Visiting old friends
This is Angi. He is from Katiet Village, Mentawai, Sumatra, Indonesia. I guess you could send a postcard to that description and it would probably get to him. Katiet village is the one in front of Lance’s right also know as H.T.’s. Angi now lives on the other side of the point at Lance’s Left where he sells wood carvings to surfers and fishes from his canoe. I see him just about every trip and have known him for about 10 years. He is a pretty simple guy and always wears a smile. A few years ago he started surfing and is starting to get better. I am hoping I bump into him next week when I visit the Mentawais. Maybe we’ll have a surf.
About the photo: Yep, it’s out of focus. So what? It still looks cool right? Sure I threw in the cool border like I processed it in a darkroom and pulled the saturation out of it too, but it all adds to the mystery of the islands where angi lives. Dig it.
Surfer’s Path Feature
I don’t contribute to the surf mags much any more. This is mostly due to the low editorial rates they are paying these days. In fact, I don’t know how some of these magazine surf photographers live from the checks they get. I just saw the new Canon Mark 4 camera is going to be $5,000! Take that and put it in a water housing (another $3,000) and buy a few lenses (the Canon 400mm 2.8 is 6K), other accessories (pelican cases, etc.) and around 10K in computer equipment and software and you would have to sell a lot of pages to get your money back! Do these guys do the math? Hmm.
A friend of mine was on his way to being one of the top surf photographers in the world. His name is Ben DeCamp. You may have heard of him. He was making a name for himself swimming some crazy Pipeline and other gnarly spots. He was on staff for Surfer Mag. He has a good eye. I like his vision. So what happened to him? He ejected. We never really talked about the exact reason, but we often discussed the difficulty in making a living off the surf magazines/surf advertisers. Am I anti- Surf magazine? Nah, I realize they are being squeezed as well (you can read my take on their future here). The truth is one must find other ways to make a living and keep the stoke. What was Ben’s answer? The Style Shark and his blog Killer Whale petting Zoo! It’s strange, I love it, and it is harder than you think to create those shots. Yes, it looks a lot like Terry Richarson who happened to win this year’s Fashion Layout of the Year with Harper’s Bazaar article ‘Thriller Fashion’.
So back to the topic…I shot Ryan several years ago in the Mentawais and he recently wrote an article for Surfer’s Path about his trip around the world and what they discovered. This was no ordinary trip. First, they sailed. Anyone who spends time in boats could start to understand what it must be like to sail around the world and face the ocean for weeks on end. But that’s not the story. What they discovered was how polluted most of the oceans are right now. They even witnessed the alleged floating plastic trash island twice the size of texas drifting around in the pacific. I recently saw an article about this on one of my favorite blogs- aphotoeditor and on the wall street journal site. Unbelievable.
Some of the photos that I took of Ryan during our Mentawai trip are in the feature, so check it out.
NOTE: At the time I was negotiating with Surfer’s Path for use of my photos the Padang Earthquake happened. Instead of paying their small editorial rate I had them give it directly to Surf Aid. You can donate to them as well because they still need help. Thanks!
Mentawai Surf Trip
My lastest Mentawai surf trip can be found over at Mentawai Surf Photos with a write up about the trip and a slideshow. Be sure to check out the Photographer’s Light Table (here). It is hosted at our new stock site SaltyCamera.com. This has been a long work in progress and will soon have some amazing images for editorial and advertising buyers. There will be prints available of your favorite photos as well.
This photo is of one of the guests on the trip. It was taken in the evening with the sun setting in low light using a high iso (800 if I remember correctly). While the shot looks super processed like some sort of Transworld Surf martian photoshop filter, it is actually very close to the original. You will also noticed a slight speed blur to the wave that was achieved by slowing down the shutter (again, if my memory is correct around 1/250). This trip was a blast and thanks again to the guests that hired me and the Indies Trader.
Layover in Singapore
We left Padang, Sumatra this morning after a great trip to the Mentawais. I have to thank the guests that had me on their trip and Martin Daly who guided us from one epic set up to the next on the Indies Trader 3. This photo is of Martin slicing off a bottom turn on one of the bigger days. I shot this from the water with my SPL housing and tried to get in front of the wave as much as possible to make it look bigger, while avoiding the clean up set!
