I have enjoyed my week as guest editor and I hope my posts have been enjoyable or at least of interest. Aloha and mahalo to the Hickory Nines crew.

Men in grey suits

In May 1996 my wife Sarah and I set out on a six month round the world surfing trip with South Africa the first country on the itinerary. I quickly bought a surfboard and made my first paddle out into the Indian Ocean off a beach in Durban. As I sat out back my dangling legs and feet unseen in the murky waters I became increasingly conscious that though very rare there have been shark attacks off the Kwazulu-Natal coast. A visit to the Sharks Board helped to separate the myths and the facts though some of the exhibits were not too good for my over active imagination.

I was reminded of this recently through an article about the film ‘Surfing & Sharks’ which  premiered at last December’s Wavescape Film Festival in Cape Town.

From IMDB “Surfing & sharks is a documentary about the constant threat South African surfers face every time they paddle out into the ocean, home to one of the largest concentrations of sharks in the world. Against the beautiful backdrop of South Africa’s East Coast the viewer is introduced to three local surfers as they share their personal experiences with these animals while surfing their favourite spots. Throughout the film researchers, ecologists and shark attack victims offer an objective and unique insight in one of South Africa’s most feared predators. The film touches on subjects as to why sharks attack, attack prevention, the myths, the media and the future that sharks are facing today, if any at all…”

Surfing & sharks – http://surfingandsharks.com/ – be sure to check out the blog.
Kwazulu-Natal Sharks Board – http://www.shark.co.za/Default.aspx

Men in grey suits?  Sharks.

Keeping it simple

The videos below remind me that surfing is about having fun and a good time.

The Life of Ply… It is very likely you have seen this delightful video but if you haven’t I think you are in for a real treat; ‘The Life of Ply’ is a short surf film from 2008 which features Dorothy (Dot) and Peter Long.

It was awarded ‘Most Inspirational Film’ at the 2008 Cornwall film festival’s Board Shorts – “A short tale of enduring stoke catalysed by prone surfing on a ply board”.

The Life of Ply is a gem and an inspirational surf film, feel the stoke…

Monsterboards… A wonderful film about Eef, a Dutch surfer who makes his own paipo type surfboards;  “I really like small waves.  I really, really like small waves” says Eef.

Watching and listening to Eef’s surf experience is a joy, warming and uplifting. He reminds us of the simple pleasures of surfing.

Uncommon Ideals

Uncommon Ideals is simply a stunning and breathtaking piece of work; an inspired combination of images and music, with Dan Crockett’s poem read by Jeff Hordley adding gravitas.

Uncommon Ideals was selected as the winner of the 2011 Shorties award at last year’s London Surf Film Festival.

The first breath is a beauty;
Whispering of the north like a kiss
Gilded hammer come tapping
Licking the dun dunes
Sweeping the tawny sea
A chill fist come rapping
At the doors of you,
of me

Bay burn the first
Runners of the dawn train
Ripples, creeping in beneath castles
Under dismantled factories
Between oak groins tar black
Onto reefs of hell
And fain the eyes that track
This first building of
the swell

A copper peak like running snuff
Bang, bang, bang
From the north she pours
Stirring the remaining cod
Sister wind swung south
Waking the Farne-bound seals
And met by land she roars
Dipped in sepia,
flayed bister
Delight for uncommon ideals

Poem used by permission of Dan Crockett – http://www.danielcrockett.co.uk/

From Dan’s website on the poem Uncommon Ideals; “A poem I wrote was used to frame Uncommon Ideals, a short film about surfing in the North Sea. It ended up going viral with 85,000 views on Vimeo. The text of the poem… it’s about craving things everyone else would think were mad.”

Uncommon Ideals a film by Chris McClean and Mark Waters. Released 25 August 2011.

The Doggerland Chronicles – http://thedoggerlandchronicles.blogspot.com/

Street View

The Sunday Times Magazine of 11 December 2011 carried a fascinating article by Bryan Appleyard titled “Google Street View as Art” which covered the use of Google’s Street View images by artists and photographers.

One of the photographers, Doug Rickard, compiled a collection of images for an exhibition titled ‘A New American Picture’ held in 2011 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

From the ST article “Doug Rickard… is interested in the American content and its haunting, visceral power. I was interested in photographing America in the same context, with the same poetry and power, that has been done in the past. It’s sad but true that if you want to find the poorest area in any American city, look for the name Martin Luther King. The title of MLK boulevard, street or square is almost a guarantee that you are in the most deprived, crime-ridden part of town.”

After finding the view he is after Doug photographs the screen with a digital camera and then edits the photos (removing watermarks and cropping to a panoramic format).

A New American Picture can be viewed here http://www.americansuburb.com/

Another artist making creative use of Street View is Jon Rafman who has a vast collection of images on the website 9-eyes.com (named after the nine cameras attached to the pole on the roof of the Google cars).

From a 2009 post by Jon Rafman; “One year ago, I started collecting screen captures of Google Street Views from a range of Street View blogs and through my own hunting. This essay illustrates how my Street View collections reflect the excitement of exploring this new, virtual world.”

A good place to start to see Jon Rafman’s work http://googlestreetviews.com/

Bryan Appleyard “Google Street View as Art” Sunday Times, 11 December 2011 – http://www.bryanappleyard.com/google-street-view-as-art/

Skateboarding perspective

It’s been quite some time since I last rode a skateboard, it was though a first love with many a happy hour spent in skate parks and on home made ramps.  The level of skill and variety of skateboarding taking place now is something my friends and I could simply not have imagined.

