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Posts Tagged ‘surfer’
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
 Galaxy Borne
The third in a series on Loves.
Surfers. Yes, those who ride weather, water and wave. I love them.
The rapid thunk thunk thunk of footsteps atop the wooden stairs that led up to the flat I had rented that morning at Currumbin Beach, Queensland, jolted me out of my jetlag induced reverie. I had been in Australia for less than 12 hours and had somehow managed to get from Sydney to Coolongatta and into a flat with a rental car in that time. Not bad, but I was tired. It was the second leg of the 1978- 1979 Pro tour for me.
An insistent pounding at the door, had me curiously opening it to a tall tanned guy, who looked at me, smiled and said: “Hey, my name is Peter. I hear you are from the States, here to surf the Contest. The surf is good today. Let’s go!” And in ten minutes I had thrown my 5’9″ Progressive twinfin in the back of Pete’s brown Holden wagon, and we were off to my first surf at Duranbah, a punchy beachbreak. As I paddled out, I saw Rabbit threading a crystal clear, aqua blue barrel. Wow. Welcome to Oz!
Pete and I became fast friends by the time I had to leave to make the trek down to Bells for the next event.
A few days before I left, a huge cyclone swell had hit. I had ridden large Burleigh Heads. Pete had said he would be at work, but that I should jump it from the cove up the point. The double to sometimes triple or more times overhead, looming rights, sort of reminded me of Sunset Point on Oahu. I somehow managed to stuff my little twin into a few of the bigger sets, and streaked across the massive azure walls to kick out in front of the swimming pool that was beach side.
That evening I saw Pete, we had a couple 4xes, and I told him about the avo, bummed that he could not be there. “Ah mate, it was okay. I had a good day anyhow”.
A couple months later, back in Santa Barbara, just home from a day working at the surfboard factory, a large letter was waiting for me at the apartment my wife and I shared. It was from QLD. Opening the brown cardboard, I slid out a photo that was inside. It was of me streaking the inside on a triple overhead barrel at Burleigh Heads. There was a note. “Thought that you might like this” and it was signed simply: Pete.
He had been photographing me. I did not even know that he was a photographer.
What I learned from that year on the tour in general, and from Pete in particular, is that surfers are special.
I do not follow professional surfers around, in spite of having been one. To me, surfers are not necessarily the ones whose tax returns read “Professional Surfer”. But they are the ones who live by the laws of earth, sea and God, and having such an intimate acquaintanceship with those elements, frequently manage to show me something special.
 Another World
So I have always welcomed them, and endeavored to live up to the example of my fine Australian friend.
Now about that photo…….
Click on any of the images in the gallery to toggle through this brief edit. Images were shot in the last couple weeks on the Canon 5D Mark 2 system and are part of a new collection of close to 600 images built over the past 5 weeks swimming every day. The surfers are Lars and Hans Rathje, Chris Vail, Larry Ugale, Donna Von Hoesslin, Jeanette Ortiz, Sierra Partridge, Dave and Mary Osborne. I am very grateful to them all. They remind me of Pete.
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Tags: california beach culture, Canon 5D Mark 2, Chris Vail, Corbis Images, Dave Osborne, Donna Von Hoesslin, Jeanette Ortiz, Larry Ugale, Lars and Hans Rathje, Mary Osborne, Professional Surfer, Professional Surfing, Sierra Partridge, southern california, surf photographer, surf photography, surfer, Ventura surfers, women's surfing Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Tags: Bruce Brown, Canon 5D Mark 2, Dana Brown, Film Versus Digital, lifestyle photography, Mary Osborne, nature photography, ocean, surf photography, surfer, Travel photography, ventura, Ventura Photography, Ventura Tourism Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
 Golden
It is always the scarcity of a thing which imparts value in the perception of a viewing public, so artists tend to withold showing too much of their hand at once.
