Slide Mag

Getting Cornholed...

Surf trips don’t always work out for the best. You don’t always get waves, the weather can be crap, your accommodation can burn down and there’s the inevitable rolling of the rental car into some poor sods house when you drive back from the local fleshpot smashed out of your mind... We’ve all done that.
Some trips go good, some go bad and some end up with you face down unconscious with your hands gaffa taped to the side of your head; whilst half a bottle of Jack does it best to melt your brain into liquid snot. These things happen, they’re unavoidable.

A Brief History of Surf Photography…

A new regular section on the site devoted to the art, equipment and technique of taking surf photos -building from the ground up- which I'll endeavour to post every Tuesday. (For Brit readers '101' is a common term in the rest of the world for elementary classes, and hey, it sounds cool)...

Before we even think about cameras, lenses and how-to's you gotta know your onions when it comes to where we come from so here's a compulsory Brief History of Surf Photography…

The Line Up...

Eagle Birdie Bogeys...

I have a frank and horrifying admission to make- two summers back I started playing golf. Lord knows why, as I’ve spent a lifetime sneering at the ‘sport’ I deemed to be the exclusive domain of fat, arrogant, racist, misogynistic dudes with the fashion sense of stylistically-challenged, gay-amoebas. I use to enjoy honking my horn when driving past golf courses. Golfers were idiots; they were old, past it and had obviously given up on life. They were welcome to their little Nazi enclave, the golf clubs that didn’t even allow women on the course, let alone in the club-house, their bizarre game following a little white ball around with a bag full of golf sticks they were too weak to even carry, jeez they even removed the one healthy element- the actual going for a walk bit- by driving overgrown invalid wagons.

This Weeks Claim- The Low Fist...

Claiming. It’s a natural thing, you get a good wave and you want to celebrate. It’s your surfing; there aren’t any rules, so why should anybody to turn their noses up at a little bit of good old fashioned claiming?
Slide Mag thought it was about time we investigated this much maligned practice...

Jayce In Megan Fox 'Not My Type' Shocker...

Newquay gets all the press but you live in lovely St Ives, good waves, Levy's not far and the towns cool as, ever gonna leave?
Yeah I hate the fact that because I don't live in Newquay I can't easily hook up with photographers, and hence get as much coverage. But I do love St Ives and the crew here, for sure I will always come back here.

Flying- It's Arse...

Bad flight decorum
If you are flying internationally on a 13-hour flight then please have the good manners to shower and deodorise before you do so. If you don’t fancy that and want to travel with raging body odour then don’t sit next to me. If filling my olfactory sense with man stink wasn’t enough falling asleep with your elbow akimbo in a ‘I’m a little teapot stance’ so I can’t even sit upright on my seat without getting an elbow to the ribs was just the icing on the cake. Airline travel it’s glamourous right? Jeeeez. Also arm rest etiquette- hogging the thing for the whole flight is not way cool, not at all.

The Poo Bus...

 Chile, sometime around the turn of the millennium, I’d gone out there with Jarvi to travel around for a few months and see what we could find in the way of surf. We’d found some epic waves with no one around but us and the ragtag crew we’d assembled. After a good month exploring the wondrous sand point breaks of south central Chile by 4x4 I needed to head North, the mysto reefs of Iquique and Arica beckoned. I wanted to see the desert- the Atacama, the driest place on earth and the heaving reefs of the isolated desert outpost towns.

Aussie Journo War...

The highly entertaining Jed Smith of STAB mag is having a ding dong with old school Aussie journo Tim Baker at J-Bay. It's making for very entertaining reading. Yes that's right- reading. Which is what us writer types are supposed to make people do... So in a bizarre aside to an epic day at the Billabong Pro check it out. Jed's piece here and Tim's rebuttal here. Check the comments as well there's some gold, interesting to see the crowd are 50/50 on who's right and who's shite...

Slide's Summer Music Selecta...

If you're looking for some new tunes to get you through the summer months then look no further. We've done the hard bit for you and can thoroughly recommend the following albums. Little Boots self-titled debut is a gorgeous mish-mash of poppy 80s electro, Enter Shikari blend hardcore and trance (it may sound mental but it does work- you'll have heard the single 'Juggernaut' on the radio- got the singer that sounds a lot like Mike Skinner from the Streets), Florence + The Machine's Lungs is the debut album of the year so far and a good bet for the Mercury prize I reckon, it's utterly blinding indie pop and finally Kasabian drop their second long player and have no trouble with 'that difficult second album' it rocks. So there you go. Fresh tunes. Check 'em out...

Tuk Tuk Tales...

If you look at a map of the Indian Ocean Sri Lanka is the chunk that looks like it’s just been pooped out the arse end of India. It’s home to elephants, tea plantations, crazy bus drivers, three wheeled taxis powered by hairdryer motors known as ‘tuk tuks’ and until very recently a very messy civil war. The Tamil Tigers have waged a campaign for a separatist state in the north east of the country for over thirty years inventing along the way the suicide bomber belt and making good use of women and children to further their cause. Chuck in a bit of ethnic cleansing of the Muslims from Tamil areas and you can see why the whole country celebrated when the war was declared over on the 17th of May this year (shortly followed by the death of the Tamils leadership cadre on the 19th, so I guess they were still doing some mopping up with their rocket launchers).

Mark Mathews West Oz Mega Bomb...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrggggh!

Back In Town...

Sorry for lack of posts in the last week or so, the anticipated "wifi" and "good internet connection" in Sri Lanka's Aragum Bay didn't materialise. And with O2 charging £6 a MB on the iPhone when in non-european international areas it was a bit of a mare... So. Plan is thus- I'll just post what I was going to post a week or two late. So we left on a weds I'll post from then. In brief it was a good trip with plenty of amusing moments and a lot of wildlife. When people describe an area as a 'zoo' they really can only say that in Sri Lanka... Elephants, monkeys, scorpions, snakes, bats, jellyfish and more. Honorary Geordie Saffa and Pipe ledge' Richie Sills won the UK Pro Tour event and I've got a good few gigs of photos to sort out... Plenty of stuff in the pipe people- jetlag be damned.

Pic wise it's this is Jayce Robinson and a rather large heffalump.

Oh and in other news the June giveaway for peeps signing up for the Slide newsletter has been won by Paul Donkin who will be rocking a new SkullCandy backpack and headphones as soon as I get back to the office to send 'em out...