The only way to welcome 08 was on waterproof mode, you would either get wet or stay home! I got 2 of my friends out here for 2 months. Felipe came out (photo), Conrado stayed in with his missus. At this stage, screw the shutter speed, focus or aperture, just hand the bloody camera to some random and tell them to press the round button!

Right at the dying stages of 07, the biggest swell of the year hit wild! and I didn't register cause it rained everyday! but who cares, got some epic waves down in kirra like 6 days in a roll. This sealed 07 as a pretty freakin consistent year I would say. One of Lucas' lessons was not to even bother trying to photograph rainy days, but I couldn't just let it go. This shot is from Tchelao's house in Greenmouth. Motha Fucka lives right on it!
So in this final days of the year I got this superbusy and tiring job 8 to 10 hours a day, then 25km South this solid swell holding 6-8ft at the Superbanks with an insane undertoe and, on top of it, free night time to spend with my mates I just couldn't ditch. Pretty demanding.. i managed to do it all and survive but got exhausted.

Testing the new camera.. with the right equipment and a little knowledge, even a dumb, dull towel can look interesting. i can almost hear it say: -"Do u wanna get high??"

So far away right now.. That's how it's gotta be: trust and freedom all the way, but after this long without being apart for more than 6 hours it's pretty full on! Good to catch up with myself though..
Miss u heaps my homegirl

Spending my 4th xmas in a roll away from my family mighta been a little depressing, but new years was just around the corner, so time to cheer up. The fella who took the photos at the contest and I ended up good friends after 18 hours sitting on the same spot together over 2 days, hehe. He taught me shit about photography I had no clue existed. In fact, I didn't have the slightest notion about photography until just 15 days ago. If you like this website I'll say thanks, but there's as much technique behind as cooking noodles! The blind times are gone now, aperture, ISO, Focus length, shutter speed, exposure and other ET's are now my acquaintances! pretty amazing stuff.
That pumped me to upgrade my shit, I bought a Sony H9, sickest camera! 15x zoom, 8 megapixel, remote control, night vision, all manual commands and a tripod: Now we r talking business!
Lucas is leaving to the Sunshine Coast for good in a week, so I got him to give me the tricks of the trade, the bloke is tops, showed me everything and threw in a couple of mags about the theme.
After that I basically worked every single day until the 1st. Daniela left to Europe for 15 days on the 30th, it's the first time in 18 months we are apart. I'm sure it will be an incredible experience for her, but having to go cook everyday at 7 am and spending all day in the kitchen won't even give me the opportunity to even feel I'm still alive.
Photo: "Yep, that's a macro, press the button with a flower graphic on your left hand side and take the shot from as close as possible. Watch out not to hit your eye!"

I always anticipated Chistmas heaps, but this time I just woke up one day and it was there! After the 20th I went back to work, the bastard gave me 7 days, all of which starting at 7am and going all the way through to sometime between 3 and 5. That's no less than stealing my life.. alright, I'm being dramatic, it's only buying it.
I guess I had no choice but to sell it, those 2 weeks of holiday were sweet but not free.
All i could do for Christmas was hop in as many of my mates' places to have a drink with each, but the tour was spoiled by technical issues.
I had a long night at home, gotta say it was anything but boring.
That set up on the photo is at Flavio's house. The bloke knows how to get a reception together.

This session at brown, windy and tiny Dreamtime ended up generating more photos than the contest. Tchelao and i took the waterproof camera out in the pocket and took turns.

tchelao took around 54 self underwater portraits until he got over this toy, hehe

I thought it was gonna be alright cause I'm older now, but I still get nervous in heats! Perhaps I'll get over it when I reach Seniors..

Heat 1, before losing my board, hehe.

Nothing special, don't waste your time watching. Just an extremely amateurish short footage of Rainbow bay impersonating Bell's a month ago. I just wanna find out if i can have videos here, since I got this Sony off the hook now and there will be a few coming up when the rain decides to stop and Daniela comes back from Europe.

Once again I got carried away and forgot to post for nearly a month.. Dunno if anybody even still knocks on this site's door though, there's just too many other network tools.. Myspace, Orkut, facebook and all those others sure do the job, but i still rather to keep this thing going, it's been a long road now..
Anyway, back in mid December.. I got this weekend off work to give my mate Alex a hand with his contest in D-bah, but my boss went overboard and gave me 2 weeks in the lieu! In the right time too, Gray, glassy and warm fun sized conditions were predominant during most of this period. I still have the feeling I should've surfed twice as much, but it was awesome.
The contest was great too, I just stood there all day handing out the comp rashies and getting them back. When it came to my heat i was pumped, but a little nervous after 4 years without being in a contest. I got an alright first wave, but in my second one I fucked up and my legrope broke. Watching my board going all the way to the beach without even waiving good bye was pretty revolting. a fair swim , walk, scabing some good bloke's leggie and paddle back out costed me 12 minutes.. that's 60% of the time and 98.7% of my energy. But i didn't give a shit, there was a reclassification heat and I got back on the scene in first. Only to sink in the next day, hehehehe. Good fun though.
The dude who lended me his legrope ended up winning, I was happy for him, good fella.
There was gonna be a contest party on Sunday night, but my body just refused attending after those long couple of days. I couldn't believe how tired i was even after just sitting there all day and only surfing a few 20 minutes heats.. Nothing makes me more tired than doing fuck all.. I guess I could never be a life saver, cop, bouncer or council worker...