Had to keep a record of this one, it is pretty cool to see one of your favourite shots reproduced in full colour on the front of the entertainment section of the paper.

I didn’t tell Pacey he was on the cover till this morning, i think he might have been getting a bit of stick for it

Having said it was cool, and of course being thankful for the exposure it will give to the exhibition and the www.wightsurfhistory.co.uk project,  I do have a gripe. The whole artistic intention of the shot has been lost in translation and the tighter crop used on the cover. It was meant to be about capturing the surfer in, and celebrating his natural environment, and to me (and most people who see the original) its the dynamic cirrus clouds and foreground details of the waves on the beach that make it work as an idea. I’m not usually very precious about stuff like that, and of course you could say that it all goes out the window the moment it has the ‘weekender’ branding splashed across it too.

On a different note, its also ironic to see Pacey there with the word ‘weekender’ above his head, because he is about as far removed from the idea of a  ‘weekend warrior’ surfer as it is possible to be. He lives and breathes surfing, and is out in all conditions and weathers, all year round, i dont think i’ve heard him say no to a a surf session yet, snow on the ground, big gnarly waves, he’s always there.

As for the picture of Me & Paul, the first one to mention ‘right said fred’ tribute act is in trouble

IWCP weekender cover

Portrait of a Psychedelic Surfer

Portrait of a ‘Psychedelic Surfer’ was chosen as the ‘photo of the week’ at photographyblog.com. The portrait of Ian Pace posing with his board at Compton Bay is a wide angle ‘Vertorama’, a digital composite stitched just like a panorama but vertical instead of horizontal.

The surf wasnt very good that day and i’d been taking shots of the west wight landscape with the wonderful ‘cirrus fibratus vertebratus’ sky and it struck me how perfect the setting would be for a shot of ‘Pacey’ in his natural element with a bit of whooshing from the clouds and the waves surging up the beach.