Pure Simplistic Surfing
Stu steps forwards towards the nose of his board, the balance shifts and the power of the breaking wave drives him towards me as if he'd just put his foot to the floor in a sports car.
By the time this realisation processes in my mind I'm already pushing through the back of the wave as it breaks past me. The shutter has been pressed almost without thought and the moment of simplicity frozen in time onto the 35mm reel in my new camera. Beaming with the frozen moment burning in my mind, I look back to the beach as Stu rides the wave towards shore. It's just me now. Out in the ocean, kicking my fins to stay up, replaying the brief exchange between my camera and the ocean in my mind, wondering, hoping, and checking the settings were right.
I find it amazing, how even now I gaze at this image, and burn to be back in the ocean with the clarity of mind and simplicity of agenda. All the tiny variables, decisions and settings don't seem to complicate the image. I think that's where the simplicity lies, in agenda, not in process. In outcome and memory, not instance.
This agenda is why I feel the urge to drive 4 hours down the coast, away from the city, away from computers and into the expanse. The ocean wanders off into the distance much like any of the beaches nearer home but it's the beach that changes it. At home the beach quickly disappears into car parks, high rise flats and commerce. Not here. Here it reflects the ocean. It wanders. endlessly.
The beach becomes dunes which in turn becomes bush and off it goes, packed thick into the hinterland where it rolls and jutts endlessly away. And there I am, in the middle of these two vast expanses, floating in the water waiting for nature to do it's thing. This is what I feel when I say simplicity. I can't wait to get back out in the ocean, swimming between the waves looking for the right alignment of elements for the next photograph.