Well that’s the title anyway. It’s not strictly speaking accurate as I know this surfer lives in Dublin and I know this photograph was taken in Morocco. But we did fly home the evening this picture was taken.

I’ve a yen to go travelling again. I’ve had it since about September to be honest but things [...]]]>

Well that’s the title anyway. It’s not strictly speaking accurate as I know this surfer lives in Dublin and I know this photograph was taken in Morocco. But we did fly home the evening this picture was taken.

I’ve a yen to go travelling again. I’ve had it since about September to be honest but things kept getting in the way. Holiday plans in November got hammered from several different quarters, at Christmas also. I own a ticket to Fuerteventura and should hopefully get there sometime in the next week or two. I’m looking forward to it on several grounds – my mind really needs a holiday from Ireland at this stag. Also I need different things to photograph, different places, different aspects of life. I know Fuerteventura is like European but I’m trying to toss up an ambition of making the ordinary look extraordinary and finding beauty in the mundane things we take for granted. It’s very easy to be impressed by photographs taken in exotic places; less easy to find a way of making the things around us seem special. This means I will probably spend most of the summer trying to find the photographs I have not yet taken of Howth and Clontarf with the odd foray as far as Dun Laoghaire.

The photograph above I did all sorts of things with it. My file copy suggests I applied duo tone processing to it and knowing my taste in such things I probably used yellow and black. And then converted it to black and white again. I imagine I messed around with the contrast and the curves considerably as well. I’m still debating whether I could not have gotten a similar effect with a lot less work. I suspect so.

I sometimes like to burn out the highlights in black and white shots just to emphasis contrast. I’m sure this is probably not best practice but someone once told me, with respect to Picasso or someone, that until you knew the rules you couldn’t effectively break them.

But what the hell. Here are some burned out highlights for a kitesurfer in Dublin.

The photograph was taken in June 2006; it was taken the first day I went taking kite photographs in Dublin that year (I’d taken a few in Australia a few weeks’ earlier) with a brand new, as I thought, last lens I was going to buy, 70-300mm Sigma DG APO. It cost me 199E in Conns and was a shocking amount of money to spend on camera equipment I thought at the time. By the end of the year, a 50-500mm costing 1249E had joined it more than doubling the value of my camera equipment and since then, things have gone very wrong altogether. 200E is now laughably little for a lens.

Incidently, if you’re in the market for a value for money zoom and have a Canon, the Sigma DG APO is probably the best value for money lens on the market bar none. And yes, I own the 50mm 1.8 variously known as the nifty fifty and plastic fantastic. The 50mm is cheap and feels cheap. The Sigma is cheap but has survived being dropped and soaked more than a few times. They both, if you’re competent, can be used to take great, great photographs and they both teach you to be competent. Right, enough with the lens dictatory. The weather no cooperata with LivingForLight these days as in it’s perfect while I am doing the day job and lousy when I am not doing the day job. This is very regretable.. As a result, my pink dawn plans fro the morning are probably in deep trouble.

I don’t specialise in surf photography. In Irish terms, the surf photographer of choice would almost definitely be Paudie Scanlon. I do the odd shot here and there but since I don’t spend much time in the water, it’s almost academic.

This is one of my favourite surf shots that I did take and it’s not [...]]]>

I don’t specialise in surf photography. In Irish terms, the surf photographer of choice would almost definitely be Paudie Scanlon. I do the odd shot here and there but since I don’t spend much time in the water, it’s almost academic.

This is one of my favourite surf shots that I did take and it’s not really a surf photograph at all. It was shot on film about 6 years ago I guess, not absolutely sure. I was shooting full film at the time, it was well prior to the switch to digital. If I took it now, with the sort of standards you expect from digital image production I’d probably reject it because of the grain and the white balance issues. I think this was run through Photoshop after scanning but since that was done so long ago, I’m not sure of that either. I suppose I could check…but why would I?

Today I came across a photographer that somehow I’d never heard of but William Milne describes him as the best surf photographer in the world. William himself is one of the best kite guys so that’s fairly high praise indeed. The guy’s name was Clark Little; he’s just released a very expensive book, but you know what, it’s almost definitely worth it. His website is here. His photographs blew my mind.

I don’t often say that. There are some utterly fantastic photographers in the world, like Art Wolfe, Philippe Plisson, Vincent Munier, Peter Lik, Ric Steiniger, all of whom do something quite above normal. But I’ve never seen anything like Clark Little’s work. I used to love David P’uu’s surf work but it doesn’t get to me quite like this. It is amazing.  If you’re a member of FaceBook, it’s worth having a look at this. And this. And this.

I really can’t praise it highly enough. It’s inspired me in a way that few other things have this year.

Like this one. And this one.

and somehow, another high key surf shot. I’m surprised by this [...]]]> I was supposed to go kitesurfing in Garretstown yesterday except the wind swung around NW and next stop Antarctica and all that…so it didn’t happen. I didn’t have much camera equipment with me either. But I took a few photographs.

Like this one. And this one.

and somehow, another high key surf shot. I’m surprised by this because to be honest, they are not very plannable per se – usually you manage to wash out everything.

I like the little bit of colour left in this one.

Anyway.

Joe McNally is running a lighthearted lighting rig competition over on his blog – if you can guess the lighting rig he used in a particular shot, there’s a book and stuff in it. The book looks to me like it could be quite interesting if you’re into lighting shots (it’s not my usual style).

Jeff Lynch is comparing the 7D, 50D and 5DII on his blog in a nice non-verbose manner.

John O’Connor has a stunning picture from the Sierra National Park in California.

Clive Rose of Getty Images has one hell of a surf shot from Newquay on this [month old] round up of sports pictures from Bigshots at boston.com.

EDIT: And if you want to see really good surf photography from here, Paudie is the man to go visit.