Andrew Quinn is a talented filmmaker, photographer and surfer from Manhattan Beach, California. Ceto asked Andrew to share his thoughts about this awesome shot captured at a recent “Paipo Stokefest” in San Diego. Pure stoke!

“My approach to photography is rooted in my background as a documentary cinematographer. I strive to capture unsolicited, vérité glimpses of fleeting moments which I was lucky enough to witness. This shot is the epitome of that ethos. This photo was taken during one of several meet-ups that have been held between LA and San Diego over the last year. Organized thru social media, people arrive en masse with their homemade, purchased, and/or custom crafted handplanes, paipos, surfboards, surfmats, stolen cafeteria trays, inflatable pool toys, and things I don’t even know the names for. After attending a “Paipo Stokefest” in La Jolla, CA and not being able to describe to others just how awesome these flash aqua-mobs are, I decided to forego catching rides on the next few occasions and instead brought my camera to capture the stoke. Endless smiling, hooting, hollering, giggling, laughing – it’s just ridiculously pure excitement. When I took this picture, I knew that I had just captured something amazing. If you strip away the machismo, ego, timidness, stress, or whatever from all of us grown ups, we’d all look and feel just like this. Unaware of the camera, not thinking about school, or work, or girls, or boys, or debt, or fortune – not even thinking about the wave he’s on or the tube he’s in – just completely engrossed in a moment, a feeling. It was as if the combined stoke and excitement of the dozens of kindred souls in the water was squeezed into this 1/1,600th of a second all at once.”

For more amazing photos from Andrew
aqsurf.tumblr.com
instagram.com/aqsurf

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Filmmakers and surf film lovers take note ~ SDSFF welcomes international filmmakers to submit to their 2013 festival!

Filmmaker submission dates
• “Dawn Patrol” Now until Dec. 31, 2012 ~ Shorts $20 and Features $40
• Regular submission Jan thru March 15th, 2013 ~ Shorts $25 and Features $50

All-Acess VIP NAUTILUS PASSES are being sold at a reduced rate as well. $80 until Dec 31 and $100 after. All films, after parties, panels, expression sessions, music, food and drinks included. HOOTS AND SHAKAS!

More info on SDSFF
www.facebook.com/SanDiegoSurfFilmFestival
www.sandiegosurffilmfestival.com

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“Today we’re doing a handplane shaping workshop in our new shop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. You can come in, grab a handplane blank and a spot at the table, and start shaping. A handplane is a mini surfboard for your hand for bodysurfing. They’re super fun and surprisingly effective. We make ours out of wood – Northern White Cedar. It’s all leftover pieces that were not used while making our surfboards. We have this new retail space in Portsmouth and we wanted to make it a little more interactive. We still do our classes back at the farm in York, Maine but we thought it would be cool to bring a workshop to our shop in town, and make it a lot more accessible. We’ve also done a community board building workshop here for a surfboard that’s going to be raffled off for Sandy Relief. It only takes an hour or two to make a handplane. You don’t have to sign up. Just walk in, grab one, and start going. The handplane workshops are for anyone, even people who don’t surf. Everyone can bodysurf.”

For more information about Grain Surfboards and their workshops
www.grainsurfboards.com
www.grainsurfboards.com/classes/course-schedules
www.facebook.com/grainsurfboards

Or to visit the store
The Wood Shop
74 Congress Street
Portsmouth, NH 03801

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Chris Burkard is known as a unique visionary whose photography has the ability to catapult the viewer into the moment. At 26 years old, Chris has accomplished a style and composition all his own. In this visually stunning video, Chris talks about what inspires his work:

“I’ve always just aimed to do something that would keep me passionate and keep me sort of smiling, enjoying every second, and being challenged. If you put yourself in the right situation, your work can really make you grow, it can make you a better person. As far as work goes, the ocean has always been my favorite canvas, although that’s not really where it began. I think it all started with a passion for landscapes and, for me, the biggest goal has been just trying to merge that passion with anything I’m shooting.

I never take photos to do a place justice. I just take them as a record of my experiences there. And that’s really the beauty of doing what you love for work. The search is your reward. If that mind set comes with you anywhere you go, then you’ll always be successful. The second I get outside of my comfort zone, that’s where I find inspiration. It’s those moments that test you the most ~ these refining moments. In the long run, they’re the ones that give the most reward. This is where the inspiration is. It’s part of the process. My goal is always to just compose an image where the landscape is the hero – where I pay homage to these places that we get to find ourself.”

For more info about great work by Chris Burkard
www.burkardphoto.com/
www.facebook.com/ChrisBurkardPhotography
chrisburkard.tumblr.com
@chrisburkard

“Insivity” videos  www.insivity.com
Produced/Directed by Kellen Keene www.kellenkeene.com

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“Shooting my Venezuelan friend Rossany Alvarez from the Junior Team who was visiting the island of Bali to compete at the 2012 Oakley World Pro Junior Championship surf contest. On this day the waves were very small, so I decided to do something different and try to get some pictures with a good background and also show her sponsors on it, so we got this great photograph. For this shot I used my Canon 20D, tokina lens 10-17mm using a 10mm on Av mode Manual Focus f/5.6, 1/800 sec iso 400, SPL water-housing.” Edwart

For more photography by Edwart Ramirez
www.edwartramirezphotography.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Edwart-Ramirez-Photography

Thanks to www.thephotographersjournal.tumblr.com for turning Ceto on to Edwart and this great shot.