Here are a few of my favourite skateboarding videos…

First up… From Vans Off The Wall; Tony Alva on modern day pool skating.  Tony Alva was one of my first heroes and he remains an inspiration.

From Matt Box – ‘Acid Drops’, released October 2011. Excellent skateboarding animation of Jason Dill. Described by Matt; “The first in a series of hand painted studies that aim to psychedelically capture the individual styles of influential skateboarders.” The choice of music (Fawn by Tom Waits) for the soundtrack is not ‘skateboard video conventional’ but after a couple of times watching and listening to the video I think it works very well.

Some kind of cool… well groomed, impeccably dressed and he can skate… ‘Man About Town’ starring Kilian Martin. Released December 2010.

Claremont by Adam Kimmel (video released in September 2008) is right up there as one of my all time favourite skateboarding videos. Helmets, powder blue suits, white shirts and skate shoes, tearing down Claremont Canyon (Berkeley and Oakland hills) at a phenomenal speed… awesome.

Marine litter

For a little over a year on the last Saturday of the month I take part in Keep Britain Tidy’s Fistral Beach clean.  It feels good to give a little something back and to make a small contribution to the health of the ocean by removing marine litter.

In September of last year we strangely found hundreds of clear plastic tops that fit over sports type water bottles.  It was suggested that these could have been left behind after August’s Boardmasters event.  In the months that followed we kept on finding similar numbers of these plastic tops; there just seemed too many to be explained away as just carelessly discarded.  Much of the litter that ends up in our oceans does make its way down rivers and water courses, so that could have been their journey or maybe they were lost overboard from a cargo vessel.  Like much of the marine litter found on our beaches the source of these plastic tops will likely remain a mystery.

Another small plastic item that baffled us for sometime was what looked like the inside of a shotgun cartridge. Each month handfuls of them are collected on Fistral Beach. They vary in size but all have the distinct impression marks of small black pellets. A bit of ‘Googling’ identified these as shotgun cartridge wads. So just how come there are so many on the beach? Articles on the internet point to clay pigeon shooting and hunting activities as the likely cause with the plastic wads making their way to the ocean via streams and rivers.

However by far my most interesting find to date has been a green tag with some cryptic writing on it; “99 DFO LOB NFLD”. Harry Johnson who runs the wonderful The Flotsam Diaries website identified this as a lobster pot tag issued in 1999 by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans to a licensed fisherman on the island of Newfoundland. At some point the tag was cut or broke free from a lobster trap and made its way into the Atlantic Ocean. It probably followed the currents SW from Newfoundland until it was swept up by the edge of the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic current and carried east to Cornwall, finishing its amazing journey high on the southern end of Fistral Beach.

Soundtracks

Continuing with the theme from yesterday’s post; I’ve always found it interesting that the music selected to accompany a travelogue or the surf action can make or break a surfing video.  Of course much is down to ‘the ear of the beholder’ and our own personal tastes but if the music matches the visual style, the weather, ocean state and surfing sequences then all so much the better.

ACL Production’s video ‘Matt Meola FINAL’ uses David Guetta’s ‘Open Your Eyes’ to excellent effect for Matt’s above the lip surfing.  You hear the track before the images appear and you just know the surfing is going to be explosive.

Matt Meola FINAL by ACL Productions. Released October 2009.

The remixed ‘Collect Call’ by Metric works really well with the surfing in Peter Devries ‘A winter day’ video. The excellent film editing and synchronisation of the track neatly brings the surfing and music together; it simply flows.

A winter day by Peter Devries. Released January 2012.

And for your listening pleasure here are both tracks courtesy of SoundCloud;

Open Your Eyes – David Guetta. From the album Guetta Blaster, released June 2004.

Collect Call – Metric (Adventure Club Dubstep Remix), released December 2011.

Thanks to Cai & the team for giving inkydeep the opportunity as guest editor to share a little bit of stoke with you.  First up;

Surf film ingredients…

Movies, documentaries, TV programmes and videos whether fiction or non fiction have the ability to stir our emotions, remind us of past experiences or even light the desire to do something different.  The music that accompanies the film or video also plays a key part in enhancing the story, the action or the event taking place on the screen.

And so it is with surf films and videos; a surf video can evoke memories of a surfing experience, fire up the desire to travel, inspire you to improve your surfing or simply remind you why you surf and rekindle the stoke.

Peter Devries’ video ‘Wind + Rain’ reminds me of my own winter surfing experiences; a grey overcast canopy overhead, strong winds, cold rain, cold water, neoprene heavy and the ocean shades of gray and green.  The head high surf is within my winter comfort zone and I could see myself dropping into these waves…

Wind + Rain by Peter Devries. Released January 2011.

I just don’t ever get tired of looking at this next video – J.O.B. First Look; it makes me glad that I surf and is a reminder of our dream to one day stand on the beach at Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu.

It reminds me of the joy of surfing in the warmth of a tropical ocean. The backing track is Beck’s ‘Missing (Heaven Hammer)’ which works so well in this video, providing a slow tempo to accompany the slow-motion footage of Jamie O’Brien surfing Pipe.

J.O.B. First Look by Vincent Laforet. Released October 2009.

What I love about this next video is that it makes me want to go surfing and is a reminder of the joy and delight to simply paddle, drop in, get in trim, glide and then just take in the wave. It also takes me back to summers past, sitting on a long board out back at North Watergate Bay in the late afternoon sunshine, warm blue water with the cliffs forming a dramatic backdrop. Simply wonderful.

Summer Fun (Sea Movies) by korduroy.tv. Released September 2011.