View the entire album at Smugmug

View the entire album at Smugmug

EASY CANVAS PRINTS

As most of you who frequent this website know it started as a daily surf report. Basically, Otis (my loyal best friend yellow Labrador) and I would head down to the beach every morning to shoot some photos of the wave conditions and I would post them.

I started shooting with a hand held video camera that also shot stills. The quality sucked and at that time I really didn’t care. To me a photo was a photo and besides I wasn’t trying to impress anyone with my photography skills…just how the waves looked. While I didn’t realize it at the time I was learning a new trade…very slowly. I eventually upgraded to a much better camera and began looking through the lens differently. While surfing the empty waves of New York will always be my number one passion I have to say surf photography is a close second. I continue to improve but am nowhere near being a professional….

Recently I was contacted by Easy Canvas Prints with an offer to have one of my photos printed on canvas in exchange for some advertising.  I jumped at the opportunity but had reservations about how the photo would look on canvas. I decided to go with a surf shot that I took last spring. The waves were super fun that day (in the chest + range). I was shooting empty waves for a while when I saw some driftwood up in the dunes. I decided to try and get a shot of these peeling lefts with the driftwood giving the lineup some depth and perspective. When I saw it on my computer at home that evening I was very happy with the shot. The only problem was there was a ton of glare from the afternoon sun so I decided to turn it into a black and white photo. I received some great feedback from friends when I posted the shot.

I decided to use this photo partly because I love the photo and also because I was curious to see how well a black and white would look when put on canvas. I was afraid that it would be too dark and wouldn’t show the detail of the driftwood. Needless to say when the print arrived (much quicker than I thought and in a perfectly packed box) I was pleasantly surprised. The print looked great and lost none of the depth or quality of the original. The photo wraps around the border and the wave appears to peel endlessly…

Notice how the wave wraps around the border

The ordering process at easycanvasprints.com is very simple. Here it is in 5 steps:
1: Click “Start Designing Now.”
2: Choose your desired size canvas and desired wrap thickness.
3: Upload your photo of choice.
4. Choose the border style and optional color finishing or image retouching.
5: Add your canvas to the shopping cart and proceed to checkout.

While I did my best to avoid the contest and focused on finding my own perfect waves away from the crowds, it was great to see the world learn that NY does get great waves….and we are only in September!  This could be a great fall with the second half of the Hurricane season and the beginning of Nor’Easter season here.  Gotta Love New York in the fall!  View the entire album at Smugmug

View the entire album at smugmug

View photos at SmugMug

Over the years though, these first few weeks of September usually produce some of the best surf we get all season.    Let’s hope that this holds true and we can see Slater and the rest of the world’s best getting shacked in the heaving pits of Long Beach…   Although something tells me that if there are empty lines on Fire Island like this one below, (from Hurricane Earl last year)  I will be on it and watch the highlights on the web!  Share your feelings on the Quicksilver Pro New York by commenting  and answering the poll question at the bottom of the page.  Click here for the press release

Hurricane Earl