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Ryan Scura and Dylan Ladds are surfer/filmmakers from Concord, New Hampshire and the creative team behind New England Blood. This visually stunning portrait of New England surfers offers a sneak peak at what will become a feature length documentary. Ceto can’t wait to see more!

Ryan and Dylan: “It’s been over a year now since we began this project. We have collected hundreds of hours of video and audio from the New Hampshire coast and its surfers. Our ultimate goal is a feature film about this community, which will be released in April, but we’ve made many short films along the way. New England Blood is the most recent, and it’s different from our previous shorts. This is the first time we’ve tapped into our entire collection of media, rather than focusing on a specific person or event. It’s a lot of fun to look through our footage and realize how many awesome people we’ve met. They’ve let us interview them – usually at their houses – follow them around, and stick our cameras in their faces out in the lineup. We’re very lucky to be working with this welcoming group of people.”

More about the work of Ryan Scura and Dylan Ladds
www.facebook.com/surfnh
www.thegranitestoke.blogspot.com
Twitter/Instagram: @thegranitestoke
Contact: thegranitestoke@gmail.com

Mark Tipple is a surfer/photographer from Sydney, Australia and creator of The Underwater Project. Mark’s stunning underwater series began with a split second decision while caught inside by a big wave: “as I dove underwater, I suddenly thought I’d see what the kids next to me were going through – I turned the camera on them.” Here Mark shares a few harrowing moments with buddy Mike while shooting his most recent installment of The Underwater Project on a razor sharp reef in the Cook Islands:

“I’m done bro, I’m done.”

With those few words, Mike rose to his feet in ankle deep water and began the 10 minute walk towards shore. Even from behind the waves, I could see a stream of blood run down his arm, and t-shirt turn red across his shoulders.

This was in the first hour of a 10 day shoot. We both knew the reefs on the island were shallow; we’d been there before and surfed the waves, but shooting The Underwater Project dictates no boards and definitely no wetsuits – meaning the danger of losing skin was increased tenfold. With a wary eye watching for rogue waves, I watched as Mike left the water. He stumbled on a few urchin spines adding insult to injury; and I wondered if there was something else that I could shoot underwater. After a few technical adjustments (read: complete confusion with new gear I wasn’t experienced with), the Mare Vida series found me.

To see the full Mare Vida series
www.theunderwaterproject.com/mare-vida

“The day before the destructive forces of hurricane Sandy arrived in New England, she yielded seemingly endless lines of brawny overhead swell down in Rhode Island. The crew rallied at a beachside campsite and headed out to meet Sandy in all of her dynamic glory. I captured this image of Mike in the midst of composing a sequence of steps and maneuvers to accommodate her complexion.” Arianna

For more great work by Arianna Photopoulos
instagram: @staystokedphotography
facebook: www.facebook.com/ariannaphoto

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Farhana Huq is a surfer and founder of BrownGirlSurf.com, a website dedicated to sharing the stories of trailblazing female surfers from around the world. Brown Girl Surf will soon embark on an epic adventure traveling to India and Bangladesh to meet and document South Asia’s first female surfers. Check out Farhana’s inspiring story about how this project was born and help make this journey possible!

“A few months ago I gave a talk in San Francisco about surfer girls who were challenging conventional images of risk taking and bravery all over the world. Girls in the Gaza strip refugee camps were learning to surf amongst dropping bombs and flying bullets; A 22-year old college student in India became the country’s first female surfer. These surfer girls epitomize what it means to live in possibility, against many odds. I wanted to share with the world these stories, as they represent what it means to live in possibility.

Cara, a seasoned journalist and video producer with Storytellers for Good, happened to hear my talk that night. When I started sharing my plans to travel to India and Bangladesh to meet the region’s trailblazing female surfers, Cara had one response: “I’m going with you!” And so was born Surfing Possibility: Stories of India and Bangladesh’s First Female Surfers! The surfer girls of South Asia have taken risks against huge societal barriers to do what they love. We want to take you on a journey with us to meet our surfing sisters, and to share their stories with you.” Farhana Huq

Be part of Brown Girl Surf’s journey to document South Asia’s first women surfers:
www.indiegogo.com/surfingpossibility
For more info about Brown Girl Surf:
www.browngirlsurf.com

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Adam Fraser is a talented photographer and surfer from Salisbury, Massachusetts. Ceto asked Adam to share his memory of the caffeinated antics captured in his brilliant series of photos from one hazy-lazy summer dawn patrol session:

“I snapped this shot during a groggy morning session at The Wall. It was knee high and glassy and I think we were all feeling as mellow as the weather and the waves. Mike had a cup of coffee from KB’s that he understandably didn’t want to leave unfinished, so he carried it down and nonchalantly paddled out with the thing on his board. The fog was creating this beautiful atmosphere around us. It was so thick that it dampened the sound and made everyone look like ghosts at a distance.

For me, these are the best sessions, when I can lazily slide into each wave without all the adrenaline and anticipation reserved for bigger days. The waves keep coming yet it’s enough to just sit out there and enjoy the setting. Of course, a photographer can never really “just” enjoy a perfect day when the lighting is right. So, I naturally paddled in and grabbed my camera. No sooner did I get back to the shoreline and start wading into the water than I see Mike coming down the line towards me on this wave. He’s sitting on his board backwards, clearly figuring things out as he goes. I fired off 11 frames and was lucky enough to have the coffee cup visible in 2 of them.” By Adam Fraser.

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For more awesome photos from Adam Fraser
www.afaceinacloud.com
twitter: @afaceinacloud
facebook: www.facebook.com/afacinacloud