Splash SurfBlog

Well as always I’m late getting the blog up to date so I’ll stick in the post from yesterday.. Another grey miserable rainy misty day so no change there then.. got a phone call from Ash (Lumox’s) to say he’d tried everywhere and the meor was the only place working..

We eventually decided to take a flying trip over and see what was happening even though we knew the tide was dropping out to low and with the rain and wind I wouldn’t be able to shoot much closer than the top by the van.. well it was worse than I thought.. the light was so low that it was pretty much certain we were just going to get Shite or worse lol.

I set up the big brolly on the wall and lashed it to the public bench behind me to keep it down in the wind and set up the tripod underneath it to see what (if anything) we could get.

The mist was a bit thick making things even more difficult but Tom Harper was out there having a few nice waves along with team Rider Bertie Basset himself on the licorice allsorts board Ash Lawton

Tom Harper

Well it didn’t, for the whole afternoon it rained and blew and rained some more.. in the end the light got so bad that I had to give up as everything was blurring with low light and grainy images don’t make good images.. Just hung around long enough for Ashley to get dressed and collect some new stickers from the van for his new board and catch a few more waves from Tom Harper..

Speaking of  Tom’s was that Joe I saw out there just before packing in and if so is that a new portrait of Tom on your board?.. great to see the loyalty and remembrance in Joe taking Tom out surfing with him all the time..

Hope you enjoyed the blog.. I got wet writing it lol…

catch ya soon.. when the rain stops

Mel

Phone call from Justin to say they were heading out at Longrock and he was guaranteed to do a reverse today the wind and waves were perfect… were being the operative word as they were before they went in but apparently not after they went in lol.. seriously though the wind di drop tremendously making it really difficult for any decent jumping.. still there were one or two straight jumps worth a mention.. Here’s the first.

1st jump of the afternoon for Martin and another one

A couple of Jackdaws were watching Leanne making lunch sure of the fact that some crumbs were gonna come their way but doing their best to hide from the wind…strategic rock wind dodging

Strategic wind dodging Jackdaws

Meantime Justin was seeking out any waves he could for a bit of wave riding… of course he made his best jump while I was standing cup of tea in one hand and sandwich in the other.. aint it always the way

a little wave riding from Justin

Sandwich over and back to shooting just in time to catch martin making some sweet manouvers..

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet

Nicely Executed

simon - I think

Nice bump n jump from Justinstill going

The wind was already falling away quite rapidly and the action soon slowed down.. with not enough speed to make the jumps it was time for a little wave riding.. but there were some nice waves at least.. like this one.

nice wave riding to be had

Meantime back on the beach a mediterranean Gull was busily foraging for food in the waters edge whilst dodging the waves..

Mediterranean Gull

The boys were enjoying the waves as the wind had slowed right down..

The waves made up for the lack of wind

Justin

Simon grabs a wave too

Justin Lands a cracker and gets the final ride.. while Martin and Simon head for the beach

Justin rides the last wave of the day

Martin hits the beach

Closely followed by simon

and finally Justin heads in

end of the days sailing

Well thats the surf blog for today folks.. remember there’s more images in the gallery so check em out..

Till the next time

Chiao Mahalo

Mel

Down the Bluff this arvo in glorious sunshine whilst the rest of the north coast seemed to be getting poor light and weather.. strange this land of ours isn’t it.

Justin & Dale called us up to go over the bluff but realistically the wind wasn’t strong enough though we grabbed a few shots of them and the kiters in the river mouth.

The tide was fast coming in and before I’d realised I had to make a hasty retreat and arrived at the low point with the tide only 2 foot from the rocks.

and a little bump n jump for Harvey.

 And that about wraps up the blog for today.. hopefully we’ll see some surf arrive in the week so call back and we’ll see what we can get for ya

M

Yep thats where I was for a few hours this afternoon after starting out at Mazza and grabbing a few shots of the windsurfers and kiters that had straggled from the main bunch..

