When Bad Things Go Well

I'm not a morning person, especially before caffeine. This is a terrible trait for a surfer and it's a disastrous one for a photographer. I'm jealous of people who can go to bed at 8 or 9 pm and then spring out of bed pre dawn. Two of my good friends, Kev Emirali and Dave Gilbert are annoyingly chirpy at 5 am, I don't go on surf trips with them.

Getting up before dawn is a bad thing. But for a photographer it's a necessary evil. The unavoidable fact is the best light is in the first and last few hours of the day. 

Last week bad things happened, the alarm was set for an hour before sunrise. Horrible.  Time for a photo of Rangitoto and today was THAT day. It's raining, f2ck, sh#t, grrrrrrrr what the bloody hell am I doing sitting in the Takapuna reef car park. Kev and Dave wouldn't be so angry....grrrrrr! I remind myself that clouds make for good sky colour and detail.  I remind myself that these marginal conditions are what make great images. Andris Apse would go. 

This image has been added to the Beach Gallery, want to see it bigger?Just click on the image

And then, 20 minutes before dawn, good things happened. The squall moved through, it was going to be a beautiful morning. The shoot could not have gone better. Rock scramble; sweet. Angle found; no worries. Camera set up; too easy. Exposures dialed in; nailed it. Ewwwww maybe I am a morning person. Nah crazy talk. 

In Print

It's always a stoke to get work published, and it's even nicer to get paid! International magazine Australian Surfing Life latest issue hasn't hit the NZ book shelves yet, but I'm stoking on getting a page in the issue as part of their 'The Swell That Smashed The World' featuring a pic from Shippies and some badly crafted words from yours truly.

On The Web

You should be buying your books from PhotoCPL but if you want to buy them on the web elsewhere then The Market is the place. This month's Collection is a nautical theme and look there, The South Seas book is staring. Thanks to the crew at The Market for featuring one of the books.

So SociaL

Last week's email was all about the Rewinds that have been happening over on Instagram. It has been quite a trip down memory lane and the response and messages have been so cool. Thank you to everyone that left a comment and liked the Rewind series. Today is the last one for a while, but I think it's ending on a high note. The rewinds only got as far as 2004, so there'll be another series later. Just click on the image above to see what happened...and give us a follow :)  

Rewind

I've been going through the archives and found a bunch of drum scans that where part of the edit for my first book PhotoCPL, some made the cut, some have been sitting in the archive waiting their turn to be aired. Just for a trip down memory lane, I'm going to post some to Instagram over the next week.

I always get worried about recanting former glories, I'm concerned that people will think I'm lost in the '90's. I'm not- honest! Yesterday I posted the first image and I was stoked with the reaction and comments, in fact it created a pretty cool conversation.

Here's the first one, it actually made the book as a double page spread. Richard Hodder aka @inthedrink always says this is his favourite shot, he reckons it was one of the images that inspired him to get a water-housing. Big call, and I'm sincerely flattered. 

The surfer is Marc Moore who has always been one of my favourite surfers to do roadies with. The laughing organiser, he'd always get the groms ready with an insightful piece of advice, like when you do your road trip shopping tie all the bag handles up so your food doesn't roll about the boot. 

Marc's brand Stolen Girlfriends Club celebrated their 10th anniversary last week. Congratulations to all the partners, Dan Gosling and technophobe Luke Harwood for navigating a turbulent decade so well and coming out on top. Love your success guys!  

This shot was taken in Taranaki, The Mountain is in the left of the frame, at Rocky Lefts in 2002. Shot with a Canon A2 Body and Tokina ATX 17mm with Velvia 50 iso film. I still don't know how I didn't end up with a face full of fins. 

Here's the one I'm going to post later today.

This photo did not make the final cut for the book PhotoCPL. The cover shot of the book was of Maz from the same boat trip, so this one just  missed. We had been surfing such full-on barreling setups, surfing this little hot-dog wave was a nice variation. 

The boat trip is the best I've ever had to privilege to be a part of. In 1999 the Metawaii's was where everyone wanted to be. There still were only a dozen charter boats and just about everywhere we surfed, we surfed alone.  We scored great swell and Macca's, Thunders, Ht's and then in the Wavepark. Epic times with Damon Gunness having his 21st on the boat and Chris Malone and Brent Rasby in full force. Timing is everything. 

