Owen Wright, 2010 ASP Rookie of the Year, puts on a show for the swimmers.

I headed to Bondi Beach in Sydney recently to shoot at the 2011 Boost Mobile Surf Sho. The surfing event featured some of the worlds best surfers & the format of the competition was solely focused on aerial surfing. More than 30,000 spectators lined the beach to see the pros in action. Weather was great, but surf was small. This didn’t bother the surfers too much, as they certainly made the most of the conditions pulling off a range of aerial manoeuvres despite the small conditions.

Josh Kerr mid air during the manoeuvre that won him the 2011 Boost Mobile Surf Sho.

ASP Would Tour surfer Josh Kerr took out the event after pulling off a flawless forehand mute grab air reverse in the final. The manoeuvre earned him a 9 out of a possible 10 edging out current junior world champion Jack Freestone who ended up 2nd. Nike 6.0 surfer Julian Wilson ended up 3rd.

Pulling airs like this placed Jack Freestone second in the event.

Visually, the event was almost perfect for photographing. High performance surfing, crystal clear & vibrant blue water, & thousands of people on the beach. I shot around 1000 photos over the 3 days (I did shoot a lot of sequences firing the shutter at 10 fps). You can check out some of those photos in the slide show below, or just head here to view the gallery.

2011 Boost Mobile Surf Sho | Bondi Beach Australia – Images by Mark Gee

A lot of the time, good waves around Wellington in New Zealand are hard to come by. But if you are prepared to hit the road & do a little searching, you can certainly score some great waves.

I began watching the swell forecast earlier in the week, & things were looking promising with a fairly intense low heading north off the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. Earlier forecasts were for 3-4m swells, but by the time the weekend came around the forecast was downgraded to 2.5m swells. The decision was to either stay in Wellington & hope for waves at Lyall Bay, or head on over to the Wairarapa & try & score much bigger & better surf.

Saturday morning came, & after a early morning check of Lyall, it was clear that I’d be better off heading over the hill to the Wairarapa. I packed the car ready for anything, & started off on the drive that would take just over 2 hours to the first surf break I was going to check out. The wind was blowing quite strongly from the NW when I got there, so I shot some photos & then headed on to the east coast where I knew it would be more protected. As I arrived on the east coast, I knew I had made the right decision. There were a only handful of guys out, & the waves on the point were pretty clean & a good 4 foot plus on the sets.

I ended up surfing a few breaks around that area over the two days, & I shot a heap of photos & some video too. Below is a slide show of just 28 of the photos I shot. You can watch the slide show & click on the photos to be taken to a larger version of it, of you can click here to go to the gallery. I’ll be definitely heading back that way next time there’s swell…

Surf Search Wairarapa | 3-4th July 2010 – Images by Mark Gee

Tide Te Paki taking off onto what was to be one of the best waves of the under 16 boys final

The Wellington Boardriders Club hosted the 2010 Wellington Regional Scholastics Surfing Champs on Saturday March 20th at Lyall Bay in Wellington. The juniors fought it out in clean head high waves with a strong offshore wind blowing making it difficult to paddle onto the waves. However the grommets revealed in the conditions & made the most of having the corner pretty much to themselves.

It was a great day for photographing the event too, with clear blue skies & fantastic visibility. One of the highlights of the comp was when Tide Te Paki pulled into a meaty barrel on one of the bigger waves of the day. He also made a few cover ups giving him a convincing win in the under 16 boys final.

Thanks to the Wellington Boardriders & all the other sponsors for putting on such a great event, & I hope to be back shooting it next year. For full results, check out the write up on the Wellington Boardriders website.

There are 81 photos in total from the event which you can see here, or watch the slideshow below & if you see a pic you like, click on it to see a larger version of it. You can even purchase various formats of the photos by adding to cart & selecting the format you want. Any issues you can contact me here.

Wellington Regional Scholastic Surfing Champs 2010 – Images by Mark Gee

A line up off the Wellington South Coast

The beaches around Wellington city in New Zealand aren’t renowned for consistent surf, you need to head out to the Wairarapa coast for that. So when a 3-4m ground swell is forecast to race up the eastern coast of the south Island of New Zealand, then there is always hope & anticipation amongst the Wellington surfing community.

When the swell did finally arrive it wasn’t as big as hoped for and a bit of a let down really…I’ve seen bigger & better days on lesser swell forecasts, but I did manage to capture a few images anyway.

Check out the slide show below or you can go to the gallery with higher res images here.

Surfing | Wellington | 15 March 2010 – Images by Mark Gee

Ethan Burge getting air & throwing the tail around at Lyall Bay, Wellington, New Zealand

A sneaky ground swell off the south eastern coast of New Zealand pushed into Lyall Bay in Wellington for one day of pumping surf. It was a great start for waves in Wellington & hopefully this year will be much better than last.

Unfortunately I got there a little late that day to get the best of it – they tell me it was barreling off its nut on the incoming tide that morning, but this is what I managed to shoot that day.

Click here or the image above to go to the galleries. There are 47 images in total.

Brandon Kingi lining the lip up in the mens open final.

It was the final comp of the year for the Wellington Boardriders, & the day was looking like it was going to provide some decent waves. The location was set for the corner at Lyall Bay & on arrival the waves were a little onshore & chunky. I thought about heading out into the water to shoot some of the action, but it was cloudy & overcast to start with & the conditions weren’t that great. So I set up on the beach with the 500mm & the 1.4 teleconverter to get a little closer to the action. I was also shooting with the new canon 7D which was a dream to shoot with.

