The tenuous surfing connections start right away, because our excellent waiter is also a surfer, who i’d first met at Compton a few months earlier, and its also one of only three restaurants i can think off where, if there is a good swell and the wind is in the right direction, you can hear the surf at Freshwater Bay (the others are the fat cat (at sandpipers) and the dandelion cafe).

At this stage I won’t try to pretend to be a food critic and waffle on like i really know what i’m talking about as they do on master chef (because i don’t) but I’m getting on a bit now, and I have eaten in my fair share of good restaurants all around the world (i’ve not always been confined to the western end of a small rock half way up the english channel) and i do know good food when i see and taste it. So I  can say  with some confidence, and some basis for comparison, that it was genuinely top quality food, and it was definitely a fantastic all round dining experience too. The service was first class, both waiters were friendly and knowledgable without being at all patronising (as I’ve found can be the case in some lesser establishments that were trying to be posh and mistook snobbery for class).

The food itself was not just delicious, but each dish was presented like a work of art, right down to the colour and textures of the plates, and each new course contained surprises, often a flavour combination that i hadn’t come across or even imagined before (raspberry and lemongrass soup for example!). As you might expect from a restaurant thats just been awarded two AA rosettes, It wasn’t the cheapest night out, and the bill was more than i could afford to do every week, but it was such a good meal that i left there thinking it was well worth the money to have food expertly prepared by someone at the top of their game and I will be going again as soon as i can and also recommending it to friends.

Finally, seeing as i’m a photographer and this is a photography blog as well as a surfing blog, i took some photos too, but very quickly and just with my iPhone hipstamatic, just to grab a bit of the colour and style in the dishes that were put before us.

I should also say that i’m not connected in any way to the restaurant, i’ve never met the chef, and they dont even have any of my photos on their walls!

Some of the dishes we enjoyed at ‘Justin Brown at Farringford’.

 Freshwater Bay Monday Blues, originally uploaded by s0ulsurfing.

This and the other photos on the site are all ©2012 Jason Swain with All Rights Reserved. The image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer. Please contact me via email photo@jasonswain.co.uk if you want to use it in any way or license it for your own project.

Returning to a familiar theme for this blog, and probably for most people who ever done a bit of Isle of Wight surfing too, the old ‘you should have been here yesterday’ routine.

Over the last 20 years I’ve built my life next to the sea and the West Wight in particular, with the simple (and now not so secret) aim of leading a quiet life and surfing whenever possible,  as well as trying to avoid hearing that dreaded sentence so often heard in Isle of Wight surfing circles ’you should have been here yesterday’ as much as possible too.

But sometimes life has other plans for you, and after a few weeks of niggling broadband complications and lots of support calls and emails (involving a long boring story of telephone exchanges being upgraded to ADSL+, a ten year old router not being able to keep up with the change, and then a mystery line fault that pretty much seemed to me to have lots to do with a very windy and rainy night)  i couldn’t really be out when the engineer was finally scheduled to come and test the line and put me out of my misery.  I wanted to but couldn’t really hang a ‘gone surfing‘ note on the door and hope he would come back later (why don’t BT introduce that as an option when you sign up?)

Of course the only time-slot available on the morning of Friday 16th December, coincided with the biggest swell in weeks, and of course it was also the only day the wind blew offshore after endless days of howling onshores.

So, the day after triple overhead clean sets were reported as being ridden at my local break (from reliable local sources, who wouldn’t exaggerate the conditions) Saturday morning found me at Freshwater bay bright and early, full of hope and excitement for what i might find. Inevitably the classic conditions from the day before were long gone, and to be honest what was left looked pretty unappealing out there with the wind now blowing cross-shore and the swell not really doing it with the sets barely head high.

BUT… remembering my last blog and how i ended up kicking myself for passing up what turned out to be the last waves for a few weeks, this time i didn’t hang around in two minds and encouraged by a couple of hungover locals, pacey & sam, who turned up for a look too, decided to get in there and blow away a few cobwebs anyway.

The good news is that the swell picked up a bit and although it certainly wasn’t anything like the classic conditions of the day before, we had a few overhead sets, and a few bumpy but fun rides, and of course, its always better to have been in than sat around thinking about it.

After a quick surf and to make the most of the morning, i grabbed my camera and headed up onto the cliffs and got a few shots from a different point of view (away from my old favourites of the cabbage patch or right in front of the albion hotel) Whilst Andrew Court, Matt Harwood, Ian Pacey and James Ranson made the most of what was left before it really did get a bit windy. Even managed to get a few shots of some local birds and a random fishing boat in the line-up to complete this little episode of Isle of Wight surfing.

So i’ve finally had a chance to get out and shoot some surfing at Freshwater Bay on the Isle of Wight again. Finally a chance to test out the Sigma 50-500mm telephoto lens in action. I got the lens with UK Surf photography in mind almost a year ago now, and I have barely had a chance to photograph any waves with it till the last few days!

Freshwater bay looked pretty bumpy and back-washy as the high tide pushed in. Far from ideal for surfing, but a talented bunch of locals, including Sam Scadgell, Chris Mannion and Tom Court made the best of the conditions available on the day, and it actually looks pretty good now that you cant see the close-outs and drop-ins.

