Wach Wach

Never tire of observing the fine balancing skills of Christian Wach on a long, uncrowded point wave.

Coffee Culture

 Sometimes it's not about the waves.

Today Wonder

every day has wonder, 

you just have to 

put in the effort

to look hard, 

to listen hard 

and to smile soft

Today Wonder

is also a song

by the former Saints guitarist

Ed Kuepper

Monochrome Monday (a wall is not a door)

"Dont spend time beating on a wall

hoping to transform it into a door"

Coco Chanel

Style (waiting for Ita)

Nana Brine's house sits 50 meters from the high tide mark, where the rain is driving horizontally and little bits of frothy foam are blowing across the soaked sand, tumbling over a thick line of pumice stone, bird feathers and tangled pieces of seaweed, freshly ejected by the ocean. A cyclone is coming, but the choppy waves are still small and chaotic.

Nana Brine's house will never feature in one of those glossy Home Style type of magazines, but she doesn't care. She has her own style accumulated from 90 odd years of savouring the sights and sounds and tastes of the planet - Accidentally Retro. The 1970's cups and plates and clothes still function, so why throw them out? 

Nana Brine's house has withstood the onslaught of many thunderous weather events (and the odd debate about politics). It's 70's style wood panelling suits the enlargements on the wall of places visited last century and the collages of her children and their children and their children. Her garden is vital to her health and happiness - azaleas, hibiscus, New Zealand Christmas bush and all manner of veges and  the 30-year-veteran lemon tree in the back corner that she's loath to prune lest she jinx it's productivity.

Nana Brine's house exudes the soaked up memories and the laughter of a home lived in by the same clan for a long time. When she walks her country, she recalls the stories of those who went before her, remembering that style is more something you grow into rather than something you can buy from a shop and climb into or in her words "whack on".

Nana Brine's house shakes from the winds. An eerie whining sound in the wires is punctuated by a lone long blast of foghorn from one of the massive tankers anchored off the beach. But Nana doesn't notice. Her hearing isn't what it used to be. She asks me to make her "a cuppa" while the  fella on the national radio asks listeners if the pension age should be raised to 70 and Cyclone Ita creeps closer.

Palm Sunday Squall

If Kierkegaard Surfed

"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. 

Not to dare is to lose oneself."

Soren Kierkegaard

If Ansel Adams surfed

When I was a lot younger and starting to learn the discipline of shooting, processing and printing film on big 5x4" cameras, most of my fellow students at Art College were inspired by documentary style street photographers.
But I was not.
By then I had seen enough of the street and was more interested in the brine and the bush.

Instead the two monochrome magicians that still inspire me years and a digital revolution later are the Czech Josef Sudek and the American landscape legend Ansel Adams.
Who knows why some aRt resonates with one viewer and not another. Maybe all that time swimming around with a Nikonos or waiting to catch a wave at Granite or Tea Tree nurtured a love of place and the way light skims off country at different times of the day and different seasons of the year.

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
Ansel Adams

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
Ansel Adams

“To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.” 
Ansel Adams

But if you are devotee of gritty monochrome street photography, then check out one of my old Art College teachers, Charles Page 's page. His imagery takes a lot more guts then duck diving a few close out sets with a DSLR.

If Thoreau Surfed

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, 

perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. 

Let him step to the music which he hears, 

however measured or far away."

Henry David Thoreau

If Lenin surfed

If Lenin surfed, he would probably wave to his salty comrades while gliding on his log as demonstrated here by Noosa Mal Club elder,  Mick Henderson. No idea whether there would be a revolution or not though.
Maybe he'd argue for surfers to give up the shackles of commercially dependent product and embrace the purity of body surfing.

Monochrome Monday (down to the sea again)

 Some salty snippets of memories and verse

 for my siblings of the sea and assorted lurkers.

"I must down to the seas again, 

for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call 

that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day 

with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, 

and the sea-gulls crying."

John Masefield, Sea Fever: Selected Poems

Tie Dye Pat

Pat Saunders logging some classic tie dye at Johnno's.

Noosa Part 2

Harry x Harry

Word on the coconut telegraph is that these fellas bringing their cheeky irreverence to the tandem event last week at Noosa were Harry Bieden and Harry Bryant.
Whoever they were, they did it skilfully, wearing shoes and sox and other fashion accessories in the lineup, oblivious to the grace displayed by their competition.