By mid morning, the wind had started to drop & the swell was cleaning up. I had to rush back to work to do a few hours on the Avatar deadline, but once I got back later that afternoon I was greeted with clean 3 foot plus waves on an incoming tide that were lining up nicely off the wall. The finals were just about to start, so I found a spot further down the beach where I could shoot at a nice angle & started to shoot away. The day had cleared up nicely & by the time of the mens final, the light was fantastic! I managed to get some great shots during the finals & that was also thanks to the great surfing of the guys & gals.

Charlie Denniston narrowly took out the open mens final with a impressive display of fast & powerful surfing, however the highlight for me was Brandon Kingi’s smooth surfing style & how he put it all on the line in the final with a series of radical vertical snaps where he absolutely destroyed the lip of the wave.

The day finished off with the presentation in the carpark. There were certainly some nice photo opportunities with the backdrop of the surf & surrounding hills around Lyall Bay & the fantastic light of the magic hour…Click on the image of Brandon Kingi above to see the full gallery of photos.

Matt Stockman getting some air in the corner at Lyall Bay, Wellington, New Zealand

It had been a pretty consistent spring as far as waves were concerned in Wellington, so I’ve been able to get out there & get a few shots. The only problem is spring is the windiest time of year & you get these strong offshore winds blowing which makes it really hard to paddle onto the wave with the spray blowing in your face.

This day at Lyall Bay in the corner was no exception, & there was a heap of swell but also a 25-30knot strong offshore wind blowing. But for the guys that could get out there & actually paddle onto & surf the waves, then they were rewarded with some nice barrels that where holding up & spitting out with the offshore wind. In the photo above, local Wellington ripper, Matt Stockman punts it & gets some air. I was pretty happy to get this photo, as the action is great & the spray of the wave caused by the offshore wind is quite dynamic. Click on the photo above to go to the Wellington surfing gallery.

Ilan Fisher - Winner of the Wellington Boardriders Skins Comp - Sept 09

The date was set & the Wellington Boardriders where to have their first skins contest on the 5th September after a postponement the week before due to lack of swell. I did think for a second about entering the comp, but I hadn’t surfed a comp for years now & that was back home on the Goldy when I was a lot younger & able, so instead I thought I’d contribute in some other way & decided to photograph the event instead.
In the week leading up to the comp there a glimmer of hope that there might just be some swell. A deep low had formed off the bottom of the south island & was tracking north east off the coast. Hopefully it would be positioned nicely by the weekend to push some swell into Lyall Bay. The wind was also forecast to be a 20 knot southerly, which isn’t ideal for surfing at Lyall but at least there would be swell. Saturday came & the forecasts had changed. It was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky & a light northerly blowing. I had packed my camera gear the night before, but due to some ‘technical’ issues with my water housing, I ended up being half an hour late to the comp.
I rolled into the car park at the corner. The comp site was setup with Rico’s retro 70′s caravan taking center stage. The waves weren’t that big, but they looked fun & glassy. The junior heats were already in progress, so I quicky grabbed my camera & long lens to headed down to the beach to shoot some of the action. The waves were starting to line up nicely along the wall with a few nice sets coming through. Ethan, one of the better juniors, was ripping it up & as I was setting up he pulled of a nice little air – damn it I missed that one! I positioned myself & started shooting away.
The forecast for the day had the wind swinging to the south at about 10 knots in the afternoon with an incoming tide. Hopefully the waves were going to pick up then, but it also meant that if wouldn’t be glassy anymore. I have my underwater camera housing setup in the car ready to go & since the tide was low & conditions good I decided to get out in the water. By the time I got out there the juniors had finished & the first head of the opens had hit the water. I positioned myself in the lineup hoping to shoot some nice wacks off the top. The waves were lining up nicely on the bank & when the sets did come through it was a nice down the line ride.
The heats were man on man, so it wasn’t crowed out there & they had the pick of the waves, but get any decent shots I had to pretty much put it on the line & get bloody close to the surfers. So close in fact that during one of the heats I was asked kindly if I would move a little further down the line as he thought he was going to hit me. My response back was “I’m used to that!” After I showed him the shot I snapped of him he was pretty happy that I did get that close to him. It was certainly one of the better shots I got that day…
After about 50 minutes in the water I headed in to get dry & setup for shooting from the beach & around the contest area. The waves were still breaking nicely but they were getting few & far between with the tide on the way back in now. The wind was light & it looked like it wouldn’t be long until that southerly change came through. I stayed in my wettie just in case I wanted to get back out there. Since the waves were small I found a spot to sit & shoot from down low just in behind the pipe at the eastern end of the beach. I went without the monopod as the light was pretty good & I could shoot hand held with the 400mm lens. During the next few heats the waves were few & far between, & if I rolled up for a surf I’d be wondering what those guys were doing out there in the flat ocean.
I took advantage of the flat spell & went up to shoot some stuff around the caravan. Everyone was up there just hanging out & enjoying the perfect sunny day. They even had a few beach activities for the kids to keep them occupied with stickers & wax as the prizes. Willie from Wind & Kite Magazine was also down there shooting some of the action on the water & was getting some attention with that long lens of his. Its amazing how people will come up & have a chat to you when you are trying to shoot stuff! By this time the wind had swung onshore & the conditions were now slightly ruffled on the water. But the tide had come in & the sets had returned for the final heats of the day. I managed to get a few nice pics of the guys out there in the afternoon sun on some of the bigger ones & Rico was out there in style ripping it apart with his bigger board in the over 40′s heat.
The end of the day had come, and the winners were announced. The good thing about the comp format was even if you didn’t win, you still had a chance of getting your hands on some cash if you won one of your heats. I’d say for the Wellington Boardriders first official event it was quite a successful one. The waves could have been bigger, but the day was amazing, which can be a rarity in Wellington – especially this time of year. The next comp is set for sometime in October. I might enter this one as a competitor, but then again I had a heap of fun just photographing the event. I’d certainly do it again…