A phone call from Dan Hills took us way up to sandy acres by Mexico and one look over the top left me shaking my head.. with my Arthritis flaring from having to withold my injections due to bl&*dy flu there was no way I was going down there.

A little snoop about and I found the sandpit.. sheltered from the wind and an excellent vantage viewing point of the action albeit miles away it would put a different slant on the normal shots of the windsurfers, so I set up and enjoyed the shelter and show.

Its probably one of the best viewing points of the whole of St Ives bay up there and there were many sights of cracking waves to see and shoot while the low light lasted, which wasn’t long and it was too dark to shoot any more without increasing the ISO settings to noise or more noise.

Here’s a few of the shots for ya to taste and the rest are in the Galleries for members or free thumbs at www.Splashography.com

Justin at Mazza

Nice arial

and again

Whack and up again

Sets roll in

Horizontalism

Well thats it for today folks.. get along to the galleries and check em out.. we get a little fed up of all the low light days we’re having but at least there’s a small record of the days hapopenings there for all to see even if they are a little grainy

Yep we made it, only 5 days into 2009 which isn’t bad to say we’ve been hindered with this god awful flu virus, I’ve spent the last 2 weeks with a bloody headache and Leanne says well done she’s spent the last 15 years with one

Well the new site launch will take place today and finally we’ll be able to get back to other things after spending all the spare hours (spare???) working on the new layout.  Hopefully everythings is better laid out for easier access for everyone, no doubt peeps will soon let us know if not lol.

Those of you who know me well also know that it takes more than a bit of illness to get me off my feet since I managed to get back on them.. so I’ve been out and about even in the throngs of flu grabbing images in crap light, glary sunlight and windy conditions right through the beginnings of the new year.. so here’s a quick round up of the start of Twa thoosand annine….

Those of you who were out and about will remember the first day of the new year was B**dy freezing, and a bit windy.. enough for a few of the sailors to rig up and get out on the water at Marazion..
Here’s a couple from the day:

Justin leaving the water for a better look

All was planned for a second day with the winds increasing overnight, or maybe not.. on arrival At mazza, everyone was there but the wind kind of wasn’t.. for me I could see a lot more swell moving than yesterday so I figured and early out and up to Praa Sands for these results…

 Wasn’t supposed to be twilight but it seemed that way all day with probably one of the lowest light days  of all… High ISO (Film Speed) Slow exposure and even the better beamer flash extender couldn’t counterbalance most but at least there was some kind of record of the day…

armageddon wave?

Back home to Godgers on Saturday for a few Big waves in better conditions

And still time for a little reflective meditation pre session..

and so to yesterday, was on my way to Gwithian for a chill out and chicken club sandwich from sunset..(well worth a try) when the phone bleeped to life with messages saying it was on at Perranuthnoe.. well there were a lot there for a tiny wave and yet it was a very pleasant afternoons shooting for a change…Light was crap again but we’ve got used to that now..

Taz cruising Nicely down the line

Always nice to see our ladies out there...

Orange

What as it looks at the moment.. the launch date for the all New Splashography Website planned for New Years Eve is looking darker as we get closer.. who set that as the target

I never realised how much there actually was on Splashography as far back as 2006, all of which has been sifted for relevance and archived or moved.. Its hardly surprising its been costing so much to host and finally burst its banks in september last year forcing us to move to bigger premises as it were…  HYPER thetically speaking that is..

A Cry I should have heard much sooner to save myself a lot of anguish and time and money.. I’d been experiencing so many focus issues lately and tried every test under the sun to find the cause of this.
Nothiung amazingly serious by most standards but to the trained eye, every image had a slight focus problem and it was driving me mad.
I enlisted the help of friend and fellow photographer Bob Sharples to see if he had any idea’s as the swell started to roll in at Godrevy.

After the initial Nervous approach to this alien Being called Nikon, Bob condescended to shoot a couple of shots and to my surprise and His Jubilant elation they were tack sharp..

