One of my favourite sports to shoot is surfing and especially down at Australia's own Bells Beach. This is my first year of shooting the Billabong Pro Junior and the talent on display was impressive and will surely cement Australia's future in producing tomorrow's surfing world champions. In action sports lighting is ever important for premium photographic results and most of 'Page 1' was shot on Friday beginning at around 0000 to 1500 hrs. This time of day is typically very boring in regard to lighting conditions and not when you want to shoot if you are aiming to produce the most pleasing results as opposed to simply being paid to cover an assignment and instructed to 'Just get the shot'.
To demonstrate the difference in lighting; the picture above on 'Page 1' and all of the subsequent images were shot between 0700 to 0930 hrs the next day early Saturday morning. The difference is clear. To be the only man standing on the beach shooting in freezing 8°C temperatures with an Antarctic blast coming straight at you making it feel way under sub zero is not a natural activity to want to do but doing the counterintuitive things at all the critical moments like in many other endeavours is actually the way to get the best results.
To be ready to start shooting this early it helps tremendously to seek overnight accommodation in the events general location and in the morning set your alarm for an easy rollout to begin capturing the best lighting of the day. As a side note; I like to always get there at least 30min before proceedings are scheduled to start to get set-up and check camera settings which may sound simple but as any Pro will tell you many a full days shooting has been ruined from skipping this critical step.
