We all know this time of year can be a tough season for surfers in the upper North Isle. The huge south swells don't make for fun waves around here. Raglan and Shippies, and Gizzy for that matter, have had great winters. But unless you can travel, you're stuck waiting for the days between.
Northern views
Yesterday was one of those days. A strong offshore wind finally grooming the swell into controllable surf. I opted to shoot rather than surf. I stayed warm.
Southern views
Local lad Peter 'Greedy' Harding
The shorey show was fun to catch too
A somewhat tame wild west
Another Piha local, Nigel Grayling braving the chill
Inside bowl
Surf Books...Not by CPL
Luke Williamson created one of the most important NZ Surfing documents made. It was the book 'Gone Surfing- The Golden Years of NZ Surfing 1950-1970'. While Luke always goes to great pains to stress it is not the history of NZ Surfing, by being the only book that covers this period, it is the best and most concise snapshot of those formative years. The South Seas- New Zealand's Best Surf book does also cover the timeline, but it is a chapter in that book- it's not the full and rich history. Someday. Gone Surfing is sadly out of print.
Luke has most recently turned his talented hand to children's tales. I've read the first one and it's a stonker.
Here's what Luke says of the project; The series “Surf Tales – Bedtime stories for surfing parents and grandparents to read to their gremmies”. The first story 'Magic Sandals' is free for everyone so please pass it on to any of your friends and relatives.
I have released the first six stories on my website so you can follow me on Facebook and www.surftales.co.nz to stay up to date. Send me an e-mail at lukegonesurfing@gmail.com and I will let you know when new stories are ready.
I’m asking readers to support this project via a small PayPal/credit card donation and I will use that to continue writing Surf Tales and to pay Fraser to illustrate the rest of the stories. My dream is that there will be enough interest in the stories that, when I have released all of them as digital books, I will be able to do a beautiful, printed, hard-cover collection of all the stories and sell that on Amazon.
I would love to think that the book could pass from generation to generation and still be read to gremmies in distant days to come.
Framing Ideas
I've been kept busy with commissions. The current trend is traditional framed pieces. While the site PhotoCPL doesn't offer ready made framed images, seeing a piece through to wall ready is a huge part of what is done. Here's two really nice pieces we did this week. Black box framing with a white matt, archival satin photo paper. The inks and paper are rated to 108 years...dunno why it is 108, but hey that is 8 over the traditional 'archival' rating.
Just email me Here if there's an image you'd like to get framed, there are so many cool options.