I Get Wet!
I’m not sure if there is some other meaning for Andrew WK’s song “I Get Wet” but it excites me and I’m not ashamed.
Ho’okipa Beach park on the North Shore of Maui is the closest thing to my home break, Not saying I’m a local, but I have spent more days here than any other beach in the world in the last few years. Personally I like it a little bigger but if people are ripping I’m going to go out with my camera.
I haven’t been in Maui since the winter of 2013 but when I swim out with my camera it feels familiar. I know the reef, how the spots break on different swells and how to get in and out of the ocean safely. Maybe I should have been more cautious, It been a few month since I’ve seen good surf but that didn’t stop me. I swam out full steam and got a close as I could with a 17-50mm lens… Maybe too close.
All the shots today were at Pavils (It’s short for Pavilions, but I was assured multiple times no one uses that name but feel free to shorten an abbreviation to an abbreviation and call it P-Vil), there was a PWA (professional windsurfing association) event today so all the surfers were forced to the most eastern section of Ho’okipa.
This is the “Picture of the Day”, It’s clean, crisp and logo free (well except for mine, but I’m not corporate)
I guess I was excited to be back because I took more close-up than anything else, maybe I should have used my Fisheye Lens
I was only scared once today when this 58 year (it was his birthday on Saturday, I talked to him on the walk to my truck) came wobbling towards me, Not saying he wasn’t charging but on this wave I thought I was getting a rail to the face.
It was a surprise to swim out and see another Photog, Raja (http://www.travelingkameleon.com/)… You don’t get a lot of interest in the small-medium surf on a Thursday morning, but it was nice talking to someone that knew what they were doing.
Raja was mostly communicating one surfer (Lucas), when you go out to capture pictures with a photographer, you try to throw maneuvers in front of him so I didn’t connect with Lucas that much because our timing was not in sync. Luckily Raja missed a few sections down the line because he was shooting Fisheye and Lucas came screaming down the line.
A Bath of Fire
The sting of the sand blasting against your face, the almost creepy silence of the beach void of all sounds except the crashing of the waves and the burning sensation of the brisk 40 degree water temperature sizzling the small amount of skin that is not covered by thick neoprene. This is the price we pay for empty barrels in the dead of winter. It’s an addiction that saves us from the insanity’s of life.
Do you have what it takes to be here?
Go into a surf shop and put on a 5/6mm wetsuit and try to touch your toes, the extra power you need to stretch to normal limits is ridiculous. Now try pulling into a barrel… Neal making it look easy
If you are a regular visitor to my blog you know how addicted to color I am, but there is a solace to a grey overcast days with brown waves. It’s raw, not pretty and real. This is surf photography for people that have so much love for the ocean it literally hurts.
Step into life without fear and be rewarded by the things that scare you.
thesurfingphotog.com 