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Stu­art Nafey Pho­tog­ra­phy on Face­book

The Canon Library gives you a “How They Do It” tour of a vir­tu­al lens fac­to­ry, show­ing every step, from raw mate­r­i­al to a fin­ished prod­uct of pro­duc­ing a 500mm lens.

Gen­too Penguin_DSC4143, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by jc_on_vacation.

Friend Jus­tine Car­son recent­ly returned from a month long, pho­tog­ra­phy workshop/trip to Argenti­na, the Falk­land Islands, South Geor­gia Island and Antarc­ti­ca and brought back incred­i­bly beau­ti­ful and amaz­ing­ly close-up pic­tures of pen­guins, seals, birds, ice and moun­tains. When they were not on land tak­ing pic­tures, they were study­ing wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy tech­niques and lis­ten­ing to lec­tures about the ani­mals and geol­o­gy they had trav­elled so far to see.

Only back a few days, Jus­tine kind­ly threw togeth­er an excel­lent pre­sen­ta­tion for our Feb­ru­ary work­shop. Those pic­tures and many more are now up in her Flickr gallery. Thank you Jus­tine!

King Penguin_DSC4613, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by jc_on_vacation.

Sev­er­al peo­ple have asked if I was able to pho­to­graph the Maverick’s surf con­test this week­end. I was on my way to ski Kirk­wood when I heard the Maverick’s com­pe­ti­tion was on. We had an excel­lent time ski­ing and I have no pic­tures from the con­test.

But there are plen­ty great pic­tures to view. The weath­er was excel­lent and the waves were huge. It’s not easy get­ting these shots since the breaks are about ½ mile off­shore. Either you climb the slip­pery cliffs with a very long lens or you beg, bor­row or pay your way on a boat to get the close-ups. As of Sun­day night, here are some links to the pic­tures that I have been able to find.

Flickr has a “Maverick’s Surf Con­test 2010” group with over 300 pic­tures.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mavericks2010/pool/

I like to watch the group as a slideshow. It fills your brows­er win­dow with the largest pic­ture it can and border’s it in black. Max­i­mize your brows­er and try it.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/mavericks2010/pool/show/

Sev­er­al encore videos of the live action and com­men­tary is on Mavericksurf.com.
http://www.maverickssurf.com/contest/see/webcast.php

Check out this raw video footage tak­en from the Chan­nel 5 news copter.
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=61790@kpix.dayport.com
Note: look for the “Chop­per 5 News of Mav­er­ick­’s Surf Con­test” video

The Sun­day Chron­i­cle has 2 sto­ries on Maverick’s, one on the front page and anoth­er in the sports sec­tion.
Huge waves at Mav­er­icks injure spec­ta­tors
and
MAVERICKS — Biggest of the big waves

And the Chron­i­cle also has 2 pho­to gal­leries of the event with over 200 pic­tures com­bined.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/02/14/SPBQ1C1FN9.DTL&o=
and
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/02/14/MNTA1C1AAA.DTL&o=

Reg­u­lo Zap­a­ta Jr. has pic­tures up on Face­book.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2056640&id=1215168613&l=3ff43523e4

Slideshow in the San­ta Cruz Sen­tinel:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_14396254

That’s a start and there are more out there. Some of the pic­tures are absolute­ly fan­tas­tic. The pho­tog­ra­phers caught beau­ti­ful angles with surfers framed by the curl of the wave, shots of wipe­outs are cap­tured sec­ond by sec­ond in burst mode and the spec­ta­tors and the spir­it of the event. It looks like Mav­er­icks deliv­ered big time this year and there are some award win­ning pic­tures that doc­u­ment it.

Is the iPad a new use­ful prod­uct for pho­tog­ra­phers and pho­tog­ra­phy in gen­er­al?

Pho­to blog­gers are already writ­ing arti­cles dis­cussing using it to dis­play your port­fo­lio, trans­fer­ring pic­tures to and from cam­eras, oth­er com­put­ers and online gal­leries, pho­to manip­u­la­tion soft­ware and even teth­er­ing it as a view find­er for loca­tion shoots. Tim O’Brien dis­cuss­es how the iPad can help visu­al­ly impaired pho­togs. Check it out.

