Turning Into a Mountie?
ooosh, the mighty Mauao and Mount bathed in dawn light
Last weekend I had the pleasure of being the official shooter for stop 1 of the Billabong Grom Series presented as always by the legends at Oceanbridge. It was at Tay St, Mount Maunganui. Home of the infamous Artificial Reef debacle [long since removed], Tay St can get good, I’ve had some fun surfs there. But it’s a stretch of Mountie sand that does suffer gutters and bad banks. It’s not a location us surf photogs froth on driving to. Regardless it’s always a good time, although this past weekend was still somewhat shrouded by the 6 tragic deaths from the Mauao slips January 22. Surfing NZ [It was Ben Kennings’ spearhead] and Bay Boardriders initiated a paddle out to acknowledge the 6 victims.
Participants filing down to the ocean after Khan Butler’s amazing karakia
Ant march
You don’t have to count the dots, BK did it! He reckons there were 115 in the circle. This image got shared far and wide. I wanted to contextualise the paddle out by putting the Mauao in frame.
Pretty much I could’ve dropped the mic and moonwalked out of there as a photographer right??? Nooooo there’s a contest to document, once again the minions were deployed with the point and shoot for the ‘colour’ of the event and I marinated behind the tripod capturing the action. You can view all the images on the SNZ Facebook page HERE you should… there’s some bangers.
…And why the headline turning into a Mountie? This weekend I do the U-turn and head back down to the BOP for this…
It’ll be fun! Come join us
Always watching, Always Judging… I am a judgemental guy, like actually. It’s a westie trait. In this case apparently it’s a good thing? The Aotearoa Surf Film Festival is in its 14th year and I’m a founding judge. Jokes aside I do take the judging very seriously, The ASFF is an opportunity for our emerging Kiwi surf filmers to be vindicated and bolstered. If you didn’t submit this year, I encourage you to for 2027. In the meantime the selection has been worked out for the 2026 Film Tour, there’s more dates added too. Get yourself over to the offical website for locations and tickets HERE
