Water Shots

Watershots using my Nikon Fe 35mm camera.
I used a 50mm lens while shooting these.  Shot a roll
of film then hopped in the water myself and surfed for a couple hours.

That one time I took a Trip Up The Coast

This is a picture I took with my Argus Rangefinder. I really liked the view from here.  A friend of mine was with me when I shot this.  The central coast is truly my favorite part of California as evident by this blog alone I took many trips up the coast and met some really cool people whether it was a couple words spoken or a day of talking.  I remember this being one of the more memorable trips.  This shot is taken on the northern end of a town called Cayucus.  If you are looking for good waves and are not with too many people be respectful talk to the locals and share some sick waves.  The day before this was taken I was driving alone from PIsmo looking for somewhere to surf.  There was a lot of swell in the water but nothing that appealing. Morro rock is kinda of a pain for the reward.  I ended up surfing this beach break on the south end of town.  When I was suiting up I met this local guy(really wish I remembered his name) we started talking and I remember one thing he said vividly. "It's a little crowded out there but it'll be fun." Immediately after I laughed. He looked over. I said right then I live in Southern California. He then immediately proceeded to laugh. There was no explaination needed he knew what I meant. Everyone that surfs knows what I mean. "Well let's get out there" he said.  Winds were offshore 10-15 mph I was in heaven, this was just a normal day for him.....

About an hour later after being in the water he paddled up to me "you get some good ones" 

No random person you meet usually cares but what I noticed after countless trips to the central coast.... Life is different up there.  

People are nicer.

And yes I got a couple really sick waves it was 4-6 ft offshore 

Needless to say back home was a few feet under knee high.......

One More

Shot this with my argus rangefinder. That camera is so simple but works great all the shots from it look really good and I'm happy with them.  I used a light meter app for the iphone to meter the shots considering the rangefinder does not have one.  Good to know the app works accurately.  This marks 30 days until Nicaragua in which I will be interning at a surf camp for a little over 90 days.  The picture above is a self portrait after I shaped my second surfboard ever. Which currently is my favorite board to ride. I put this up partly because I just got the film back and mainly because it's sick and I plan on making that same board in a 5'11". (The first one was 5'6"). I wanted to make a bigger version because the board works so well and I am going to want a bigger board for my days off in Nica. 

PAWS

Paws not Jaws

Illustrator

Just a little design I whipped up on Illustrator last night. I like making these.

SF cruise

Drive to surf.

So this morning we woke up and cruised to surf OB this morning again.  I surfed today if was super fun some sick ones.  These are some of the happenings on the way to surf.

Walking

Cruised around San Francisco last night.  Walked all the way down to Haight.  Really cool experience SF is an amazing place of diversity and humbling situations.  Enjoy the photography.

San Francisco Day 1

I am in San Francisco for the weekend.  This morning I filmed couple buddies surf Ocean Beach Kelly's Cove.  Later this afternoon I am going to surf it clean and decent fun size.  Here is a couple photos from the morning town cruise.  I'll have more photos up later tonight.

Charcoal Pencil

Was bored and did some art today.  The top is a piece of PU foam that I cut out of a board that I snapped a while back.  I planed off the yellow foam to see how the planer works on PU since I have never shaped one before.  I did this in preparation for the next board I will be shaping.  Its going to be a gunned out 6'6" single fin; I have not decided yet if I want to put bonzers on it but I have plenty of time to decide(still have to shape the board and paint/draw on it).  Speaking of painting and drawing.  The above picture is also my test on drawing with charcoal pencil on a surfboard blank. As you can see from above I am happy with how it came out and most likely going to draw a similar pattern on the deck of the 6'6" single.  Excited to continue shaping some boards got ideas for a couple more once that tax return comes in.Though my first priority is buying a plane ticket more about that later though.

This below is a drawing I did in my notebook a while back that I scanned and cleaned up with the help of some Adobe products.  Not sure what I am going to do with it but most likely put it on rice paper and glass it to a board.  From what the words say I think it would be fitting to put on a twin fin. A twin fin is planned for the tax return boards.

