Grom Jam

It Seems Like a Long Time Ago Now...

14 year old Niwa Shewry on his way to winning the Open...yes OPEN at the Mangawhai Bowl Jam

All the other press releases and tales of the 10th Annual Mangawhai Bowl Jam have been broadcast. Brutally, it's yesterday's news. But I went too, this year I opted not to be in the photographer's pit, literally poolside. I wanted to be a spectator, just enjoy the rides, the event. Of course I couldn't bloody help myself, I still ended up viewing the skating through a camera. I shot 5 rolls of Kodak Extar medium format film. I loved it, manual exposure reading, manual focus, manual film wind, not sequences, just make every frame count.

Mikey Bancroft, always a crowd pleaser

Shooting film, meant getting the rolls developed and scanned. This took 5 days. Honestly it stressed me out, which is funny. It's old school, we never used to need everything right now. Hell, skate and surf mags used to only come out every second month.

Jesse Peters, Bowl Jam instigator, with Morri

Uncle Mozza on his way to winning another Master's Title

Bowman Hansen 2nd in the Open

Andrew Morrison, deadset legend

Part of me wishes digital cameras were never evolved, you don't need to take 2000 frames to tell a story. It makes hard to value the process that lies behind an image. But then the other part of me wants to be back in the photographer's pit, getting the sequence coping side, being a part of the media melee getting the shots out fast.

Dave Read, founder of Manual Magazine right on point getting the shot

And At The Other End.... 

The 2021 Billabong Grom Series Whangamata, presented by Oceanbridge [which is an epic tale in itself]

Nav Malone free surf shredding on the Saturday morning

I worked the Whanga Billy Grom comp last weekend. Defo not a job for film. This is all about getting images of as many different competitors delivered to the SNZ Media officer twice a day, fast, not too many, and just the right ones that support the media releases. And gawd help you if you miss helicopter parent's precious pup's best wave.... nah, it's not that bad, well, I'll just let that sentence stay here. It's a repetitive theme of the PhotoCPL E-bombs slash web logs; I love shooting surf comps. Don't ask me that at 5pm after shooting in the sun on the sand since 8am. But I do, love catching up with old friends, love witnessing the evolvement of NZ's surfing culture, love seeing the next generation coming through. So here's a sample of some favourite images from the weekend.

Chloe Groube

Tava Santorik

Ava Henderson

Tom Robinson

Kauai Rahui

Jos Kennings… a slighter older grom

Finn Vette

...and yes, quite aptly bookending this week's post that would be the U18 Women's Whanga Grom Champ and Niwa Shewry's older sister Ariana

And totally related...Classic Whanga Bar, shot on film, way back in the day. Wanna see it bigger or even having adorning your home wall? Check it out HERE