Obscenely expensive camera captures nuance of Mark Healey's classic Nias ride!
Take a real good look at this photograph of Mark Healey from the much-vaunted big swell that hit Indonesia a couple of weeks back.
It ain’t a photo; it’s a frame grab.
After years of digital motion cameras threatening to steal the game away from stills cameras, well, here it is.
At least in theory.
The camera responsible for this frame grab (one of 1000 per second) costs $US140000. It’s called the Phantom Flex 4K.
Australian photographer Chris Bryan, who is forty two and the go-to for water shoots around the world including movies like Point Break, threw his bread down on a Phantom Flex when he got tired of paying three-gees a day to hire one.
And, when it seemed like the entire surfing world was going to converge on the Indonesian island of Nias to greet the swell, Chris grabbed his Phantom and joined the party.
This frame grab from a ride of Mark Healey is an example of how good the camera works. (Note: and this is a low-res version.)
‘That wave of Healey’s was crazy,” says Chris. “I don’t know how big a board he was on, this rhino chaser thing, but the…quivering… of the wave as he came off the bottom. The wave’s moving so fast and it has no back on it. You hear surfers talking about heavy the wave is, but if I hadn’t been there and swimming, I would’ve thought they were talking it up. When you’re out there you see how much water moves. It’s a lot heavier than the photographs. You get an appreciation of what’s going on. It’s like Mavericks with a little bit of Waimea mixed in.
“Healey got into this from further out than everyone because of the bigger board. His whole theory is not to get a ton of waves but a couple of memorable, big, heavy waves. So he waits for a long time. And, here, he took off in the perfect spot and the way he came off the bottom was incredible. I can’t imagine many other goofyfooters being able to do that. Naturalfooters seem to have the backside bottom turn wired, Jamie O’Brien, Kelly Slater, John John, but it’s rare to see goofyfooters in a similar position.
“So he came off the bottom, squeaked under the lip and I remember there was a moment when he grabbed the rail, went through a shock wave, still in the thing, and he looked so strong and stylish on his feet. He didn’t make the wave, it closed out in the channel, but the way he held on for so long, well, I personally haven’t been there to witness someone put that together in such a heavy situation.”
As for the swell, Chris says an Australian who’d lived there for forty years had never seen it so big.
“Waves were closing out the bay,” he says. “That never happens.”
Oh! And the famous boat incident? Where Chris shrieked with delight that he’d secured the best footage of his career?
“I was hoping was going to get sucked over. Is it bad of me to say that?”
That photo reeks of Privilege.
Deeply invested 2 minutes on my i7 further enhancing the camera…. 😜https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Again, the reason why you feel the goofys are nowhere near in talent is because more video docuemntion has been done at popular WCT lefts than rights. The regulars have more practice perfecting the butt drag at these spots to the point where they actually have an advantage because they can get deeper with that technique. But the guys I’ve named have thrown down 10’s and high 9’s regularly at backdoor during the Pipe Masters. Try watch the footage in a mirror. Their technique is there. They don’t have many opportunities to display it as the regulars do at CT lefts.
A pump in the barrel while butt dragging from takeoff is still not a bottom turn. Watch a pipe masters from the 80’s. MR, Mike Ho, Bugs, Shaun Tompson, even Curren. THOSE guys were bottom turning. They dropped straight down and then turned up into the tube. This new crew are riding short boards. Spinning around under the lip and basically drop knee bodyboarding with the addition of dragging their front knees and butt in the face. And you’re fooling yourself if you think anyone of those goofys you mentioned are more talented than the Hobgoods, Gabe, Owen etc at any facet of surfing. Where do you see footage of Clay butt dragging regularly? The guy lives for lefts and he’s an incredible frontside tube rider.
I’m all for supporting surf photographers but that screen grab looks worse than a shot from my nokia 3210
JOB, Slater, JJF, Andy, Bruce, Jack Robinson etc were/are not really efficient at backside BOTTOM TURNS. They “wired” butt drags from the takeoff and most of the time bottom turns are not even done. And the reason why it seems the regulars are more adept at the buttdrag/pigdog is because the most documented slabbing barrels are heavy lefts in Chopes, Pipe and Cloudbreak. But if you were to take note of guys like Medina, Owen. Ace, Hobgoods, Bobby even Kai Otton’s performances at backdoor and the Box, they’re just as good.
So much imagery being thrown at us. I find it hard to get stoked/fired up these days, but his footage of “the right” is marvelous..
Comparing frame grabs with photography is like comparing watermen with Ziff.
What I learned from this world-renowned photog: virtually all goofyfoots are shit on their badckhand in heavy waves.
that image is beauty.
That image is shot in steepiatone.
It’s the Times. The game seems New. Roman influence. Like Portugal.
$140,000 for it to end up on a website at 72dpi.. What an investment!
I know, horribly cruel but accurate to say 99% of people wouldn’t be able to distinguish from a frame grab from a $500 GoPro
For a hundred and forty gee’s I would hope it was capable of making me look like I was ripping but I still reckon LSD would be more cost effective for that kind of work.