I will have photos and updates from this trip coming soon, but for now I am going to go out in Singapore in search of a good Indian restaurant and snap a few photos in Little India. Hey, I hear there is a big swell coming to California. Maybe I will be home in time. I fly out tomorrow and will be in LA on Friday. See you soon!
Twittering Island Style
I will be returning to the Mentawai Islands starting Thursday, July 9. Follow the twitter updates (see the right side of the site for my tweets), as we experience the Mentawai surf trip together. The forecast looks good, so we will keep you posted! Selamat Tingal!
Return to the Mentawai Islands
I was in the Mentawai’s back in May on the Indies Trader 3 and will be returning again in less than 2 weeks. We had a few small days on the last trip like this one, but anytime you can rip a turn like Australian Eddie here, it’s a fun day! I am looking forward to getting back out there and shooting a group of friends I have had on several trips in the past. As always, if you are looking for a photographer or videographer to capture your surf trip check out Mentawai Surf Photos.
The Swamp Thing
On my last trip to the Mentawai Islands in Sumatra, Indonesia, I had a chance to take a canoe ride up into a jungle estuary. The further we slid into the jungle, the closer the sides of the canopy came in until we were surrounded. I was beautiful. We wanted to keep going, but we were worried about mosquitoes with a local village nearby and the recently reported cases of malaria. I shot these photos and love the colors. Enjoy.
You can see all the shots from this Mentawai Surf Trip here or read about the trip here
Mentawai Trip now posted!
I finally posted an entry on Mentawai Surf Photos from my recent Mentawai Trip. If you go to the website you can find the entry in the lower left portion of the site where it says ‘Photos’ or you can follow this link to my latest Mentawai Trip.
The entry includes photos and the ‘photographer’s light table’ that is pretty cool to see all the top 100 shots. There are a few more things coming including video and a time lapse of the trip.
The videos were shot using the go pro cameras, which are all the rage at the moment and I am quickly becoming a believer. I will fully review the camera and give you some pointers on it in a coming post, but for now you can read what my friend Mark Anders wrote about the camera in this gopro article on Surfline. You can also look at this video of me surfing Macaronis with a go pro during my Mentawai testing stage, but it is nothing like the cool video of Jon Jon getting shacked on Go Pro’s website. I did this so you could see what a an ‘average guy’ looks like surfing with the go pro.
I really like the time lapse feature (photo every 2 seconds) and have some great footage to share, but it takes time to stitch – I thought photographs took time, but moving pictures are a whole other thing! I am getting into it and loving the results. I will share it someday soon and it is worth the wait if you are into the artistic.
This photo was taken inside of the Indies Trader 3 from the dining room table while I was working on some photos behind the computer. The window was right in front of me and all I had to do was pick up my camera. The boys had just eaten lunch and were resting before paddling back out at Macaronis while it continued to peel off the boats stern with just a few guys out. The surfer in me always gets kind of restless when I see perfect empty waves going to waste, but we can’t surf all day and there’s going to be more, so I am slowly learning to relax when I see the perfect set reel off. If you look to the left on the photo you can see a bulletin board with some random photos that changes every now and then. At the moment there is a shot of two guys on the boat – Martin Daly and Laird Hamilton. Above that another empty wave and so on. I really like this boat and it’s history.
Again, I want to say I had a great time on this trip with Eddie and the boys and just want to send out a big thanks to everyone!
Rough Seas
I am currently Suffering through jet lag and general laziness after a long journey home from the Mentawai Islands. I took this shot of our boat with my fish eye lens just before our departure (please note grey skies and rain). Little did I know that bow right there in the photo would get pounded by victory at sea and we would get a 16 hour ass kicking all the way to Padang!
It started that afternoon with the news that we would be delayed and not make the journey back to Padang at all. We were all pretty bummed. The waves had been fun, but average, and the group was ready to get home after 12 days at Sea. I was really missing my son. We were also looking at missing our flights and having to rebook or even lose the tickets.
We waited until that evening for the weather to clear and even received an updated weather report that was favorable. Finally, we got word that our sturdy ship would make the crossing and, so, at 9pm we departed. As we sailed off, the ocean was feeling smooth and friendly. That lasted 25 minutes until we came out of the shadow of the islands and got the full brunt of the storm.
