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)

Anyway, something a bit different from me today, an iphone blog taken during yesterdays 2010 Walk the Wight, in aid of the Earl Mountbatten Hospice.

I walked the 14 miles from Carisbrooke Castle to Alum Bay, many walked the full 26 miles across the Island starting in Bembridge.

I saw that wind and rain was widely predicted in all the weather forecasts on sunday morning, and after last years drenching, I decided not to take the big camera (quite literally a monkey of my back) and have a go using the hipstamatic app on my iphone. It mimics the analog film results of the old plastic toy cameras, and if you shake between shots, it randomly loads different lens and film types.

I hope you like the results, and if you enjoy viewing, maybe you can visit the charity site and make a donation!

Walk the Wight is the largest annual fund raising event on the Island, over 12,000 people walk walk from one end of the island to the other in aid of the Earl Mountbatten Hospice.

You can find out more about the walk (and make a donation if you like) here…
Walk the Wight

Will it mean more crowds at Freshwater bay and fields? as surely a certain % of surfers will stop and have a look at those breaks, if they are forced to detour via Freshwater Bay to get to Hanover car park. Or will everyone try and squeeze into Brook car park and walk along the cliffs or beach?

Of course, miracles might happen and either the erosion will stop where it is, and one lane of the military road will remain open (those traffic lights will be fun in the summer) or maybe someone will come up with the £10m figure thats being bandied about as the amount needed to sort it out.

*** UPDATE (24-03-2010) ***

Here’s an email i got this morning from Jill Wareham who’s running a facebook campaign to save the road, better act soon if you want it to stay open!

Subject: Military Road will close at Brook
The recommendation to the Cabinet (7 Councillors) of the Isle of Wight Council due to meet on 30th March is that when the road becomes unsafe, the council truncates the road both side of the breach at point (between Brook and Compton) and install turning heads and improve car parking as necessary.
This means that the Council don’t care – they’ve done no consultation with the public and the road could close at this point tomorrow.
Please write to Cllr Giles the Councillor in charge of roads at edward.giles@iow.gov.uk if you don’t want this to happen.
7 Councillors could let this road close – is this what you want?

*** UPDATE (31-03-2010) ***

So a week later, and Jill is reporting good news on the facebook group today, the Councillors have decided to defer the decision to close the road. People power works! They have decided that they are going to consult people – possibly because of the amount of emails Cllr Giles has had this week. They are also going to get round the table with Natural England and the Environment Agency, etc to see what can be done.

Here’s a few pics* i took there last week, and also a couple of bonus ones from Brook, proving that whilst it can be beautiful there, there’s also still a bit of beach cleaning to be done here to… (thats not a dig at the great job done with the recent SAS beach clean at Grange by the way, just a reminder that there’s always more to do, and always will be as long as people keep treating the sea like a garbage dump)

*please note that the image with the bus is deliberately trying to attract interest and spark debate by exaggerating reality. The wide angle lens and the low angle,  and a bit of extra editing are all designed to make that look more dramatic than it really is. Although with all the rain we had over the last few days, reality might now have imitated art and overtaken it.

Time for a bit of blatant self promotion and cheesy sentiment, so if you’re offended by either of those, look away now.

Thank you Flickr.com ….

I’d like to say thanks to all the people who follow my s0ulsurfing account on Flickr and who having seen my pictures from around the island over the last few years said that i should be working for the tourist board. People mostly say nice stuff to each other on Flickr (its like the opposite of magicseaweed), so i don’t like to get carried away with any praise, for many its a social network first and serious photographic appreciation second, but many of my contacts on there are awesome photographers, and i do value their judgment, and their words. So without getting carried away, i also know that sometimes i can produce decent work, and the feedback I get is genuine.

So encouraged by those words, I eventually wrote to all the various parties responsible for isle of wight tourism, mentioned the comments and suggested that they might like to use some of my photos to help promote the island. And to cut a long story short, the good people at the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce (who are now responsible for publishing the islands tourist guides) responded positively,  and a few meetings later, here it is, my photos are in this years official 2010 ISLE OF WIGHT accommodation guide.

60 of my images have been used in total, including the two on the front cover, and you can take a look yourself at the interactive brochure here http://www.gowight.com/brochure/

I’ve followed the debate about the merits of the brochure design over on the ventnorblog website (http://ventnorblog.com/2010/01/18/interest-in-tourism-guide-strong/), some islanders have liked it but its not been universally well received here, some dont like the colours and feel of the cover, but personally i think its a great piece of design by the talented local designer Aaron Rudd, and the IWCC report that its creating lots of interest and orders are strong (which is what really counts).

