Slide Magazine...

Oh Herro!

You may or may not have noticed that Slide has been on autopilot the last five weeks. It was cos I was on 'holiday' something which I am not accustomed to. A trip with no surfers, surfing or surf photography... In essence no work- jeez I didn't even take my laptop or cameras. There wasn't even any sea (well I did fit in one dip in the briney in Vietnam) and I was mainly doing what tourists do i.e- wandering about pointing at things and going "ooh!" ...

Surf Photo' 101- Getting Started...

So you've read up on the history of surf photography (if not click on the 101 category link>>> for the first posts in this series) and have some idea about how we got to today. So the next step is beginning. First things first- why do you want to be a surf photographer? If your answer is 'to make money' then I'd turn around walk out the door and pursue another avenue. A good surf photographer’s yearly take home can be achieved in a week by a top celebrity paparazzi shooter. The going day rate for a top London fashion photographer is ten times that of a top surf photographer; even though both can be working for large, stock-exchange-listed, billion-dollar turnover companies… and the fashion photographer only has to worry about getting the right kind of foamy head on his latte, he doesn’t have to worry about getting a double-overhead foamy wave on the head. If you're gonna get into the surf photography lark it HAS to be because you love it. Simple as that...

Surf Photographers- So Hot Right Now...

Surf photography is glamorous right? It’s all gratis exotic trips, large boxes of free gear from the surf companies DHL’d to your door and high-fiving your awfully handsome pro surfer friends in the channel as they come blasting out of yet another picture perfect barrel. Not to mention the free booze, endless supply of class A’s on the house and complimentary blow-jobs...

Surfing With The Atomics...

One from the archives- from SurfEurope in 2004.
The SE trip to Europe’s most radioactive coastline.
“Oh tits! I’ve got radiation in my eye!”
‘No, you haven’t.’
“Yes I have! You’ve killed me! I’ve got a radioactive particle thing in my eye from surfing at that damned wave I didn’t want to surf in the first place; and now I’m going to die and it’s all your fault!”

Loose Lips Give Surf Spots Crap Names...

Irish Teahupoo? Welsh Box? Coldwater Nias? Yorkshire G-land? Really?
These things invariably start in a surfing magazine- these wild assertions. They may start on the beach but they become concrete when they get committed to paper. Sometimes, people should just know when to press the delete key...
Joe Curren’s off the cuff remark that Thurso was ‘like a Coldwater Nias’ appeared in Surfer magazine several years ago, it was banter. It is now one of the most quoted phrases around, the guidebooks love it.

Unspoilt By Progress...

Surfing has changed a hell of a lot in the last few years. Time was if you wanted to learn to surf you bought yourself a yellowed old clunker of a board and you set about the time honoured ritual of trial and error that is learning the sport of kings. You did it by yourself without instructors and ten other lycra wearing gibbons.

I Can See Through Time!

Would you let strange people put weird chemicals in your system for cash?
It’s a simple question that most right thinking people would answer with a plain ‘No!’ The irony that a good chunk of those self-same right thinking people snort and neck unknown chemicals every weekend and pay handsomely for the privilege tickles me a lot…
Being a human guinea pig is not really an attractive proposition for most folk. They prefer their immune system untampered, their urine unsampled and their blood unextracted. There are however people that in occasions of dire need or times of ‘I fancy going travelling for six months and need to make a fast buck without resorting to being a drug mule for the Columbians’ do take up the option of being a global drug companies bitch toy.

MVP You Decide... Glenn Hall

Ireland's new adopted son, looking good for a berth in the Top 45 for next year at the moment-

Indo's Gonna Git Ya...

If things are gonna go tits up it’s always ten times worse when they do so in Indo. This is probably why Indonesia is the No1 destination for surfers. It’s nothing to do with the sublime quality of the waves, the legendary consistency of the perfectly groomed swells that have marched thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean for your pleasure, the great climate and the cheap as chips cost of living. Nah. It is purely cos shit goes down, and when shit goes down in Indo shit gets real. Enough ghetto speak for now but you get my gist. The old Chinese proverb, or threat as it really is- ‘may you live in interesting times’ could not apply better.

Surf Photography First Steps...

I get asked a lot how I 'got the job' of being  a surf photographer. It's not something you see on the card rack in the job centre that often. Truth is like 99% of my colleagues it's just a hobby that got a tad out of hand. I never had any intention or dreams of becoming a surf photog. Sure when I was younger I read and re-read battered copies of ASL until I was cross eyed, amazed at the photos by the likes of Sean Davey, Bill Alexander and Teddy Grambeau and chuckling at the wit of Rielly, DC Green and Tim Baker...