As for the lens, well i wouldn’t be without it now, the extra reach that the 500mm gives me is invaluable and the focus is always more than fast enough to keep up with the surf action. The results are here for you to judge for yourself, i’m always open to feedback and criticism.

Surfing at Freshwater Bay, 1/11/2011 – Images by jason swain

This is not a rant, not even really a moan, it’s just a few rambling observations on life on earth, in the context of trying to make a living as a photographer and being a surfer on this planet, and seeing as lots of you reading this are probably photographers or surfers, i thought it worth  sharing my thoughts and seeing what came back.

So, I spend a lot of time showing a nice sanitised view of the beautiful place that i call home, the wonderful landscape, the stunning coastline, the mesmerising waves and amazing surfers, and it is a great place to live an work, better than many others i’ve seen and tried in my life. But occasionally the ugly reality of modern life seeps in even here, and today i’m posting a set of images taken back in 2008 that remind me of that fact.

I was prompted to return to these shots now, from their place hidden deep in the archives by a recent getty sale.

An image from the same day as this one has been sold to a client in the Chinese Automotive Industry (I don’t know exactly who or what, so if anyone ever see’s it please let me know). I’m assuming (or is it hoping?) that it will be used to promote some new green technology, showing the price we pay for using oil? that sort of thing.

I didn’t post more at the time in 2008 as i wasn’t comfortable with what happened that day, and to be honest it felt wrong to be taking pictures, almost exploitative. And a bit of that feeling returned alongside the happiness i felt at making a sale via getty.

Yes, i did call the RSPCA immediately and stayed to see if he could be helped, and i also made my own donation as well as using the post to generate more donations via my hyperlink, but it still didn’t feel right.

I cant imagine the conflict that a photojournalist must feel catching something genuinely harrowing from a war zone or natural disaster, i know the arguments for reporting and documenting the truth should win in the end, i’m just talking about the actual feeling of being a witness and just clicking a shutter in response, i felt crappy doing this while a living creature suffered in front of me (alongside anger and frustration thinking about the people that caused it)

My getty payment just came through, and i made another donation to the RSPCA http://www.rspca.org.uk/donate because of it, and maybe some of you reading will do the same, so it might feel like some small good has come of it. But sitting here in late 2010, two and a half years on from taking the pictures, there’s more (and bigger) oil spills than ever before and the only change i can see is that images of the waste and destruction have become slightly hotter commodities in the stock photo industry as advertisers seize upon the green message to sell their wares.

Actually thinking about it, images of pollution and or damaging storms seem to be amongst my best sellers, and i’m happy to take their money (we all need to pay the bills) so of course i can see the hypocrisy and futility of having a whinge about it on a photo social network and surfing blog. I’ll probably even put these new shots in the getty artists pick pool in the hope that they get picked for sale too.

So there you are, no great conclusions, and thinking about it not a lot of point to it either, like i said at the beginning, just a few rambling observations of a surfer and photographer feeling pretty powerless in the face of the inevitable. I’ve been a member of Greenpeace and Surfers Against Sewage over the years and despite having great admiration and respect for both organisations (and others like ‘rise above plastics’) and the people who dedicate their lives to the cause, the big picture’s not looking too good right now as far as i can see.

Your messages of hope and optimism will be most welcome.

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©2008 Jason Swain, All Rights Reserved

These images are not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

The Psychedelic Surfer has left the building!, originally uploaded by s0ulsurfing.

This ones for my friends Pacey & SJ who are travelling the world looking for waves and generally having a great time, missing you guys, come back soon and do some baby-sitting

It was shot back in February (when every day seemed to bring more waves) on the same morning as the ‘headless surfer triptych’. You can see that triptych and more from that day in the headless surfer blog.

Exit Strategy ( wipeout ). Dictionary of Image, originally uploaded by s0ulsurfing.

Exit Strategy
Means of escaping one’s current predicament, typically an unfavourable situation.

That’s it now, the last batch of surfing photographs from the last big day, maybe we’ll get another good swell now that they are all gone.

You can also see the five previous photo blogs here

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/you-shouldve-been-here-yesterday/ (15 photos)

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/yshbhy-part-two/ (15 photos)

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/hands-up-if-youre-having-fun-yet-yshbhy3/ (9 photos)

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/the-swell-that-just-kept-on-coming-yshbhy-4/ (12 photos)

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/you-should-have-been-here-in-february/ (14 photos)

Been so long since we’ve had a decent swell to ride here (and photograph), and with summer almost here, its probably not going to pick up anytime soon, so i returned to archives for ‘that day’ back in February, and had a look at the shots that were overlooked at the time, I took over 700 pictures that day, so there’s plenty to choose from! I’ve also tried to keep the processing to a minimum, just the occasional bit of ‘punch’ and horizon straightening in Lightroom!

You can also see the four previous photo blogs here

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/you-shouldve-been-here-yesterday/ (15 photos)

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/yshbhy-part-two/ (15 photos)

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/hands-up-if-youre-having-fun-yet-yshbhy3/ (9 photos)

http://soul-surfing.co.uk/the-swell-that-just-kept-on-coming-yshbhy-4/ (12 photos)

and a bonus sequence of pacey making the most of a little one that same day, the 12 shots took place over 13 seconds, but somehow its become 30 seconds long in iMovie because i messed about with the ‘ken burns’ settings and i dont really know what i’m doing