South Swell
For the third time already this summer, Maui has received a perfect south swell shooting up from Tahiti. I normally find surf photography to be a bit unproductive — you see, I can’t compete with the full-time surf-shooters and their 800-1600mm lenses (plus, a perfectly good lens gets totally gunked-up with a layer of salt). But it was different this time for a couple of reasons; mainly my own son was in the biggest break of his life, and secondly we were at the breakwall at Ma`alaea Harbor where a spectator can sit very close to the action.
This first image was my favorite of the day. What a fantastic look on his face at the moment of realization that was not going to pull out of this tube. I grabbed this kid’s email address and sent him a copy, much to his surprise.
The second image is of my little 13-year-old Jay, who is finally getting a good feel for the waves, and realizing what a gift it is to have an ocean in his backyard. In fact, last week Jay brought home a 1.5 lb. Tako (speared with his three-prong) which we make into the best Tako Poke ever tasted!
For these images, I used my new Nikon D700 with a 70-200 f2.8 lens. I was using a 2X Nikor extender to bring my focal length to 400. I managed to stay high and dry, unlike a few of the other spectators on the wall.
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Wow, Randy, marvellous snapshots!! That looks as if you were just right in the middle. That expression on the boy’s face - just devine. I always wondered how these kids got out of the surf without any injuries. The first time in my life when I learned to become afraid of the power of water in certain situations was on Maui!!
Aloha, Petra
Nice captures Randy! Go Jay!
Randy,
What terrific shots . . . bonus that one is ohana! I’ve spent some time at your online store/gallery . . . wow . . . absolutely stunning work.
aloha,
carl
13??! When did that happen? Great shots, as always. Didn’t realize Ma’alaea could look like that.
Yeah. A bit different then growing up in Kansas…..