Digga finding a right when everyone else went left on the last photo session before the op
I've done it again aye. Had a great run of continuity with these posts, then went AWOL. I have the best excuse, I finally had my Hip Op, it's a big deal for me. Over the last 7 years I've been managing a deteriorating joint. At the start it was ok, I could surf for 4 days straight, but then I'd have to stop. That worked well being a surf photog; get my fill of stoke, then shoot. But the key word in that sentence was deteroirating. My last surf was May 2024, it was bad, bad enough to cease. The year leading up to that wasn't pretty either. It's no fun competing for the peak, then having your hip lock, sending your over the falls in front of all on lookers. I have dear friends that have stopped surfing altogether because an injury stops them from surfing at the level they want to. More grimly they have a perception that other surfers will judge them, and that's accurate, we can be absolute judgey wankers. It's part of the dog eat dog of any line-up, we all do it; assess who's good, who to avoid 'cos they may run you over, AND who may not make that fast section, especially if you push down that section. It fricken sucks knowing someone's made THAT assessment of you. This is WHY old salties are grumpy, we know what you're thinking, we've been running the numbers since you were in nappies, you ‘lil shit.
Good from far, but actually far from good, cameras are deceiving little boxes
This is quite divergent aye. The point being, I had the hip operation. I'm so frothed on even going through the remedial process of getting back on the horse [ie surfboard]. The reason the posts went dark was simple, post op, I just couldn't sit at the desk for enough time. I had planned great administrative conquests, overhaul the website, sort out the archive, rebrand....none of it happened. I did get to the end of the interweb and Netflix though. It's been a long 6 weeks.
Jos Kennings gave it a nudge
These photos were from the week before the hip op. Had a plan, had content, then realised sitting at the computer wasn't happening. To be honest I'm OK with it, stoked to have done the recovery right instead of having some false sense of duty to the keyboard.
Paul Biddle finding the good ones in the rip bowl
Paul's neighbour Glenn Smith sending buckets
The legend, the frother, the Rat. Our WSL World Masters Champion Iain Ratso Buchanan, the day before flying out to Fiji for the WSL finals, then on to El Salvador for his priority Judge commitments
Koby Cox found the head dippers
His old boy Jerry waited for the sets
And his brother Daniel eventually joined us after a nap in the truck
And Digga finally came to his senses and went left
....and this guy also happened a few days prior to the Hip Op. I sat on it for a month, wait lay on it, laid it off? I couldn't sit on it. Anyway, bad puns aside, I'm very stoked to have added this one to the Elements Gallery HERE
OK. I'm back... sort of. See ya next week.