Getting It Done

Not a terrible way to ease back into winter surfing

The downside of any tropical escape is coming home [see last week's post] . I don't mean hating home or hating being home- it's that first surf back in winter waters. The expectation of not being in boardies and armoured up in full length neoprene. The dreaded ice cream headache. You've got to get over it and get it done. And what better way to do it than a 5am dawnie to Rags with Metservice predicting the Waikato's coldest night temperature of the year! It wasn't that bad. We got waves, but the whole surf was filled with conversations that inevitably concluded with the dreaded "Ya should've seen it yesterday'.

Periscope down! Heavy wave to get under

Of course a dying swell at Rags means the local beaches will start to show form. It was time to get back on the personal quest [as explained here]. There's been a lot of time and energy put into the quest. The gorgeous Ange rolls her eyes when I start explaining how Lion Rock needs to be framed just so, the taper of the wave has to be perfect to show exit, there has to be a legit bank on the Bar or locals will call it out and the light, the quality of light has to be just so. It is confounding how such a simple image of my local has been so elusive, 25 years and counting. There have been a lot of distractions.

Local surfer and plumber Jami Parkinson setting up the section

That light! Those clouds!

The methodology is now to peg away. Go out on the marginal days as well as the great days, chip away, debrief, learn, tweak the approach. Shooting from the water is as much a physical act as it is technical. That is you are always training and learning how to get the camera into the right place.

Pretty darn close!

Yesterday everything was planned around being on the Bar for the low tide. Book production deadline- blurred. Email queries- answered on spot. Stock deliveries- shunted. Just be there early and be ready. And Mother Nature does her favourite trick, beautiful weather and blue skies all day, and then 2pm a dirty dark cloud bank...FAARRRRK are you kidding me, again! The mantra is reset, remember, go out in the marginal times too now. 

Too deep

defo a beer byline... from where you'd rather be

Sand, swell and light aligning

And then, for 45 minutes, the sun started to win the race with the clouds for the horizon. The light show was on. The tide continued to drop out, it glassed up and this happened....

Available now for prints and of course if you want to see it larger just click on the image [oh and please share it!]

It is the shot I've been after, the lip line, the wall's taper, Lion Rock front and centre and that light. Does it beat this one? 

Just click on the image to see it bigger

What do you think, again, not rhetorical, I actually wanna know, what is your critique? Email me at cpl@photocpl.co.nz

From The Galleries

iha Layers, again, all about the light :)  You can check it out larger, LIKE it [pleeeease] and of course buy it by clicking through on the image to it's web page.