jump on the hype train...

40 year swell!! or not. I hate how every swell gets soo hyped up, and the waves end up being fun, but by no means epic. It was the coldest morning I have ever experienced in Santa Barbara. It was soo cold I didnt even want to shoot. I almost went home, but then Chris called, so we met up at Fairies and shot for a little bit.

oldies.....

was looking through some old files on my hard drive and found a couple old shots that I like from back when I shot film at Brooks....

trail.....and error

Went out to mussel shoals with Ryan to mess around with the flash. It was my second time shooting on-camera flash in the water...and didn't get such great results. At least it was a beautiful evening/night. There were some heavy barrels shooting right through the pier. One surfer had to end his night early after breaking his board against one of the pilings. Hopefully next time I can get this flash thing right.

been a while since I've shot in the water...

Met up with Willy around 5:15 this morning, drove around for 2 hours checking spots, then ended up going back to the first spot we checked, Rincon. Ventured away from the main spot and found some super fun little barrels with nobody around. I was really excited until I looked at my camera, and found out my settings got screwed up and I shot everything 4 stops over exposed! I managed to salvage a few files. Heres what went down this morning....

went to mars the other night

it was pretty fun, you should go sometime

life

© www.rtylergross.com

"going surfing is pretty much the only thing that keeps me sane" Rob Machado

one of my favorites right now....

Mikala Jones

the rain stopped......but the wind didnt

The rain let up for a little bit so I went down to Pipe and Ehukai to see what the surf was doing. Whitecaps everywhere, and howling side/offshores. Only about 10 people out at each spot, and everyone was a pro. Some could surf crappy waves, and some couldn't. Kalani Chapman was killing it, and Nathan Fletcher can boost on any wave.

rainy days ahead

Kinda bummed I missed a great morning of surf at pipe. Was about 12 feet hawaiian on the sets. I got back just in time to shoot for the last hour of light, which was more like 15 minutes, and then get rained on. But I was content just to sit and watch. There were some bombs rolling in, and the crowd was pretty light, mainly just the local pros. This morning there was clean conditions and pipe still had some size to it. Its looking like rain for the next few days.....

Hawaii

I've been in Hawaii for a week now and I don't ever want to go back to California. The weather has been amazing, and so has the surf. The first few days it was flat, but for the past 5 days its been a few feet overhead. A little to big for my comfort zone to swim out though. I have been shooting as much as possible. Here's a little sample of what I've shot so far.

finally time to get this blog going....

Wanted to start my first post with a good session. I went to meet Chris at emma wood to shoot some photos, and stumbled upon an insane session. There was already 4 professional photographers shooting, one video guy, and plenty of pros out when I showed up. Timmy Curran and Wade Goodall were blowing up. They weren't my riders, so I kinda felt like I was poaching. Anyways, here's a few shots I snagged that day.