give respect, get respect


winter is the time of big surf on the north shore of o'ahu. sunset (seen here), banzai pipeline, waimea bay are some of the world's most famous surfing spots. storms in the northern pacific are the creative force behind the 15-20 foot waves battering the shore and attracting professional and wanna-be surfers alike.

surfers paradise has a dark side though. and i didn't find this out till we got back home. an article published in the international herald tribune (funnily a day after our trip north) speaks to the degree the locals are with protecting their territory.
the video is well worth the time too.

we didn't see anything like this, but of course we weren't really looking. but now i wonder why these two were hesitant to enter the water. were they newbies initimidated by the pounding waves or by the pounding they'd get for breaking an unwritten code.
gives a whole new meaning to surf and turf.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shawn,

I just read the piece about you and your camera phone images on PDN. Truly inspiring. Your words and images reminded me that photography can be simply enjoyable.

Can you tell me how you made your images larger in your Blogger template?

I'm looking forward to your future posts.

shawn rocco said...

hi robert. thank you for your kind words. i appreciate it.

as for making the images larger, and
i'm sure i can automate this somehow, but for now i go in to each post and manually change the dimensions for "width" and "height" and then change s400 to s1600.
but first you have to change the parameters of the #outer-wrapper and #main-wrapper in the Layout > Edit HTML. and that change depends on what size you want your photos to run.
best -shawn

argon(one) said...

another awesome shot. i found myself staring at this picture... staring out into the ocean. looks like these guys are waiting for the arrival of something...

Anonymous said...

Hey, Shawn. I'm not a surfer, but I recently moved to Hawaii & have tried to surf a few times, albeit, in Waikiki. I think many surfers spend time looking at the ocean before going out to simply make sure they know how the waves are acting that day, where they are breaking, how high they are, etc. to prepare themselves. Especially on the North Shore in February, where the waves are more intense. I think the territorial thing is a little overblown.