Action shots featuring a surfer date.
A good line up, however, is timeless. This pic from Ireland is over 10-years old and I never get bored of it. It's also sold well, featuring in countless magazines and as the main image for the Quiksilver Masters event in Bundoran.
To take a good line up you don't need fancy wide angle lenses or water housings, nor do you need a crazily expensive big lump of Canon glass. You just need a camera. Any camera. Even a compact...
Line ups are best shot with lenses from 20mm up to to 200mm (depending on how far away the wave is and how long it is) so most compacts are fine. A bog standard SLR with kit lens is also fine. Line ups take patience and composition... not fancy ass gear. So. How to take a good line up- you need good waves, not necessarily big waves as you'd be amazed at the hoax line ups you can pull out that bag on lined up 1-foot days. But clean, well formed, nicely lined up waves -in surf photography you need either a) good waves or b) good surfers... when you get both then you get the gold- but good waves are easier to work with. Composition is critical, make the horizon dead straight, don't run it through the middle of the pic, keep the rule of thirds in mind cos it does work and try and get some foreground interest if possible be it rocks, grass or a half-assed wall/fence like we have here. Once you've found your angle (don't be afraid to try different focal lengths and loads of different vantage points) it's simply a case of waiting for the set or wave of the day. Or the best wave that's gonna come through before you freeze to death or get rained on...
Surfer free shots are cool as they are more like seascape shots, but surfers also add scale so from a mag point of view some surfers paddling out or riding is fine, people like to know they are'nt being hoaxed with a perfect 1-footer... So go ahead, practise, line ups are an art that a lot of surf photographers never master.
