Margaret River Drug Aware Pro Surf Comp 2015

Okay okay, I'm not gonna lie about it... I'm no professional sports photographer! Those of you who have been following my work will know that people, and sports for that matter, are rarely the main subjects of my photography... Nonetheless, when there's a world championship in your town, you as a photographer go out and shoot it! Period. :)

 We've been hearing a lot of people talk about this unreal surf that's happening right down the road and it was supposed to be much bigger and better than the previous years... and that means a lot, if you live in a town that's a Mecca for surfers worldwide.

So, intrigued by all the reports and with a little time to spare between work and sunset, we headed up the coast to nearby Gracetown and had a look at what all the fuzz was about.

I've been shooting North Point about one and a half weeks ago and back then there were only a few local fisherman present and the surf wasn't worth mentioning... I didn't mind - I was there to take long exposures of the rocky coast.
This time, however(last Thursday that is), North Point was packed! Not only was the lookout overflowing with spectators, parked cars were lining the access road on both sides and the whole place was chockas.

Even in the water, there were about 50-odd surfers all trying their luck on 4-5 meter high waves. 

We arrived just before sunset, which made for nice and soft light and, as a nice side effect, backlit all the waves ad brought out the color nicely.

Gracetown during sunset

The above was the last shot for the day. You can see that I'm not a sports-'tog... I keep going back to landscapes and silhouettes... :) 

Anyway, on Saturday I went back to Gracetown as the forecast looked very promising. I spent a few hours shooting away and caught a few good shots, which you can see below.
Don't ask if there are any famous surfers in the pics... your guess is as good as mine, and did I mention that I'm not a professional sports photographer? No? well, I'm not haha.

I'm gonna finish of this post with a photo of Superman. After Gracetown I headed up the coast to Injidup in hopes of some more good shots but it wasn't as impressive as Gracetown so I didn't even take my camera out. With time to spare and nowhere to be I continued further south and visited Cape Freycinet, the Boranup Forest, Boranup Lookout and Hamelin Bay, but this is all material for another post :)

I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave a comment below or share this post.