I remember a photographer with whom I worked years ago, who would hoard his work, and release it one image at a time over the period of his career. His fame and fortune wound up being centered on approximately 9 great images.
I do not think he saw the time we are in coming, where with new tech, and refined approaches, a higher bar for acquisition and communication than ever before would be attained. He set limits on himself and the world of photography.
As I dove into the same field I annihilated those limits. Many have.
Seth Godin has something very succinct to say about limits in his Blog.
The following images are what I would consider to qualify as Golden images. Most were shot on one morning. The rest just happened to be on my desktop today.
Unlimited.
Why settle?
Tags: beach lifestyle, California beach towns, California Gold, Chuck Patterson, golden, golden images, nature photography, ocean photography, San Francisco, Seth Godin, Standup paddle surfing, Supertubes, surf photography, surfer, surfing, Unlimited, ventura, Wave Photography Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
 David Pu'u, Self Expression
The motivation for this piece began with the publication of the following story in the WSJ, to which I contributed an image of my girlfriend Donna Von Hoesslin. Read the comment section, post story, and you will see a diversity of opinions (including mine) that are quite revelatory about each person’s point of view regarding surfing. Those statements reveal everything about those people’s depth of involvement with the ocean. The commentary engaged me.
I have always been a surfer. At four years of age I knew that goal was what my life would be about. To know the ocean, (and to surf) became my path.
In a lifetime of study and involvement in all things water and ocean related, I learned many things about the ocean that never cease to amaze and moderate me as a human being.
 Waterwoman, Hailey Partridge
Water has got to be the single greatest creative foil for mankind ever. It always wins. (You cannot compress it.) It is alive. Within it, and especially the sea, is contained the genetic signature of all life, which ever existed.
But what I find remarkable, is that as a Hawaiian, my ancestors gifted the sport, and the resulting culture that arose, for reasons many may not readily comprehend. I have long been convinced that surfing and the resulting relationship with the ocean serves to be a mirror of who and what a person is. In it, is a near perfect reflection of everybody’s true compass heading for their lives.
As I document and observe the people involved with the ocean, to me, the depth of every single human being is readily apparent by seeing how they relate to water.
In a world of people aspiring to be called: surfers, surfriders, eco warriors, watermen, and all manner of ocean branded things, it is readily apparent, what surfing is to those people. You can always tell who really comprehends the ocean, and whether that person is there to simply use it to brand their movement or maybe just find a means of validating themselves.
Hard to fake it with something so vital and alive as the sea. She always triumphs. Even if her own time frame is an eternal one. It is we who fade into her, and eventually she is us.
 Performance as a Mirror of Involvement
Seth Godin was thinking along similar lines today. His Blog.
My ancestors knew exactly what they were doing.
Like the ocean, truth is eternal.
 Carmine Rush
Best to embrace it.
Tags: Accountability, branding, David Pu'u, Donna Von Hoesslin, eco warrior, environmentalism, Ethics, globalism, hawaiian ancestry, Hawaiian culture, Hawaiian History, nature photography, ocean photography, Ronnie Puu, Ronnie Slavin, Santa Barbara, Seth Godin, surf photography, surfer, Surfer magazine, surfing, surfing lifestyle, surfrider, ventura, Veronica Slavin, Wall Street Journal surfing, water, WSJ Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
 Frame 1 Day 2
It was o dark thirty on the second day of swell event number five on the Gold Coast, in the middle of the El Nino 2009-2010 season. I was gingerly working my way down the spiral stairway which leads down from the aerie which is the loft bedroom that overlooks one of the beaches I shoot all of the time. Under my left arm was my Macbook Pro. In my right hand my cel phone. Quietly, carefully, I padded down the bamboo shod steps, and my right hand exploded in song.
Deftly I snapped the cel phone open. Chuck Patterson was on the line. “Hey Dave, headed your way. Whatcha doing?” I knew that it was cloudy out, having peered at the sky already, but knowing Chuck had already likely left home in OC very early, my answer was predictable: “Um, meeting you?”