Not all of the images are mine, but i think there are 60 from me, 3 from my good friend Paul Blackley and the remaining 26 are from either Steve Thearle or Tom Stroud. I’m talking about the ‘editorial’ images here, the ones used to illustrate island locations, not those of the hotels etc.

So thanks again flickr, this wouldn’t have happened without you, and i’m writing about it here on soul-surfing because following on from the positive coverage that island surfing got during the ‘wight surf history‘ exhibition, its a surfing image that’s made the front cover, and some people reading might recognise Andrew Swinton posing on his longboard on a lovely summers evening at Compton Fields last year.

Summer longboarding

Click here for part one of ‘You should have been here yesterday’

Click here for part two of ‘You should have been here yesterday’

Click here for part three of ‘You should have been here yesterday’

Click here for part one of ‘You should have been here yesterday’

Click here for part two of ‘You should have been here yesterday’

Click here for part one of ‘You should have been here yesterday’

There were quite a few eye witness’s to Al Reed’s full on barrel ride, but sadly i dont think anyone manged to get a shot of it, there is one included here of him going into one another one, but he didnt make it out this time.

Read part one here

The 14 images shown here, are taken from a sequence of 32 shots that took place over a period of 16 seconds (which was co-incidentally the same time that what was quoted as the wave-period for the swell that day).

I think like all sites it’s best considered a ‘work in progress’ and the look and feel may evolve as the content grows (its week one of a two year project) but i’m reasonably happy with this first stab at it, and I would love to hear your feedback on the design, technology or content, good or bad.

screengrab of wightsurfhistory.co.uk

Whatever it was, we’ve had a great run of swell to coincide with the opening of the ‘Wight Surf History’ exhibition, and its been great to be at the beaches sharing good waves with everyone and seeing just how many people had heard about it and were going to see the show.

We only got the go ahead to hold the exhibition on the tuesday and the swell arrived on the wednesday morning! Freshwater Bay at first light with the snow still on the hills from the week before. Solid swell on the at times too, some 4-5ft on the best sets and a decent bit of power too (nothing like the power of some of the recent bigger days though)

Sadly the sea wall produced a lot of backwash on the first morning and it was by no means a classic day at the bay, seemed to me that the long-boarders Will Rome and Alan Reed probably had the best of the bumpy conditions, although there was plenty of rides to be shared in the smaller crowd than recent days.

Thursday saw a dramatic increase in quality as Compton bay delivered some lovely long rides on the occasionally overhead set waves in the fresh offshore winds which also kept the temperature and probably the crowds down, no pics at all from thursday as i surfed so much it was all i could do to drag myself back to the car and home for a long hot shower.

Bit windy on the Friday so no surfing out west, and just as well really as it was the first day of the exhibition, and we were still framing and hanging the show after the official start time (but not because we were lazy, the frames had only arrives at 4pm thursday afternoon and paul worked into the small hours!)

Sunday brought another good pulse of swell on the day for the private view, and conditions cleaned up nicely into the afternoon at Compton as the sun came out and the onshore wind dropped off, it almost felt warm and spring-like being out there as i grabbed a cheeky hour on the way home from indoor cricket and before the party guests started arriving.

Monday after the show party, and more good waves to wash away a few hangovers (pacey & paul) although paul to his shame made some excuses and missed out on some really nice head high glassy waves late morning at Compton again

All three good days at Compton the swell size (nothing more than a proper 4ft really) period and direction somehow combined to give long rides with hardly any of the normal Compton close-outs you can get with solid winter swells

Photography was a challenge for most of the time though, shooting at high ISO and slow shutter speeds to get enough light in meant the results aren’t stunning, most of the shots here only really work at low-res and in B&W and needed a bit of exposure adjustment, curves and levels in photoshop, but some times it’s about the waves and not the pictures, and there really was some nice waves out there in the last week so no complaints here.

If you haven’t had a chance to see the exhibition yet, its on till the 31st of January, and as well as the new stuff from me and paul, there is a ‘history board’ with a few shots from the old days, and things are looking promising for the project as a whole with lots of people coming up with stories, photos and hopefully videos of surfing over the years, check out the wight surf history website for details and developments