The photo did make the pages of NZ Surfing Mag as a double page spread. A week after the issue came out, Matty Bedford, a former cover star of the mag made a point of telling me how sick this shot is. He frothed that it had made him go surfing. I think that's the biggest compliment a photographer or an editor can get, If you stoke someone to make them want to get out there.

And here's one exclusive to you; 

Luke Harwood on Whangamata Bar 2003. This was shot from a small boat and ended up being one of the most expensive photoshoots I've ever been on. The driver of the boat had a shocker and panicked, putting us side-on in the impact zone. A 3 foot wave landed perfectly in the middle of the boat, $9000.00 of camera gear was lost. The boss was not happy. Amazingly the roll of film in the drowned camera had rewound and wasn't too wet. We got all the shots back from the session. Shot on a Canon Eos-1n with a Canon 400mm F4.0L on Velvia 50 iso film ...damn I miss that camera!

 

Good Swim

Last weekend was one out of the bag for Auckland's West coast. We had a run of great surf again.

The sun even lit up a few of the bombs coming through

I have to come clean, I haven't been able to swim out with the water housing for 7 weeks. I'd like to say I go for a water shot at least once a week. It just hasn't worked out. But Saturday did, time to don the flippers.

It's all about the texture

I don't really like photos of small wave studies. You know, those shore dump shots. That's not to say I'm diss'ing photographers that do them. They just aren't my thing. I like images with a bit of volume in the wave.

There's a hole in the sea

It's exciting swimming out in solid surf, Saturday was exciting. The lungs were burning and the legs weren't flipping very well, clearly someone needs to spend more time on the rower...or swim more that once every 7 weeks. 

The perspective surfers around the world crave

A nervous wait between sets

CPL Photos All Over the Show

This week Motorhome Republic used a whole bunch of images in a web log about New Zealand Surf spots.

View the story HERE

The Day Between

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. 

Getting Out There

I used to sell handmade greeting cards at Piha Surf. Using a then state of the art photo printer and some nice machine cut card blanks. The production line was set up in the spare room. The little photos were glued to card, and packed in a plastic bag with an envelope. It wasn't rocket science but it was fun making them. Nor was a retirement fund created by any means, more like a feed down at the Piha RSA every other week. 

Scotty Casey starring on the old school cards!

It was shocking how satisfying a simple one to one transaction is. Even a $5 greeting card. Maybe I crave vindication, maybe I need my ego stroked, I dunno. I'd like to think it is a more positive emotion of making somebody else happy. Of them entertained by what you do enough to want your work around. 
 

Going, going fast!

This last week has been a nice week for that. There has been a spike of print orders from PhotoCPL.co.nz.  And now Sitka in Ponsonby is stocking Photo CPL prints. In fact 3 of the first 5 sold in the first few days. It has caught both Sitka and I short; we didn't expect that. The plan is to keep Sitka in stock with affordable framed prints. The prints will be changed up as wall space comes free. Pop into 133 Ponsonby Rd to see the prints in the flesh.  

Here's the next five prints that will be in store next Wednesday:

New Release!

Did you spy that top shot and think wait I haven't seen that before. It's new, it is loaded into the Wave Gallery now. Click on the photo to view it big. 

Print Vs Web, the war is over

I get involved in a lot of conversations about the state of surf media. It's a huge part of what I've done for 3 decades. We all have been a part a massive shift in how information and entertainment is soaked up. There was a glorious time when the printed page was king. There just wasn't such a thing as the Interweb or surf websites.

The A Team, 1993, L to R, Luke Darby graphic designer and in fact the designer of PhotoCPL.co.nz, Editor Chris Berge, and then some suspect longhaired grungy guy. 

I was working at NZ Surfing Magazine for those golden years. The audience was there, the advertisers knew it; the travel fund was flush. I had written at the start of this paragraph that I was lucky. I deleted it, it is not accurate; I was grateful and respectful of my position as the Editor. But I had worked through the preceding lean years too. I was a part of the teams that built up the title. It used to rile me when strangers would say, "you're so lucky to have a dream job". Of course I'd just smile and agree. 

