Well, by now you probably know Jordy Smith made us proud once again. If not, read my story and check my images on http://www.wavescape.co.za/breaking-news/breaking-news/smith-strikes-again.html

This year´s Billabong PRO has been my most intense one to date, with me writing, editing, teaching, learning and taking photos all in one go. I still have so much to learn, but I feel that I also gained valuable experience and learned a couple of lessons during this stint.

The final day was just a cherry on the cake, and I think I was about the only photographer with a 600mm lens taking photos out there.  Karen Wilson was also cruizing around with her 300mm Canon. Needless to say, it was so dark I had to crank my ISO settings up to 6400 at times shooting at 1000th of a second with an aperture on F4 most of the time. At one point the whole backside of my D3 got wet and I just wiped it dry with a towel after taking a couple of frames.

You will notice the photos are pretty grainy, but it suits the conditions, because most of the time the lens had droplets on and it was raining cats and dogs through all the heats. Fortunately I could camp in the JBU stand, and it helped me so much, that I even thanked the JBU guys for allowing me to stand there in the press release. There was just no other way that I would even remotely have been able to keep the lens and camera dry and still take all the photos I did.

This week I will be catching up on things in the office, and we will be covering the next Bloodscan EP trials in Pipe (Hobie Beach) PE. Wavescape has also come on board as the media partner, and I will probably be doing something similar than what I did with the Billabong PRO.