The road untravelled

Most weekends I try head off somewhere different, hopefully where there's surf but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Surf or no surf you can still see some beautiful places and beaches in NZ. I think I've done close to 5,000km's the last 4 weekends I've been out and about. A lot more blue skies than I'm used to, getting burnt even in the days close to winter. Here's a couple of shots some roads not usually taken, another frieght train left and so surfable but you'd need a ski to negeotiate the rip and the paddle. It was barreling it nut off, if you look closely you can see people in the foreground considerably smaller than the wave off in the distance...

May 17 Shippies overload

Well on the 17th of May 197? my mother brought me into this glorious world, 30 odd years on on the same day Shipsterns has a fit, some of the photogs, film crew, surfers are calling the biggest surfed yet. Biggest or not these guys are feckn nuts, just look at the photos and video in the links below, it will blow you away. I really want to see this place break and take a few shots back with me, bring on next year maybe...

Clik here for "Australian Surfing Life" photos

Clik here for "Surfline" video 

Clik here for "Jamin McLean" footage on vimeo

Stoked

Got an email from Paul @ Strandhill surf school saying he wanted to use 1 of my photos to put above his shop. I just got a photo of it and holy shit it's huge, so you could say I'm stoked to say the least. There's no other place in the world I'd rather have one of  my photos displayed. It's amazing how a small coastal town in the west of little old Ireland can change your life forever, simply amazing...

"Welcome to Sligo", hell yeah Strandhill style

An Autumn Mother's day

Foamville

Sally Fitzgibbons takes the Subaru Pro Women's ASP

The glorious Mount Taranaki

Event winner Sally Fitzgibbons

Well I would've had these shots out a couple of days ago but I was waiting for a response back from a website and unknown to me the main person is on holiday. It puts me in the spot of do I put them out myself or wait. I think i've waited long enough so here we are, some shots from the Subaru Pro in my backyard of Taranaki. I've tried to put a shot of everyone in here, my apologies to Sally for missing 2 of her heats and not getting the best shot of her.
   Sally Fitzgibbons took her 2nd win in a row and deservedly so. Showing she was serious about wanting this event scoring an impressive 18.45 in the 1st round, continuing onto a score of 19 in round 3 getting a near perfect 9.75 in the process. The dropping tide on the Saturday gave for extremly testing conditions creating a horrendous rip just as Kiwi and Taranaki local Paige Hareb entered the water for her quarter final against Coco Ho. The rip so bad no waves were had in the first half of the heat causing the judges to call for a restart. Unfortunately for the local supporters Paige did not proceed any further but she definately did put up a good fight in the frustrating rip. Coco then got knocked out in her semi by event winner Sally Fitzgibbons.
  Carissa Moore who was leading the ASP rankings up to this event came up against Fitzgibbons in the final, unfortunatley for Moore the waves just did not come her way. This event has set the stage for the rest of the season with only 50 points seperating Fitzgibbons and Moore. It was a fantastic event, the waves were a bit small but the surfing more than made up for it, hey at least it wasn't howling onshore and pissing down!
  Here's my results...
 -Tube of the comp went to Tyler Wright for her pre-comp barrel on a smoking right

Best floater - Paige Hareb on a bit of a sucky wave, I'm pretty sure she had a big grin after she made it

Best wave - Carrisa Moore taking apart a near 6ft wave

Best tail slide - Kiwi Sarah Mason for really pulling the tail around on nearly every turn

Cutback - Chelsea Hedges for a beautiful fluid cutback

Verticle hit goes to Stephanie Gilmore

Best Karate kick - Alana Blanchard during a warm up with good mate Laura Enever

Brightest wetsuit - the outrageous pink/orange suit of Laura Enever's

And last but not least, biggest smile goes to of course Sally Fitzgibbons

Alana Blanchard

Carissa Moore

Claire Bevilacqua

Coco Ho

Courtney Conlogue

Jessi Miley-Dyer

Melanie Bartels

Paige Hareb

Pauline Ado

Rebecca Woods

Rebecca Woods

Silvana Lima

Sofia Mulanovich

Tyler Wright

  Cheers girls for an entertaining few days, it was an absolute pleasure and honor in photographing everyone. Good luck with the rest of the season and I hope yas score some pumping waves.

thanks
Aaron