Well Bugger me I retorted, to which Bob said he’d rather not and I shot the next 4 or 5 out of focus.. and then Bob’s turn and more tack sharp shots… Powerful magnetic field from me I thought… probably not that far out but Bob suddenly pointed out that I shoot with My arm draped over the lens.. a habit formed by reading Moose’s blog for steadying long lenses when shooting in lower light… BUT.. under the cover of the splash mat which protects the camera and lens from penetrating spray I was rolling the Focus ring unbeknown to me… OR!! the bloody powerful magnet I wear on my left wrist was doing it for me with the HYperSonicMotor.. Either way a shift of hand and Bingo.. Tack sharp shots for the rest of the afternoon…and a Big smile on my Mug

Cheers Bob for spotting and correcting the errors of my ways… you’d have thought I’d have learned about Magnetic fields after spending a fortune recording some tracks in the studio to come home and put the Metal tape on top of the tv where it sat for a few days and then revealed to me that the tracks were no longfer there after the bloody magnet in the TV erased the magnetic tape of all its goodies… thank F&*K for backups even then lol.

Ah well s’pose I’d best show ya some of the ultra sharpy low light High ISO images from today.. so here y’are

Well they’re saying there’s a damned good swell arriving amidst the peeying weather so we’ll see what the weather holds and what we get…  Cya

Mel

A Wave Length!.. yep they were there this arvo at Godrevy with some purty Classy surfers like Johnny Fryer, mind you the tide was whizzing out and leaving me way behind on the dunes with my Meagre 500mm and unable to reach deep into the action… ah well here’s a couple of the captures from a long way away.

The warmth and sunshine lasted even less than the waves which were rapidly dropping off as the day grew colder and darker.. it wasn’t long before I was forced to give it up as shooting surf at anything less than 250th Sec is kind of a waste of time and the last few shots were at more like 80thSec..

A nice sauntering walk up to the top field to see the seals was on the menu so orft we went…

See what tomorrow brings eh!

Another delightful afternoons surf at Praa sands brought a lot of the Newquay North Coasters down and presented some spectacular surfing in the head to head and a half waves.
As Usual the sun was smack bang in front of the lens and after getting as far down as I could I just managed to shoot a few in the dropping tide in the shade of the wave.

All in all there was good surf all afternoon and some surfers got a bit carried away rushing into the sea only to find they’d whacked a nice big Yellow Clamp on their shiny vans on their returns… Costly Business eh Jason

Mind you Leanne did tell you they clamped Togs too lol.. hope your friend got a few good shots to compensate.. 

Checkout the rest of tyhe images on the site.. we’ll keep ya up to speed with whats happening next over the weekend somewhere.

Mel

Well it seemed like an eclipse at times today, I’d be shooting at 160ISO at 500th sec at F8 and within 3 shots was down to 20th sec at 400 ISO F5.6  Now to those who that all sounds like gobbledeegook thats Photo Speak for (F**k what happened to the Light!) and it can make all the difference to a shot..

Take this for example, here’s dan whacking one over  at 200th second

Stops the image quite nicely thanks, albeit a bit more light would’ve made the whole thing a bit brighter and sharper.. but as the rainclouds pass over the sun the light drops rtight off the scale and leaves you with a shot like this at 20th Sec

Couldn’t stop a pig in a passage as the saying goes, the action is faster than the shutter and a nice Blur Occurs… However!! if you can actually track the subject,(Like this border running past) then the blur can be in the right place at the right time and become quite effective…

we call that Motion Blur.. but I suppose the question is, when its crap light why don’t I just shoot collie’s running past instead of windsurfers somersaulting.. the answer is basically there’s not many collie members of Splashography and they Don’t Buy Pics!!!!

well all in all it was a pretty successful day, check out the rest of the image thumbnails if you’re not a member tsk tsk! or jump into the members gallery if you are and enjoy the larger images in luxury

More of the same tomorrow all being well
cya there

Mel