Rough seas were coming in diagonally from port side front which gave us a sideways roll combined with an up and down, dip and dive. At times we seemingly duck dived waves. It rained and the wind gusted. My front bunk was useless because I would be thrown up into the air constantly. I ended up on the couch and tried to sleep. It didn’t work. I was on the verge of sea sickness and all the guests were already there. Somehow morning came. I saw the light through the window. “We must be close”, I thought. Nope. 6 hours more!
As hard as the trip was it was not the worst crossing I had ever had. I have made that trip in smaller boats and felt unsafe. I never felt that way on the Indies Trader 3. The boat is a steel hulled monster and tough as they come. My very first trip to the Mentawai’s was on a small sailboat with a grumpy captain that made the crossing in 24 hours! I literally kissed the ground in Padang. Really (for anyone that knows how dirty Padang is that is saying something). The whole trip back on the IT3 I kept thinking how lucky we were to be on that boat. I later heard some of the other boats actually turned around after hours of trying to cross.
We all missed our flights, but luckily my wife went into action and made arrangements for us. We would be on the flight the following day. We stayed in Jakarta at the Sheraton Airport hotel which I would recommend for convenience sake (3 minutes from the airport), but is a bit overpriced at $100. The place is a difficult maze to negotiate and once in the room our AC was barely blowing warm air and the sheets were moist from the humidity.
Finally, we got on our flight home on Cathay Pacific which has the worst seats in the world! Whatever you do, do not fly this airline in coach! The seats don’t recline! I kid you not. Straight up the whole rest of the 18 hours home. Unbelievable. The only redeeming quality was the TV/Movie selection. I ended up finding the TV show ‘deadliest catch’ with the Alaskan crab fisherman and realized what a real pussy I was for complaining about rough conditions.
Sure is nice to be home. Now if I could just stop waking up at 2am everything will be fine.
Return to Mentawai…
Hey everyone I just wanted to start by saying that my opinions weren’t too far off on the Billabong XXL. Check out the last post and compare. I missed the event again, but heard it was a great time. Truth is, I would rather be with my family and shoot the surf they are all hooting and hollering about! Werd.
So the countdown has started. I am returning to the Mentawai Islands in 10 days and am stoked about it. As I begin thinking about packing for the trip I realize that I have a bunch of old clothes that I need to get rid of. So the solution? I am going to pack the whole lot and take it on the trip for the people out there in the Islands and the boys on the boat. I highly suggest you do this. Think of it as spring cleaning with a cause. The cool thing is that you can pack all the stuff, wear it during the trip, give it away, and then fly home with nothing (except your boards or in my case tons of camera gear). How cool is that. The locals will be stoked! Here’s a shot of me with some of the locals in the village of Katiet (where HT’s/Lance’s right is located). This was 5 years ago! I wonder how much these kids have grown now? They could probably wear some of my clothes!
I wrote about baggage fees in a previous post and just wanted to talk about some resources for your Mentawai trip if you happen to be headed that direction this season. First and foremost, I work with Mentawai Surf Photos and can be hired to shoot your trip. A Mentawai trip can be a once and a lifetime experience and scoring the best surf of your life is possible on any given day. Why not have epic photos and videos of your adventure? You will wish you had hired us right about the time you come out of that perfect barrel! If you just want to see some insane shots or keep up with the season as it progresses, then put the site in your favorites and check it out. I also like the Mentawai Surf Report page they have over there. It has all the right links to make predictions. I am looking at it right now and see a very active Indian Ocean! YeeeHaawww! Let’s hope it stays that way.
I always like to mention Surf Aid as they really help the locals out there and it feels almost like a requirement to me that a small donation is made for everyone that makes a trip. I donate both money and images to help promote their cause (many of the photos you see on the site and in their brochures I shot on location over the years). Check it out.
I would also like to give props to the surf charter company – Indies Trader. These guys have it together and I am stoked when I have clients that hire me for a trip with Indies Trader. I always seem to get waves on their boats and one of the reasons is that they stay out for two weeks rather than 10 days. Martin once told me the reason he does that is because the odds are better for ‘two distinct swell episodes’ and that what usually happens on a 10 day trip is that you are driving back to Padang just when the new swell is hitting rather than scoring right before you go. I know this has happened to me more than once! For this trip I will be in the Indies Trader 3 one of the nicest boats in the Islands. Stoked. Sure it costs a little more, but if you are going on a trip of a lifetime, don’t go cheap! Go for it! (and hire me)!