Dream jobbing in 2005, bobbing off the tip of East Java with Brent Courtney. Brent was NZ Surfing's graphic designer for 2 long periods, he's also the art director of all the PhotoCPL Media books bar one. 

We always knew the Interweb would take over as the primary source of information. In fact it took a lot longer than we estimated for Print to lose the crown. The magazine strategy meetings would go like this. "Yep it's coming, how do we battle it". "Well, we need a Myspace page. Then we create a website that provides sneak peaks into what's coming up in the next issue. It has past features online, current surfing affairs from NZ and around the world. We need an online editor that does daily updates.” We got a quote for the website build, $60,000!!! Wow... we did make the Myspace page. 

Surf Magazines worldwide failed to harness the new technology. They struggled with the concept of providing hard earned content for free. Publishers thought they were producers of pages, rather than carriers of content. Many have withered up, failing to adapt. It's brutal, people have lost their careers. 

We now live in a world of digital natives that have no nostalgia for the printed page. They don't know the stoke of having an issue delivered to their door and flicking through the inked pages. It is sad in some ways, but in many ways, it just does not matter. We are conversant, now more than ever, in what's going on. The best content makers of the past are on the web or even in the print that has survived.

                         The current cover of NZSM

I left NZ Surfing Magazine 7 years ago, it was time to do my own thing and 15 years was enough. NZ Surfing Magazine is still kicking, in fact this year is its 30th.  Respect to the current staff that have weathered these turbulent years of cascading revenue.

Things are looking up for print. Magazines like Damaged Goods and White Horses have found a healthy niche. Readers are coming back because the printed page is a relaxing and tactile experience. It’s a break from our multi-screened lives. 

The current issue of DGZ, and look there, a feature by...me!

The successful magazines have become book like in content. Stopping the battle with websites for current affairs and event reportage. Opting for well researched in depth interviews and timeless stories of high adventure. Maybe the successful magazines are the ones that spurned Digital Natives from the start. Magazines like White Horses and The Surfer’s Journal have always been cross haired on the over 40 market.

The conversations will continue I'm sure. Here is to another 30 years NZSM, may you navigate well and true.  

Getting Close

Offshore. Click on the image to see it larger

The parting caption in the book PhotoCPL was about how formulaic magazine photography was.  I needed to step away from it. I had started to not shoot things, knowing that the image would not make the cut.

Thirds. Click on the image to see it larger

The only photo you regret is the one you didn't take. I do wonder if these 3 images would exist if I were still working for a magazine. It has been hard to break the habit, but it sure has been fun doing it. I often crack up thinking that now surfers don't make the photo, they are in the way! 
 

Pitch. Click on the image to see it larger
 

Of course that's not true, long gone are the days of rationing the 36 frames on a roll of film. Now we all get to shoot everything that moves. Some photographers lament the advent of digital, I'll admit I have too. It has meant more photographers in the water and the water angle is not so revered. But it has also meant the expectation is higher. And who doesn't like a challenge. 
 

This Week's Mini Adventure

Speaking of challenges, believe it or not, this mini adventure was. Find a carpark, not get confronted by a homeless drunk. Get confronted by said homeless drunk- make a new friend. Have your new friend become your self appointed camera minder. Oh yes, taking on Auckland's Queen St has its own set of unique challenges. I'm amping to see the panoramic camera results....but that will be next week. 

The Wait

It has been a tense week for West coast surfers. While the waves have been pretty good, there has been the ever present tease of a Nor-west swell. Our predominant swell direction is from the south, from the roaring forties. Everything changes in a Nor-west swell. Instead of waiting for high tide, we are amping for low tide. Instead of hoping the swell is a manageable size, we are willing it to be as big as it can. The more north the better, it means the swell runs acutely down our long flat beaches, becoming pseudo giant right hand point-breaks. 

A VINTAGE NOR-WEST SWELL AS FEATURED IN THE SOUTH SEAS

A Nor-west is an all too rare treat. Some years we'll get none, but every once in a while we'll fall into cycle and get 3 or 4 NW swells in quick succession. Boards get stepped up, boards get snapped. This week was supposed to be one of those weeks, it just didn't happen.

