Festive Kommetjie

Swell was up yesterday in Cape Town and with the wind being what it was; Kommetjie was the place to be.
High Tide was around the 2pm mark, which is not the best light to work with. In fact, the light here sucks most of the day. This is the main reason I do not like shooting in Kommetjie, Hard work getting that special A-Grade image.
However it is summer time and Swells are generally few and far between so one needs to use the opportunities presented.

My initial plan was too shoot a festive season shot with my good friend,
Lisa Mace. However that did not go according to plan. 2 waves in to the session, she managed to let icy water into her wetsuit by pulling the zip down and never recovered from the chill. Lucky we had a couple shots that were usable.

My second plan was to shoot with super grom, Jordy Maree.
Jordy is one of the most talented young surfers in South Africa right now and is always fun to shoot the kid surfing.
Jordy managed to find a few reasonable lefts that he carved to shreds. He also threw in a few boosts to keep me entertained.

Thirdly, I had planned to get a few more shots of Tarryn Chudleigh.
Tarryn is another one of the Kommetjie crew that is super talented but is prone to having “off days” which this turned out to be.
Try as she did, she could not produce the flair she is capable of. The silly season crowds did not help and her surf ended in frustration.

With this being a decent swell there was a good crowd in the water and between shooting those that I had planned to do so, I managed to shoot a few of the other surfers.

The Standout wave of the day has to be Alan van Gysen’s epic Krans barrel ride. Not only is Alan a world-class surfing photographer, he is pretty decent in front of the lens too and knows how to get barreled.

The 20 images are some of my favorite from a very festive session!

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