By the time I reached the kitchen, we had arranged a meeting place. In ten minutes I was in the car, a cup of coffee in my hand and full camera kit stowed. As the car rumbled to life the sexy female voice that is my bluetooth, told me I had another incoming call: Lars Rathje. Overhead the ominous dark clouds began to be tinged with the grey tone of an impending dawn, still an hour away. Well, looks like a crew shoot, I thought. Wonder what the day would offer?
The prior day had been grey with soft flat lighting and a beautiful 4-6 foot WNW swell. Looked like more of the same, except that swell on the buoys was a little bit larger.
Twenty minutes later, saw us all gathered under a brightening dawn sky. Chuck’s big ass truck, chock full of his water toy-tool collection was already waiting in the parking lot of a place we hoped to shoot. He was on the phone, so I meandered out and had a look. Hmm. 3-4 footers peaked and the wind looked to be slightly side shore. An indicator at this time of year, that the day would be Santa Ana. I knew that we would need to look around, to find a more suitable wave.
Chuck joined me, and nonchalantly mentioned that he had gotten off a boat at 3 am. He had been out at Cortes Bank. Said that it had been fun. Interesting. But we were focused. As Lars, Hans and a friend showed up, we all had a quick look, and before the sun was risen, were on our way out of the parking lot. The Chase had begun.
An hour later, having checked a few places, we wound up down the street from my house. Crisp edged blue lines strode down a long point, brushed by a 10 knot, cool offshore wind. My phone had been going off the entire time with messages from Tyler Chandler. Tyler is a budding 16 year old photographer. He and I had been having a tet a tet online for some months. He was camping nearby with his parents for the holidays, as his Dad commuted up to Santa Barbara for work. I told him where we would be, and he walked on down from their campsite.
I opted to long lens, as I had a lot of people to shoot, sans tripod. Hand holding my big Canon 600mm IS lens is not something I often do, but this spot is right on the freeway. It was empty and I did not particularly want to advertise what we were doing, and ruin the session for the few knowledgeable people that would show. But Tyler found me immediately, and we chatted, as I tutored on the nuances of our craft.
He and I clicked away, and frequently changed position as the boys drove through some spinning barrels at mach speed. It was perfect. And challenging. Chuck had opted to SUP the place on his 8’6″ Hobie stinger Quad. The boys were short boarding, their friend was body boarding. A few other people were scattered on the point.
Pretty amazing that Chuck could even stand, having just completed what I knew from personal experience, to be an incredible marathon out to Cortes. He had taken an 11 foot SUP to the wave. Chuck is a tripper. An elite athlete in so many sports, that it is sort of mind blowing. He is one of my favorite subjects due to his savvy and yet easy going nature. We have spent some amazing times together around the world. Here we were again, scoring within eyeshot of my house.
A few hours later, we grabbed a late breakfast at Cajun Kitchen in Downtown Ventura and after, headed immediately South in what had become a bluebird 75 degree Santa Ana day. A check of an infrequently surfed mysto spot, saw it vacant and somewhat fickle at 3-4 feet. Before I knew it, the boys had scrambled down the cliff and I struggled to catch up, as loading a water housing and getting into my 5Â mil wetsuit, takes a little time.
This particular wave washes up a cliff and sends a backwash wave immediately out to sea, which sweeps sideways across the next, incoming blue sparkler. It is a high degree of difficulty wave to surf. Yet Chuck was somehow managing to stay astride his SUP board. I am sure he was the first to ride it on that sort of craft. Hmm, I pondered, as I slipped over the boulders, and out through the shore pound: two firsts for Chuck in 24 hours: Cortes, here.