Matt Ziegler enjoying this week's perfect but small South West swell

Pumping all by itself

Mike Spence wagging work from Freeride- just as well he's the boss

On any other week you'd be fizzing to see this

Matty Ziegler impressing the on-lookers 

 Sitka Is Back

Andrew Howson, stoked to be in Ponsonby Road, and stoked to have the Sitka pop up- up

The darling of NZ surf scene, Sitka has relocated from it's Newmarket location to Ponsonby. Crippling rent and lack of foot traffic saw the Canadian founded surf brand rethink their flagship store. Closing the doors on the iconic Osbourne St store straight after Christmas, Sitka effectively became homeless for 6 months, peddling their wares at the Silo Park markets.

           Yep, he's stoked! 

After a couple of false starts, Sitka NZ's Managing Director Andrew Howson has secured the perfect venue for the brand, albeit temporary, the new Sitka is already doing a roaring trade at 133 Ponsonby Rd, just up from Ivan's, just down from Bhana Bro's for us old school Ponsonby noters :) 

Four Corners of New Zealand 

Last week's web log featured a wee tease of Richard Hodder's [aka@inthedrink on Instagram] first solo exhibition Four Corners and last night was the opening of the event. The 23 works are beautifully presented on fine art photo-rag paper in white box frames. Cleverly, there is a scaling of limited edition prints- in my opinion far too fairly priced, but that said, on opening night there where already a nice amount of red dots [signifying a sale] under the feature pieces.

A happy and relieved Hoddsy

If you are in Auckland over the next month get along to the Allpress Gallery for a shot of stoke. More details HERE 

Big Swell, Big Picture

Shippies at the peak of the mega swell in mega, mega pixels. Simply click the image to see more detail

The downside of shooting film is that everything takes more time, there is no checking the back of the camera to view what you've shot or how you've exposed it. There's no instant correction or instant digital gratification, there's just a long nervous wait, a mental tussle of self doubt and excitement over what could be on those rolls of film. The lab only processes film on Tuesdays now, long gone are the days of 1 hour processing, so for these rolls it was a week long wait.

Last week's panos ghetto scanned, to do side by side comparisons and final choice

This time around there were choices a plenty, in fact, that then became the issue, which one! The top one was chosen because the waves are the best shaped and the set is stacked around the top of the point, there's a feeling of anticipation.

Edit decided, then scan in full resolution, grade and 'clean', it's intensive and laborious. It takes about 4 hours to get a single panoramic image print ready. The work could be farmed out for sure, but really only the photographer who took the photo knows what they envisaged. 

Why put yourself through this for one image?  Simple, peace of mind. A film panoramic like this one is over a gigabyte in size.  When someone orders through the website it is actually a reduction from the image's native size... this is getting real photo nerdy huh? It all means every client is going to get an even better print than they expected, because of the fine detail. It's a stoke to drop off a piece or get an email back with the familiar 'I liked the photo, but I never expected it to look this good in real life!' The devil is in the detail.

The Fotoman 617 Pano camera has been getting a workout! Just click on the image to see it larger, oh, there's even a video on the page

 

Meet Hoddsy

Hodds just out of the drink for a change [ahhhh Dad joke!]

Say hello to Richard Hodder, aka @inthedrink on Instagram. You're probably following him already, the quietly spoken surfer [yes, he surfs as well as he shoots!] is the most followed Kiwi surf-photographer on social media. His daily post of inspiration clearly hits a chord with us all. Hodds has spent the first half of 2015 travelling to the the Four Corners of NZ shooting in only the way he can. I've been trying to cajole him into making a book, but that's another story. In the meantime come support and enjoy his fine work off screen and on gallery walls.  More details HERE 

This Week's Swell

 

Shippies at the height of this week's swell pulse

Surfers around the world were watching and waiting this swell. The biggest Antarctic storm of the year so far has generated a massive swell that has been surfed in Indonesia, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tuesday was our turn to sample its power.

Camping under the stars, waiting for waves
 

So much of surfing is about the thrill of the chase, identifying a storm that could create swell, figuring out were and when that swell could reach landfall. Taking a punt, committing and just go. I travelled up the Shippies with Jessie Peters and Luke Crouch ahead of the swell to be there for it's arrival.

