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!
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.
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!
Grandpa update – week 5
I got this email a few days ago. For those of you following the ‘Grandpa’ story (original post here) or know our friend Chris, he is having a tough go of things after his motorcycle accident. I was going to write this email into a story, but it speaks for itself. This shot is Chris on a smallish day at Padang Padang. I can’t remember if he hit bottom, but he definitely got tossed around a bit. It was ridiculously shallow (always is). For something even more impressive, see Grandpa’s xray with wired jawbone and missing teeth on the bottom of the post! Wow.
Now here’s Chris…
so I got up, saddled up the black knight, and headed up to the Bukit, to go for a swim, as I had not touched the water at Uluwatu for 5 weeks…………..it was nice to see old friends, and see that Big Jim, Edward, Ryan, were at (Spot edited out), and ‘ol Diga was at the Racetrack, pullin in……….a tea and a banana milkshake, was all I could do, there was no banana pancake today……….3 days ago I went to the dentist to have an overall look at what options I have…………the dentist brought in the oral surgeon, who throw the plastic surgeon (who set my jaw) straight under the bus…………in other words, he said we must try to reposition your jaw, now to fix your “open bite” before they have to do a major surgery and re-break your jaw……………the breaking of the jaw was bad enough, just ask Todd & Diga, a re-break was not part of my plan………..2 days ago the oral surgeon put braces on my teeth, closed my jaw with rubber-bands, and said come back tomorrow………once I showed up and sat down, he was so pleased with the rubber-banded jaw, that he pulled them out, replaced with wire and cranked it down tight, “repositioning” the jaw……….UNCOMFORTABLE……………….to say the least, but not as bad or painful as my head thought it would be………so it’s another 3 weeks eating through a syringe……….again……..juice and soup, but I have a new tool, delivered from the good ‘ol USA, actually a present from Piper, that Huey delivered, it’s a hand crank, food grinder, to mush food for baby’s, when I first got it, was when the plastic surgeon, cut the wires so I could open my mouth, and I didn’t need to grind any food, Piper said you could grind a steak or a cheeseburger in it, although those 2 items do not sound appealing to me, Dan brought me a cannelloni last nite to test the grinder…..
……it worked, it made mush, it was a bit hard sucking it through my missing teeth and into my mouth, actually hurt to do it, I did it, then put the other 1/2 in and cranked it down to much and finished the cannelloni……….thanks Piper…………now the shoulder is on hold until after the braces come off, I see the dentist every 3 or 4 days to crank down the wires and “reposition” the jaw……..my visa expires on the 17th of July..
……..exactly 3 weeks from when the dentist wired me shut………and he said it will take 3 weeks no sooner……….I changed my ticket to Bangkok to the 18th………can’t wait to see what the doctors in Bangkok have to say about my shoulder…………hopefully it can be fixed and I can surf again………only time will tell…………….that is my story……..and I am sticking to it…………
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.
Waimea Bay
Does this Waimea charger make his air drop? You will have to wait and see when the galleries load. This might take awhile because there are 1,200 photos! Ridiculous? Yes. Way too many photos, but I just couldn’t help myself. Waimea was good. Not great or epic, but just really good (BTW, I think people use ‘epic’ way too much, if it is always epic then, what, do I have to say ‘Really Epic’ or exclaim ‘nah bro, you don’t understand it was REALLY EPIC’- I’m not good at that stuff). Waimea was good and I took a lot of shots. If you were out between noon and dark I have a shot of you. Dig it.
I started the day at Pipe just waiting for the swell to build- and it did. There were some huge outside reef sets at Pipe, but it was a bit out of control in the late morning with the occasional perfect tube. Shane Dorian got the best one I have seen in awhile and I got a great sequence of it.
I chatted up fellow photographer Vince Cavataio who I always see around when the waves are good. Dude, was taking photos of the North Shore before most of the guys shooting Pipe today were even born. I could see a lot of people looking at the guy and thinking he is some tourist with this little camera and writing him off, but you gotta check out his website for some of his incredible wave shots or just perve some of the beautiful models he shoots. Unreal.
At 11:30 I crusied by Sunset and saw a few sets wash through and decided to make my way to my favorite wave- Waimea. Sunset would have been great late in the day, I am sure of it, but I really like Waimea. You may even find me there later in the week. I hear it is going to be EPIC!
Goodbye, old friend…
The old Sickshots site is going to be trashed starting tomorrow (it is so large it may take all weekend). There has been plenty of warning for you to get your SickShots, so please don’t come crying to me about “dude, I forgot to order my photo!” Sorry, it’s time to move on. You’ve only had 6 months!
Having said that, I have waited so long for all of you because I hate trashing your memories. Some people come back months or years later and ask about photos. There have been some epic moments over the years and I thank you for letting me be a part of them. Waimea, Padang Padang and the Mentawais come to mind right away. These are my favorite places to shoot and I have fond memories of every single session I have ever shot at these places. Maybe I will have to reload some of the better sessions on the new site? Hmm…that’s a good idea. Now if I just had time.
I was feeling kind of sentimental looking at the old site. I remember building it during a surf charter aboard the ‘Pelagic‘ in the Mentawais several years ago. After shooting all day, uploading heaps of photos and then showing the guests a slideshow, I would stay up until the wee hours of the night and listen to Gansta rap and bust it out. I finished the entire thing in 5 nights. The new version of Sickshots took 5 weeks with help from two programmers- and it is still not finished! The truth that no site is ever finished. There is always something you can do better or want to add. Completion of websites is an elusive goal for sure.
Some of you have criticized the new site because it lacks the simplicity of the old site. I get it. I guess I got bored with the old look and wanted to bring some new features. A good example is the automation of the buying process so you can now get your photos right away. It is also more of a signature site for my work. I decided not to become a free for all site with a lot of photographers contributing. I just wanted to do my thing and keep it simple. The old ‘SickShot of the day’ is now on the blog and I haven’t changed it lately because I haven’t shot much surf in the past few weeks. When I am in Hawaii starting in November, expect that to blow up everyday!
I like the new site and know it can improve, still looking at the old one I can’t help but feel some sort of passing..RIP my old friend. Here’s to all the epic sessions that you held on your server and here’s to you my loyal fans and supporters and special thanks to all of you that bought photos over the years from that site.
Hey, this is not the end of SickShots, but the start of a new era. Welcome aboard!
Cheers!
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!
Windy surf conditions in Bali
The surf is still in the head high to overhead range, but there is a strong trade-like wind that reminds me of Hawaii. Difficult to surf in, but it sure looks pretty from the beach!
Bali always seems to be having some kind of ceremony (i think that is why it is so special) and yesterday was the ceremony for ‘machine things’. Offerings are made to everything from blenders to motorcycles and taxis drive around with colorful streaming weaved offerings for good luck. It is something special to see. Unfortunately, they forgot to bless the internet in my hotel because I haven’t seen a pulse in two days! I am at Cin Cin restaurant on Dyanna Pura where they always seem to have a good wireless connection and great Banana shakes! Love it!
By the way, this photo is not from today although somewhere you could probably find a tube like this if you knew where to go! Good luck in your search.
New Swell is Here!
Yes, finally! We have a couple of decent looking waves coming our way this week and I hope to capture your best moment whether you are in the tube or ripping a turn. We are also working hard on the back end of SickShots to bring this here blog and the new galleries a fresh look! Stay tuned…
