foundation. The hearing to Save Trestles again will be held tomorrow July 25, 2008 from 10:30am to 8:30pm at UC Irvine, Bren Events Center (directions here). If you wish to speak you are encouraged to be early (before 8am).
To bring you up to date, it seems the road developers are refusing to accept the ruling handed down last February and are now asking the Federal Government to overturn the Commissions decision. Show up and show them you care about preserving Trestles! For more info go to: www.savetrestels.org
Sunset Beach, California
Sunset Beach California is a long way from Padang Padang where I shot my last session, but the stoke is the same. Lots of you were getting some fun waves and having a blast. Remember the ‘best’ surfer in the water is the one having the most fun!
After looking at Malibu at dawn and seeing a long wait between sets and a south wind ripping it up, I decided to look down the coast and see what I could find. Sunset was where I ended up and I shot a few hours and watched everyone from beginners to style masters get into the action. It was actually pretty fun despite the chilly water and the light bump on the surface.
In the last post I was talking about offering some new color processes to the photos that you purchase and this is one example of an old-timey-sepia-tone. I think it makes a grey day at the beach look cool. It also helps that the person in the photo is throwing some extra style in for me (thanks whoever you are)!
So I say this. To anyone that buys a photo (image downloads only) in the Sunset gallery they will receive a sepia tone version of their photo in addition to the photo they purchase. Just email me after you order and I’ll send it your way! If you prefer a print and want to substitute this tone for the standard look, just let me know. Thanks for checking out SickShots and have fun out there!