Supertubes on the evening the swell started to pulse. Click on the image to see it larger and for purchasing options

It's exciting to be in place waiting to welcome waves. The points slowly filled with other surfer/campers. There's always a friendly vibe of a shared goal and maybe even a mutual appreciation of a shared methodology- be there, be Johnny on the spot. It's really quite a privilege to enjoy Shippies' beauty. 

Jesse, stoking on the evening camp vibes
 

Fellow photog Lindsay Butler, back from working on the Rigs in the Bass Strait, and hating being on the frontside of the lens

 Best bach on the beach! 
 

Everyone slept lightly, the swell, very literally, started to roar at 1am. Moonlit lines of whitewash pushing further out and along, is it peaking now? Will it last until dawn? Am I parked high enough up out of the washes? 

The mission I came for, pano camera in place
 

No one slept in, that said no one hurried out either, the swell was huge and the tide was only going to get better. I had my own mission, and I was not relishing it. On my [ever growing] Need To Have image list is a series of images from Shippies super dune. It's a daunting dune for a film photographer, but I wanted to take up enough kit that I had everything covered.

Simplicity and muted morning tones, Click on the image to see it larger and for purchasing options
 

 Time to shoot some surfing

 Old mate Dave Gilbert giving the swell some scale

Tom Shand was ripping on his snubby

How stoked would you be with this wall to scribe on!

The swell that made many a camper very happy

That trek up the dune was appreciated, Surfline ran one of my images. 

Cold is Good

Star Trails 

It's cold out, and that's a good thing. A southerly snap often brings crispy clear skies, and as much as a dramatic cloudscape exciting and well, dramatic, clear skies offer up a chance to stretch the camera's [and owner's!] capabilities. While I'm a advocate of analogue photography it has to be acknowledged that digital cameras can create some great effects fast. It's a matter of choosing the right tool for the right job. 

 Last night while you were huddled around the heater 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Star trail images are not that easy to make, apart from living in the very aptly named Land of the Long White Cloud- where cloudless nights are all too rare, you do need some pretty costly toys. An upper end digital camera, a high quality fast wide angle lens, a very heavy duty tripod, an electronic release and a powerful computer that's going to handle 160 high resolution images getting stacked into one massive file. But a welcome side effect of making a star trail image is that you can use the very same files to make a time-lapse like this; 

Here's a star trail that was made last winter; 

                Just click on the image to see it larger

And this is what it looks like framed up in a client's living room...

#Vanlife

#Vanlife

  One of the best ways to spend a Sunday

Just over two years ago I bought my most expensive photo accessory to date, yep a camper van! It's been an obsession for a very long time, the idea of hitting the road and staying on the road, of being able to pull over and make a coffee while you wait for the light to play ball. Of being in remote places and having shelter AND a lot of camera gear....fair to say I had highly romanticised camper van life before committing to the relationship.

Under the stars mid winter northland

It's been a wonderful couple of years of semi regular escapes. The camper van has been everything and more that I thought it would be. And I've been really surprised at how many people have enjoyed my previous blogs and stories on camper van [mis] adventures. There are over 230,000 posts under #vanlife in Instagram, check it out sometime.

 Castle Point, Wairarapa

Last weekend's mission was to the Far North for the big swell that hit, the same swell that went on to push up to Fiji for the WSL Fuji Pro. It's always a buzz to think the same swell line that as hit our coastlines may also been ridden further up in the Pacific I reckon. 

 Last weekend's waves

Shippies has always been a firm favourite for me, it's not just the waves, it's the whole experience. The drive around the reef, the timing of the tides, the huge dunes and the curve of 90 Mile Beach...everything is an adventure.

Shippies 1993, click on the image to see it larger

This image was originally used by Rip Curl in their Search campaign adverts in 1993. At the time it was a huge coupe for a NZ photographer to get a shot used in The Search, which is now regarded as one of the best surf branding exercises ever.

Hey Sparkie!

Photographic Mini Adventures

My partner in crime Ange nailing the technique

Ok Ok, I'm desperately trying not to pun this E-bomb up with calls like a spark of an idea, bright spark or some other terrible fiery call.... there I think I've got them out of my system. Earlier this week I got the chance to try the surprisingly simple photo trend; #Steelwoolphoto. As you can see it makes for a nice dramatic image.

