Was stoked to be able to get down to the final day of the womens ASP pro surfing tour New Zealand leg which was held in Taranaki. Spent the day photographing some truly inspirational surfing in the rapidly improving conditions. Event was won by Hawaiian Carissa Moore (seen in photos 2&3) who donated her entire winnings to a local surfing club that gets kids into surfing! 
If you’d like to some more photos of this session head on over to My Flickr account.
A photo from the epic New Zealand leg of the ASP womens surfing Dream Tour! Chelsea Hedges is pictured ripping down the line. Amazing surfing was on display by all the competitors – especially the 15yr old wildcard Sarah Mason the giantkiller (took out world champ Stephanie Gilmore!) and of course the eventual winner Carissa Moore!
Will post up some more photos I took of the action very soon!
Been meaning to post this up for a while…here’s a surfboard bag (or sock) I put together some weeks ago. For a few dollars worth of material, a spare shoelace from the last pair of Vans I bought and maybe half an hour of cutting sewing time (with the help of my lovely misses!) made myself this sweet board bag. Protects from the knocks and scrapes from banging around in the car/garage, stops the bottom getting covered in wax when it’s piled in the heap of surf search boards and even brightens up the office space when it’s hangin in the corner waiting for it’s next outing!
It’s a fairly simple sewing job and lets you create a board bag in the style you want rather than an off the shelf monotone clone.
Had a quick look around and turns out I’m not the only one crafting their own… Check out Bogus , Shelter & Ahoy for more hand made surfboard bag inspiration and then get sewin!
The wind failed to arrive today unfortunately, but Taranaki turned on the sunshine to full and a nice little swell rolled in. Plenty of people got out on the water and made the most of the day, whilst some of the locals enjoyed trying to capture the elusive Whitebait. Move of the day would have to go to the handstand on the board, which was completed and followed by a decent top turn!
Yes a public advisory post to inform you that handbrakes are indeed very useful! Going for a surf today was surprised to see a large crane parked up at one of the local surf breaks. Turns out someone checking the conditions at the lookout area jumped out the car with so much enthusiasm they forgot to pull the handbrake…the car rolled off the edge of the low cliff and ended up on its roof down on the rocks. Managed to arrive just in time to grab a couple shots of it being hoisted upGood news is nobody was injured!
Stoked! Just finished up the artwork on my brand spankin 6’2″ Carbon Art surfboard. These boards are crazy strong and lighter than a standard glass board (they use all sorts of composite tech to build them with). Thought I’d go for a bit of fun with this one with a non-white board approach. Who needs another plain white clone board out there huh?! Took a bit of time to mask it up for spraying but well worth a bit of effort. Now if only there was some waves….!
*update: had a couple sessions in some average waves. Really happy with the performance, got some nice turns going and pulled off a fair sized floater. Can’t wait for one of those classic days!
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Checking the surf conditions over at New Zealands best surf site I was stoked to find one of my photos had been put into their top 10 of 2008! And according to the text I have now officially achieved the status of a full-on pro-level surf photo taker Though they did lighten it up somewhat from original. What’s your view? Better lighter or darker? (original photo shown below). Look out for some new improved pics up soon as am now the proud owner of a proper piece of glass 300mm F2.8.