 Just some more shots from the last weekend.

Northern California

This past weekend three of my friends and I took a trip up north.  We knew there would be waves we just did not know it would be this good.  I decided to shoot instead of surf due to the fact that I planned to originally and the board I had with me at the time would not have handled too well. Here is just a couple from that day more to come soon.  I shot with a Canon 7D with a 75-300mm lens which unfortunately is a terrible contrast lens at full focal length. Due to this fact I had to do more adjusting then usual in which I use Adobe Lightroom.  I am pleased with how they look just wish I had a nicer lens.

 Lefts were grinding all day.

 The Rights though were long clean walls.

 This one above is of my Friend Jake featured in the first shot.  He is setting up for a nice long right.

Even out of the water the bombs keep rolling in. The conditions were not perfect to start but cleaned up to nearly epic conditions.  It was about 8-12 feet faces with one random set that cleaned everyone up that was pushing 15.

Long Exposed Big Sur

                 

Big sur campgrounds made for some great long exposures. All of these are from my Canon 7d and are around 20-30 minutes. I will have two more from my Kodak Retina that are around 1-3 hours. Enjoy!

                         

                       

Andrew Molera

Just got back from an extremely successful trip to Big Sur.  About three weeks ago I pitched the idea to my friends seen below.  Originally they were on edge but I encouraged them we would score as there was an incoming swell that I had been looking at in the northern Pacific and a definitely swell that would be dying on the date we arrived. Everything ended up nearly perfect for us.  We arrived at Andrew Molera camp grounds at about 11am and by the time everything was set up at the hike on camp site we went straight the River-mouth with our stuff ready to surf.  The first day was pretty fun no one out at all and about 2-3 foot surf at a right point break. The best day was Saturday as shown below a picture of me one of my friends happened to snap while taking a breather on the beach.  It was about 3-5 feet with maybe 10 people out.  We did not end up even checking it on Sunday because we were making our way down the coast that day but the swell had definitely filled in and it was most likely bigger and less closed out. No complaints though a full day of surfing a right hand point break with an non-existent crowd for southern Californians.

 The Boys Trevor, Vince, and Jake standing in front of the river which helps keep the rock and gravel bottom point break.

 A picture Jake took of me while he was cruising on the beach.  In the end I was bummed I didn't shoot because this set-up is unreal.  But we already decided another trip is definitely necessary.

Kodak Retina

Taken With a Kodak Retina iic this is of the Huntington Beach pier a week or so ago.  I surfed for an hour or so before this and it was kinda fun waist high maybe a little bigger. I surfed a 5'10 single fin a board I have been riding alot lately because the waves haven't been that great or sizeable.  The board handles good size surf when it needs to though.  Below are a couple lifestyle/design shots that I took with the same camera.  An outline for a twin fin that I want to make soon once the time and money provides for it.  I have a bunch of old architecture tools, that I use while drawing out designs and random ideas, because I took a couple intro architecture classes in community college.  Although I found out that it was not for me it actually was useful to the way I think about ideas and photographs.  The design elements of the arts can often be visualized ahead of time similar to the initial blueprints of a house.  The third image is just a shot of the table I make use of while shaping boards with the Captain Fin Co. hat that has been a staple item of my travels and creations.

Tristan Cronshaw

This is a little throwback to a couple months ago.  Over summer we had a decent run of swell but the winds were always bad near Newport in the arvo  so we took a bunch of quick trips to Salt Creek and other southern spots along with some northern spots.  This is my buddy Tristan Cronshaw who rides for HippyTree, one of the sickest companies that's fairly new to the scene. This shot is from a short but sweet video we made, well I made he surfed haha. The video can be viewed HERE and helped him get a VZ sponsor.  A new video is in the works titled "Your Life is On Repeat" more about that soon some initial filming has been done.  The video is more of a lifestyle video supported with a few clips. Below is a long exposure of Salt Creek. Followed by Tristan himself.