Here's all you need:  

A $3.00 wire whisk, a $4.00 dog-leash, a lighter and some super fine grade steel wool- the type used in painting prep or polishing- you'll find it in the paint section at Mitre 10.

Picking your day is key too, you need a still day with no wind, or a location out of the wind. And of course the time of day; pre-dawn or post sunset are generally the best times to get a bit of after-glow colour in the sky. That said, there's some pretty cool black'n'white night city shots around the web once you start trawling. You also want a location that's non-combustable, it's probably not a good idea to do this in a hay barn or a petrol station, the sparks will fly! [dam-it there's a pun!

Test pilot Daryn McBride in a non-conbustable location, but with just a bit too much ambient light

The photo technique is pretty easy, because you're doing a long exposure the camera has to be on a tripod. The steel wool burns for about 10 seconds, so you simply set the shutter speed for 15 to 30 secs, I metered the available light pre-ignition and then underexposed a stop for the expected shower of sparks. The lens was manually focussed it wouldn't track during the shot. The tripod and camera was set up out of spark range- but there are spectacular shots where the camera is in range and protected with a sacrificial UV filter in front of the lens and wrapped in material so the sparks don't hit the camera.  

Now we're starting to get the light balance right
 

The whisk is attached to the leash chain, the whisk is the holder for the steel wool pad, you simply stuff a pad into the whisk cage and then light it. It doesn't burst into flames, it sort of smoulders, but as soon as you start twirling sparks go flying. It pays to wear clothes you don't mind getting holes in.  

My best selfie- ever! Looking pretty volcanic and chaotic

As we got more confident, we started changing the length of the chain, the speed and direction of the twirl. All effect the final result and it's pretty cool to see variations pop up on your camera screen. I started using my flash, hand held, set on full and manual to give me a single burst, this froze the twirler enough to get a bit more detail in the figure.    

In this one, the chain length was changed during the exposure, hence the double ring of fire

And that's steel wool photography 101, it is a very easy and fun way to have a mini photo adventure with your mates. 

Summer In The Wintertime

New Release 

                 
June is officially the start of winter, but with the cold snaps and wild southern storms we've already had, it felt like winter was well underway before. Winter is a great time for photography, the sun tracks low in the sky to the north which gives photogs angular light, it's exciting chasing storms and getting dramatic cloudscapes.

That said it's hard not to get nostalgic for the amazing summer we just all had, those beautiful evenings spent in the water with no neoprene needed, just a pair of boardies - the after work rinse. Today the image above has been added to PhotoCPL in the Beaches Gallery- a wee ode the summer past. Just click on the image to see it large. And please share it with anyone you think may like it. 

Winter hasn't stopped the waves completely, last week we had a nice run of surfing days, here's a video of one that got away from the crew last friday. 

Being Criticised Is Scary

                   
                    There's nothing like the smell of fresh book in the morning 

          
Getting your hard earned labours of love reviewed is a surprisingly stressful event for any creator. The way that we make books here at PhotoCPL is that you've spent the best part of a year living, breathing, celebrating, internalising, externalising and fretting over every single tiny aspect of every page. It's very easy to lose sight of the end game, which is that fine balance between artistic endeavour and commercial sensibilities. To be really honest the latter is only very loosely adhered to. Both The South Seas and Warren Hawke's NZ Surf books were done with the old Wayne's World adage 'If you build it, they will come', both are projects of passion, with a belief that that passion will be shared with the reader. They really are our babies.  
         
                       

The original image used for The South Seas book birth- not far from the truth

         Last week the latest issue of Pacific Longboarder magazine hit the NZ bookstands with this review.

Both Warren and I shared another sigh of relief...'ahhh the reviewer got what we did!' Actually in this case the reviewer, while still giving the book an extremely positive review, sort of missed the point that the book was about Warren's career as the South Island's most prolific and published surf photographer. But that's kind of nit picking; it's a great review.

