Monochrome Monday (Spray)

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

Flow

 Going with the flow

Palm Sunday Squall

Song for Dora

Harrison Roach x First Point

Word on the coconut telegraph is that The Who (or what's left of them) might be coming to our barren island this year.

It's part of what they are calling, the Last Tour Ever.

They'll keep making albums, but the logistics and physical toll of touring are now too much for a bunch of old geezers from Shepherd's Bush, London.

I for one, will be trying to get tix.

"I can go anyway, way I choose

I can live anyhow, win or lose

I can go anywhere, for something new

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere I choose"

"Nothing gets in my way

Not even locked doors

Don't follow the lines

That been laid before

I get along anyway I dare

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere"

from Anyway Anyhow Anywhere by The Who

Sunday Drive

Save Kirra

Please sign the online petition
to the Premier of Queensland
(the elected leader in charge)
to stop
this ecological insanity - click here.

Midday at the Oasis

The Day started out innocently enough. I was dusty and sleep deprived from a BIG night. 

The dawn check revealed a nice new swell had arrived with the faintest of offshore breezes. 

A quick text or three to the tribe, followed by strong coffee and I'm on it, floating around the rock shelves of The Point on the multi-coloured Seasurf Seahorse log below. It was not the right board for that day, but the only other one I had on me was the red 6 foot quad. Ohh how I would discover the folly of bad equipment choice.

It was one of those rare swells where the wind hung offshore most of the day and there were plenty of waves to go around. Everybody was buzzing that the next day was going to be even bigger. So I stayed out way longer than I should have like an addict getting way too much of a good thing. Telling myself that I would shoot instead of surfing the next day when The Swell would peak.

Even when I was exhausted beyond what my body thought possible, I stayed out, telling it that we would rest the next day. Just a few more. Too much fun is never enough.

Unless you have a bad wipeout.

Like a really really bad wipeout, where you are flung in front of a 6 foot wall of whitewater and as you hit the surface on the way down, in a most inelegant manner, the air is punched out of your lungs and The Rogue Set cartwheels you dismissively across the big rock shelf like a baby seal being tossed around by a killer whale.

And that's what happened.

But that's the easy part.

When that stopped I could not get to the surface because I was wrapped in four foot of boiling foam and instead of swimming to the surface, I'm clawing at foam that has insufficient density to get me to the top. I can't touch the bottom to launch myself upwards.

And I start to think I may not make it. And instead of looking back on my life and all that, all I can think in disbelief and shock is "this can't be happening".

Somehow that extra blubber I'm carrying finally earns it's keep and I slowly rise to the sweetest sensation on earth.
Fresh air.

To whomever was watching over me on Tuesday December 3, 2013 thank you.

Aloha Nikonos

If I count my phone, I have nine working cameras and one car to chuck them all into. 

My absolute toughest, go anywhere, quasi indestructible little light trapper is my second oldest camera, the hard working 35 mm Nikonos V which is 30 next year. 

It's taken a lot of beatings in the impact zone and never botched one exposure. While I've tumbled across the bottom of Granite Bay screaming quietly for a breath of air, not a drop of moisture has gotten inside.

This pic courtesy of Wikipedi

So I figure it deserves a little holiday over in WA with Margaret River surfer big Corey from the TooMuchFunCollective. Aloha little orange marvel and BIG thanks.

Merry Christmas Down Under

Merry Christmas followers, lurkers and accidental visitors.
Hope you all had an amazing Yew-l-tide venerating the deity of your choice.

Today I'll be honouring my late Dad's passion for sailing by watching the start of the annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

Hoist the spinnaker in the heavens cobber.

Something Borrowed

Continuing the bridal theme - "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" 

Today I'm borrowing a few old film shots from my first blog, Brine Time (all 793 posts are still able to be viewed).

GfG at Granite riding the ancient Joe Larkin pig mal with no leggie. It was old even in 1984 and weighed a ton - an epic to carry around all of those points. Didn’t used to see many mals in those days. A couple of guys from the Alex Headland crew, but that was it. The Larkin is awaiting restoration.

GfG at Granite. Probably same session as the other shot. We’d backpack around to the outcrop overlooking the furtherst cove. Surf. Shoot. Come in and scoff down a Mars Bar and a Coke and go out again, eventually returning for a massive pancake and maple syrup lunch and game of Space Invaders (20cents in the slot machine) at the little shop at the entrance to the National Park called The Noosa Wave.

The second shot above is one of the ones that accompanied a story I wrote about Noosa that was published in the Switchfoot II book.

6" x 6" x Summer

Closer **

Closer ** was the last album by Joy Division. I still have the vinyl. Great monochrome photography by Bernard Pierre Wolff.

Today's sunny, colourful post is the antithesis of that bleak music.

Sometimes you have to get closer.

Which is why I wear the red helmet when shooting in the water.

Constructivism

Let me say at the outset that I am not a Pearl Jam zealot. Somewhere in the 600+ CD's stacked like plastic skyscrapers in the Brinecave there are five studio and live PJ albums, which I never tire of.

Conversely, how many musicians can keep churning out albums and continue to stimulate the earbuds of us cash strapped punters? The late Zappa, maybe. Even the mighty Lou Reed, the Stones and Mr Young put out some clunkers.

With this in mind, I tentatively ventured to the local music shoppe and handed over $30 to the friendly part time musician, who recognised an old roadie in my hearing loss. What if Lightning Bolt was a dud? This is album #quite-a-few after all. But the reviewer gave it 5 out of 5.

I rationalised my expenditure by convincing myself that spending money locally is good for the local economy and keeping some young person in a job (after all somebody - presumably jobless - tried to break into my neighbours' yesterday). And let's face it, at this time of the year, you're flat out getting three cans of decent beer at the local golf club for $30. And I'm pretty sure the sonic pleasure will last longer than the hangover. At worst, I can regift it to somebody for Xmas . . .

And so we come to the packaging aRt, either a copy of the theme used by Led Zepellin last Xmas or a nod to Russian Constructivism of 100 years ago. I'm guessing the latter. Either way the artwork is the only disappointing part of Thunderbolt. There's nothing revolutionary about this album. It's great sonically, but with songs like Thunderbolt (about girl), not exactly harvesting new terrain or encouraging the proletariat to take over the Czar's riches. There' fast songs, slow songs and sections with amazing percussion and awesome guitar. Eddie would go, Eddie did go. Keeper.