Well the wind from last night continued throughout the day for a rare bright, relatively warm and breezy day. With it being the weekend I knew that there was a good chance that Hill Head beach would be visited by some good quality windsurfers and maybe the odd kitesurfer and I was itching to get out and shoot some watersport – it had been too long since I got some decent windsurfing photography time in. I checked the time for high tide, and headed out around 3:15pm to catch the afternoon sailors as close as they would likely get to the shore, found a space in the car park, kitted up and found a bit of wall to sit on.
Shooting at 200 ISO and f/4 I was getting fast shutter speeds and so I kept it handheld to give me maximum flexibility in framing and trusted my kit on continuous AF to track the guys as they moved across the water.There were between 20 and 30 boards out and of those probably only 3 of those kitesurfers – it was great to see some talented windsurfers at the beach which is normally dominated by kites. It became clear fairly quickly that there were 3-4 sailors out there looking to get some air, most of whom were chop-hopping, and bust some more extreme moves and so I focussed my attention on them with one in particular dropping and landing forward loops, lay-down gybes and either willy skippers or flakas.
I know it isn’t Ho’okipa, the water is silt coloured, and the sky grey but I’m really pleased with the 30+ keepers of jumps and moves I got from my 30 minutes of shooting.
Here are a small selection…
by Mike French
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