Here's the best review NZ Surf- Captured By A Surf Lens has had so far;
                 
            

Warren scored the cover and lead feature of The Press Escape Magazine. No biggie, not scary, just a readership of 182,000 according to the AC Neilsen surveys. And that's why reviews can be so scary, you're putting your baby into the hands of a stranger. They could be in a bad mood, the book doesn't hit a chord with them, you just don't know. But you have to do it if you want to share your labours of love. 

I Love Being In The Water

When I started shooting surf from the water in 1994, no one else in New Zealand was. There had been others, but at that time I became both NZ's best water surf photographer and it's worst.  

It was almost impossible to find out what to do and how to do it, back then surf photographers were notoriously protective of their techniques and formulas. This is why I actively mentor new up'n'comers now. I could say I learnt the hard way, but that's not really how I see it, it remains a fun challenge. If I'm not actually surfing myself, swimming out into the surf with the camera is the next best thing, in fact sometimes I'm frothing more to get water shots than actually surf.  

Swimming about and getting images like this makes it all worthwhile 

From 1994 to 2007, that's 13 years, everything was shot on film. That meant when you swam out you only had 36 frames on a roll of film- you learnt fast to shoot carefully and make every frame count!

Making it count with Former National Champ Blair Stewart on film, in the Pacific 2006

This was a huge reason why water shoots were held in such high regard. In 2007 digital was finally viable for the water, now we all swim out with a memory card that holds over 1000 high resolution frames- gotta love it! 

Current National Champ Billy Stairmand caught with pixels 2015

Of course, there's another reason water shots are held in high regard, it's more dangerous than standing on the beach with a big lens. There's the ever present thought bitey things that might want to take a sample, the worry of housing springing a leak and then there's just the waves themselves. 

Pacific reef pole drive 2004, severed ear lobe, face grate and a dislocated shoulder, I saved the housing though! This is one of the most commented shots in the book PhotoCPL

Every time you swim out you do it knowing that to get in the right place you have to be in the impact zone. It's exciting, it gets the blood pumping but it also means you're probably going to go over the falls or have that sinking feeling of slipping down the mine shaft... what, you don't know what that is, well here's a little video from my last outing. 

Shooting Wide- Really Wide

Why Shoot Wide

A 20 year preoccupation with the whole picture 

I guess I'm known for my surf photography, and maybe as a reaction to close cropped telephoto action shots I've developed a love for panoramic and landscape photography in general. 

The idea of showing the whole playground and then zoom on in to the action just seems to me the right way to tell a story. I bought my first Panoramic camera in the '90's. I wish I had never traded it in. It was a classic 1970's Widelux that used 35mm film and made a photo to the tried and true 1:3 ratio. The 1:3 ratio is very close to our peripheral view, and that's why panoramic images seem so visually appealing.  

          
I had a shocker ever letting this lil beastie go. 

When I shot for the book Beached As Vol 1, the need for a camera that could show the whole scene in one frame hit home hard. I've been lead down a merry trail with many kinks and turns since. I shot most of Beached As Vol 2 on this...

      
And lesson learnt- never ever trade in a camera- keep em all! 

The PTB 617 has been an amazing producer of images, it's the camera that most of my award winning images have been made with like this one below. 

In the ongoing quest to improve my panoramas I went deeply into digital stitching, and it is a really great way of getting panos, no doubt. Here's a digital pano that also won an international award and it has been a super popular seller. 

But I got really frustrated with the limitations of digital stitching, I still will do them, but not as often. The thrill and discipline of getting it right in one frame of film really excites me. It feels more like you are crafting and yielding an image at the time of capture... that said it's harder! 

Here's the latest addition to the family; 

I'd like to say it has been a seamless transition, but the Fotoman 617 is deceptively easy to muck up a frame on. I am getting keepers now,  this is one of my new favourites off it;

This Manu Bay pano also demonstrates another reason film has it over digital- even though I've used a slow shutter to blur the waves, it is next to impossible to digitally stitch a scene like this with waves moving through it. 

So why all this talk of panos, well it's Panoramic comp season again, and my week has been consumed with pouring over which images to submit. This year I've gone for 5  panos that were all shot on film [you probably guessed it after that filmic rant]. 