Apple iPad and Pho­tog­ra­phers — G. Dan Mitchell Pho­tog­ra­phy blog

What the Apple Tablet Will Mean to Pho­tog­ra­phers — Scott Bourne Photo­Fo­cus blog

What the Apple Tablet May Mean to Blind Pho­tog­ra­phers — Tim O’Brien Pho­tos

Lars Howlett, pho­tog­ra­ph­er for the Half Moon Bay Review, recent­ly trekked in Nepal and will present a slideshow of the jour­ney at the Enso Gallery, on Kel­ly Ave in Half Moon Bay on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 24, 5pm.

I enjoy Lars’ pho­tog­ra­phy and expect this to be an excep­tion­al show. Pho­tos are also on exhib­it in the gallery until Jan­u­ary 31. See links below for the gallery and arti­cles he has writ­ten about the trek.

Among Moun­tains, Monks and Sher­pas

An exhi­bi­tion by Ocean Stu­dio pho­tog­ra­phers
Michael Pow­ers and Lars Howlett

Doc­u­ment­ing the Kar­maQue­st expe­di­tion from the Coast­side to the Himalayas of Nepal

Jan­u­ary 1 — 31st, 2010

ENSO Gallery
131 Kel­ly Avenue in Half Moon Bay

Slideshow by Lars Howlett, Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 24th, 5pm
Shar­ing 200+ images telling the sto­ries of the jour­ney

Gallery open to the pub­lic dur­ing yoga stu­dio hours as well
as Sat­ur­day morn­ings, Mon­day evenings and by appoint­ment.

For more info see
http://www.ensohmb.com/
or call (650) 726‑1409

http://www.oceanstudio.org/
http://www.findlars.com/
http://www.karmaquest.org/

Links from a series writ­ten and pho­tographed by Lars for the Half Moon Bay Review :

Arti­cle 1 : The inspi­ra­tion and train­ing for the expe­di­tion with orga­niz­er Kar­ma Lama and adven­tur­er Michael Pow­ers
http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2009/10/28/news/doc4ae8643d5c19d940114167.txt

Arti­cle 2 : A vis­it to the Teng­boche Monastery and a look at the spir­i­tu­al side of the jour­ney
http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2009/11/25/news/doc4b0d679a7593e578643673.txt

Arti­cle 3 : Describ­ing the ascent of Kala Patthar and the phys­i­cal expe­ri­ence of the trekking
http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2009/12/04/news/doc4b16ac7d194a0932695302.txt

Arti­cle 4 : Being one with the tribe on the coast with Michael Pow­ers and on the trail to Ever­est
http://www.hmbreview.com/articles/2009/12/09/news/doc4b1fec9001ca3373745242.txt

This is a tiny ver­sion of the video. Try click­ing the full screen but­ton for the best view.

From the notes on the YouTube video:

Bart Willems went for a ses­sion in 15ft surf at Mav­er­icks on 2010-01-10 and doc­u­ment­ed a ses­sion on GoPro HD cam­era. A 3 hour ses­sion is con­densed into 5 min­utes of high­lights.

Music by Jamie Shelly — Cher­ry­bub­blegum­c­i­ty (thanks for mak­ing good music Skulpie)

Pho­tos by Seth Migdail (thanks for shar­ing Seth)

Cam­era donat­ed by Vir­tu­alAfrica — virtualafrica.co.za

Thanks you to all the local Mav­er­icks surfers for shar­ing their Mag­nif­i­cent waves!

GoPro’s lat­est cam­era is a tiny high def­i­n­i­tion (720p), mount­able, wide angle, water­proof video cam­era for $269. I’ve seen these on skier’s hel­muts in Utah and I sure would like one.

Update: The wind knocked things down this past week but an even big­ger swell appears to be on the way (good for pic­tures) but rain is pre­dict­ed too (bad for cam­era equip­ment and com­fort).

A large swell is approach­ing the Cal­i­for­nia coast­line and is expect­ed to arrive on Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 13 set­ting up some pos­si­ble great pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties. Mav­er­icks could be big if the wind dies down. You might want to rent a big lens using the link below (wink, wink, say no more). The surf should be big­ger then nor­mal every­where so please be safe!

Check out this web page for links to wave activ­i­ty in the Pacif­ic and a web cam for Mav­er­icks.

Update: Strong souther­ly winds are mak­ing things pret­ty slop­py this morn­ing. I see a boat or a jet ski at Mav­er­icks but no rid­ers. Wind is for­cast to calm some­what and change more west­er­ly this after­noon.

For 10% off a rental until Jan­u­ary 31, 2010, click the Bor­rowLens­es icon in this post and use the code “2010” before check­out. Click­ing from here awards me some cred­it too. Thanks!