I bought a cannon multi photo/video camera when my kids were born to capture all the special moments such as first steps, first words, first time on a skateboard, first time on a wave. I was pretty good at this, even got the old-fashioned photo album to prove it.
When I say I was good at it, I was my only critic, who else looks at my printed photo albums (surprised there are still so many photo development shops around, surely, they will become as rare as a video shop soon?) I am sure there is more criticism of my Facebook photos, but I only get ‘likes’ so still makes me feel ‘good’!
As the years have gone by, there has been an expectation that I give up my morning sleeps, early runs, tanning on the beach or any other desired or required activity to follow my son with camera in hand to wherever he decides to surf to capture the elusive barrel. To date I have not only failed to see or capture the barrel, I have also not received much positive feedback from my son on the photos I take.
I do however receive lots of comments:
- You missed the critical part of the wave!
- Why didn’t you take photos of my best wave of the day?
- Why did you take photos and not film?
- That photo is blurry, it would have been perfect!
- I could see you weren’t watching me…
Every now and again I get a photo that I love, so with my genuine tenacity and grit, I sit on hard rocks until my bum aches, I stand in wind until my face feels like sandpaper, I hold the camera up until I get cramp in my arms and, yet I still have wobbly biceps.
So as ungrateful, the job is, unrewarding the commitment is, unnoticed the sacrifice is, the truth is I love watching surfing, so sitting with camera in hand is a joy and as the years go by I am learning what to snap and what to delete before my son gets out of the water.
2018 goal is to film and edit surf sequences for my son’s Instagram account, I take it as a compliment that he trusts me with this and realised as my photography skills improve so does his surfing, just check out the photos to prove it #bwahahaha
Stoked to be sharing my amateur photography skills on this website.