Should Have, Could have, Didn't

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

The endless dilemma for NZ surfers

This week has been nothing short of stressful. All the reports and forecasts point to a great week of conditions for both Raglan and Taranaki, and I've sat on my hands. In between other commitments and a decidedly huge amount of indecision I've opted to hope for little windows of opportunity around home... it's not really working out too well to be honest. But I am taking solice in that fact I'm not the only one. Every turn of the tide sees familiar faces rotating around Piha's carparks- the endless search for a bank in this big Tasman Sea pulse... perfect wind, just too much swell for around these parts. 

Big Piha Bar

The carpark conversations inevitably turn to where we all should be rather than, after scouring the beach, where we are. But I love these moments too, catch ups with neighbours, fill ins on the latest local gossip and a huge amount of game talk. 

My neighbour Mike Mulcahy on a wee ankle-tapper 

Mikey post Piha pounding

Moments like this make a swim worthwhile every time

I have been amping to try out my new housing set up, I've mounted a Gopro on the top of my camera housing. The plan is to get video of the waves I shoot stills of. Today was the first outing with the new rig and I'm pretty happy with my first go, above. I've added the wave now entitled Piha Thumper to the Wave Gallery

No More Heroes

Andrew Moore’s seminal documentary film about the birth of skateboarding in NZ, No More Heroes, premiered again last Sunday night at the Pt Chev Raza to a packed house...wait, what, how can a movie have 2 premiers!? 

In 2006 the movie was a part of the NZ Film Festival, it was cut to a soundtrack that was only licensed for those showings. Andrew hit a massive hurdle, in fact a deal breaker; to get all the music licensed for a general release was going to cost 100’s of thousands. The film got shelved for a couple of years because it was just too hard. It looked like No More Heroes may just have become a lonely folder on a forgotten hard-drive.  

The Pt Chev Raza was packed 

Enter my partner in crime- the gorgeous Ms Ange Jolly, somehow she caught wind of the film and decided Andrew was getting her help. Together Andrew and Ange went through the crowd funding process and with the amazing support of Flying Nun Records Andrew has been able re-edit No More Heroes to a banging all Kiwi music soundtrack. 

Andrew re-presenting seminal NZ Skate movie No More Heroes 

In true grass roots style, as mentioned, the new premiere was at the Pt Chev Razza, sounds weird, but the venue is actually massive. Over 250 people packed the place, there was literally standing room only- filled to [over] capacity. Many of the participants/interviewees in the docco were there- the evening was a who is who of NZ Skateboarding roots.

Later this week I’ll be interviewing Andy for the next issue of Damaged Goods Magazine- I’m stoked his hard work is now getting the credit it deserves. And what about the actual movie? If you owned a Moonskate, a Trax, a Caster or ever had a roll at Skatopia [RIP] or New Lynn, then quite simply, you need to own this film- it is brilliant. It’ll be on i-Tunes in a few weeks. But in the meantime you can get up-dates on the No More Heroes Facebook page HERE 

PhotoCPL Site Facelift

If you are reading this then you are navigating around the all new PhotoCPL website- Thanks for visiting! 

The PhotoCPL website has been in place since 2008, man, have there been some changes in those 7 years. But this new one is by far the biggest overhaul of the website yet.

What's new? PhotoCPL is now responsive; so now whether you're viewing on your monitor, tablet or phone the site will adjust to that format for the easiest possible navigation and ease for you. 

We've made the images higher resolution. This is a tough one for us photographers to balance, we all want to show our images in the highest possible quality, but at the same time not so high that they can be ripped off. To make the images on PhotoCPLlook really good on screen for you we've gone XL on the picture size, but added a centred light CPL watermark. We think we've got the balance about right. Of course the watermark is not there on a final order. 

What do you think? We think we've done a pretty good upgrade, but at the end of the day, and because you are a PhotoCPL client, no one has better insight than you, after you've visited the new site I'd love to know your thoughts about how we can make the site better yet.

Show and Tell: It's the all common request I know, but you guys have been awesome in sharing and recommending PhotoCPL, please don't stop!  Just about every website page has a full set of social media buttons to the left/ centre of your screen, and this newsletter has share buttons at the bottom. Believe me, your actions are most certainly appreciated. 

So, please enjoy the new PhotoCPL site, and again thanks - Craig