Mentawai trip- Baggage fees
I am less than a month away from a Mentawai surf charter and I am really looking forward to it. My office looks like some kind of mad scientist’s laboratory. I have some new gear that I am experimenting with and can’t wait to use it on the trip. Packing it all and shipping it over there is always a hassle and baggage fees come with the territory. I thought I would take a moment and write about baggage fees for those of you traveling soon.
I am flying on Cathay Pacific with a connection through Jakarta with Garuda. Not the usual way to go to Padang, but I am following the surfers that have frequent flyer miles. The normal route is to take Singapore airlines and connect with Tiger Air.
Recently Surfline did an article about fees for surfboards and I highly suggest reading that to see what charges may be coming. Remember this – Airline baggage fees are subject to change without notice. They also seem to be connected to how the agent feels that day. The best thing to do is to BE NICE and see what happens. Here are a few other tips to get you on your way:
1. Be nice. Oh yeah, we said that, but it is worth repeating.
2. Take less stuff. Easy. Do you really need 4 boards? Do you really need all those clothes? If you are going to the Mentawais you should bring two pairs of shorts, a few T-shirts (that you give away to the locals when you leave) and the clothes you travel in (wear long pants it is more respectful). That’s it. You are going to be on a boat for two weeks surfing. What else do you need? Really.
3. If you show up to check in with just one bag and a board you are more likely to get them both on for free. Singapore airlines does this as do others. If you bring less stuff it costs less.
4. Watch the weight of your bags. Some airlines have rules on the weight per bag and will refuse your luggage if you can’t slim it down (I have seen this vary around 50kg – sometimes more, sometimes less). This includes your board bag, so keep it as light as possible. Try to evenly distribute the weight in each bag before you go to the airport rather than repacking with a huge line behind you.
5. Avoid a huge line behind you (or worse, in front of you) by arriving early! Your boards are more likely to make the flight if you arrive more than 2 hours early (get there 3 hours early. What’s it going to hurt to insure your boards get on the plane? You have been planning this trip for a long time!).
6. Tiger airways gives you the opportunity to buy excess baggage allowance and ’sports equipment’ (i.e. surfboard) before the trip on the website for a discount. Do it. Buy as much as you think you will need and more. It will cost you 3 times as much if you go over and have to purchase excess baggage allowance at check in.
7. Listen to your ticketing agent about connections. Don’t try to make unrealistic connections (especially to the destination) because your boards may not make it and even worse it may take several days to get them! The general rule is at least 2 hours. In airports like Jakarta or with airlines like Garuda allow 3 hours or more and even then you have no guarantee.
8. Now if you are a photographer….well, you are screwed! ha ha. Actually there are a few tips… a). Use a board bag to bring equipment like light stand or pelican cases b). Seats on Tiger are cheap, so buy an extra SEAT for your valuable Think Tank roller bag loaded with Camera bodies and lenses (same if you have a guitar). c). Pack everyting like fine china and bring back ups! d). Call ahead and tell the airline ground staff that you are a professional photographer (if you really are) and explain that you have a lot of equipment and need assistance. Sometimes they help. Sometimes they don’t.
I just found this site that has other helpful tips for frequent flying photographers and he even wrote a blog entry about TSA’s new policy that lets you shoot photos around the security area (are they trying to turn over a new leaf?).
Happy travels and remember – be nice. You are going surfing and having fun. You aren’t even allowed to be grumpy if you get skunked because you got away from life for a week or two and most other people in this world are stuck and some don’t even surf! ouch.
Storm Surf
A few days ago I took a clip from the weather chart at storm surf that shows this massive storm getting ready to pound the Indonesian coast. The Mentawais should be epic right about now. This chart is from a new link I loaded onto the Mentawai Surf Photos website. You can see the Mentawai Surf Report here. It is the most comprehensive report I have seen (yes, I am biased, but check it out and you tell me!). The last two are the charts I recently added. They are incredible and save a lot of time of finding all this info in various places. There is also a new Mentawai slideshow on the site that was shot by Riley Cooney- check it out and you will want to book a trip. I should also mention that Mentawai Surf Photos also offers video services now and I will have some epic footage on the site soon. I am super stoked to have Sean Gilhooley shooting for us. Ok, so that’s enough shameless plugging for the day. If you are reading this in Indonesia please close your browser and go get a surf. Those of us sitting here in CA are dealing with ‘good surf’ that hardly gets the pulse racing! Selamat Sukses!