It is complex pioneering a new sport. SUP is so young that it has not yet found stasis amongst the ocean going community. Many people hate the big boards. In similar fashion to what occurred with the advent of the birth of modern longboarding, there is extreme resistance and punishment aimed at its proponents. But people like Chuck are rare in any sport. He is so level, so polite. He reminds me a lot of Garrett MacNamara in his exercise of restraint when SUP surfing a break. As senior watermen, they have it down, and are diametrically opposite of the more novice surfers who use the board’s superior paddling power to dominate a break.
We picked off a few good ones, surfing alone for an hour and a half, before Fred Viela and Jake Kelley showed up. There not really being room for all of us, we opted to reliquish the wave to them as we had already gotten a good turn. I grabbed a couple images of the two before we left. I like the fact that Fred and I always seem to be in synch. I was stoked to get an image of him at his home break.
As the day waxed long, and afternoon waned, we all found ourselves at another seldom surfed, fickle spot. It was 3 PM and we had been going since 6 am. But Chuck he had been going since the day before. Hans and Lars opted out of the third surf and we said our goodbyes. Happy boys.
Chuck and I lolly gagged, hemming and hawing about whether we would shoot, in spite of seeing some really good, oily glass, golden green waves, roll perfectly through. A smallish group of guys plied the break. But off to the side, we kept seeing a solitary peak pop up.
It hit us both simultaneously. The realization. We both saw the light go on and grinned. “What are we doing? You are here, I am here. Lets do it!” And we laughed. I hand held the 600 again, as I perched in the rocky blind of a jetty that lay below Coast Hwy 1, and Chuck put on an amazing display of balls out SUP, alone on one of the more beautiful days that we will see this year.
Then up the beach as the light waned, I saw it. A beaut of a backlit swell, wandering into the reef, where a solo surfer paddled for it. I trained my lens on the surfer, as he dropped in and stumbled to his feet somewhat clumsily. Three frames clicked off as he slid through the barrel. Perfect. In many ways.
In surfing, many of us strive to be what we consider best, We do exploits which increase in difficulty as the years go by. Here was Chuck, a best case example of a waterman, surfing alone, while someone with a fraction of his ability, scored the wave, and likely shot, of the day. I say that because I know that the wobbly surfer’s wave was obviously a peak moment. A high. While Chuck was just playing. It was the rarest of the emerald gems collected on that day as a result.
As sun set, and darkness settled, a dramatic frontal band darkened the horizon. Chuck and I parted. He to his wife, and me to a birthday party that my girlfriend Donna had organized for me. A long day, a good day. As the car’s turbo spooled and I swung into the sweeping turns up Coast highway, it occurred to me how blessed that I was. My friends define me. I am so lucky that they call.
That night, 60 or so, gathered at my house. An amazing collective of some of the most talented people I have ever seen gathered in one place.
Marathons can be a good thing.
You can find an account of Chuck’s excursion to Cortes at Hobie, right here. and on Chuck’s blog here.
Seth Godin has some interesting observations pertinent to this blog and our lives and careers here.
Donna Von Hoesslin posts something beautiful about the New Year, on the Betty Blog here.
On this eve of the start of a new decade, it is not just a wish for a happy New Year I offer, but one of encouragement, and a challenge to include yourself and your own talents in what goes on within your own community, what ever, and where ever, those may be.
Here is something sweet, sent along by Suzi Ryder. Well done!
Below is that sole surfer’s great wave and image.

Click on any images in the gallery below, for a larger view. 56 of 250 images from the final file.
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Tags: action sports, betty blog, BettyB, bodyboarding, california beach culture, Canon 5D Mark2, Canon 600F4 IS lens, Chuck Patterson, Cortes Bank, David Pu'u, david pu'u photography, Donna Von Hoesslin, El Nino, extreme sports, fred viela, Hans Rathje, Hobie, hobie sports, Jake Kelley, Lars Rathje, longboarding, new decade, new year, Seth Godin, SUP, surf culture, surfer, surfing, Suzi Ryder, ventura, wendy francisco dog Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
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