I was on an Arizona Highways PhotoScapes Women’s Retreat in mid-April and had an amazing time shooting along the Central Coast of California. We were based out of Morro Bay.

There were so many great photo opportunities that I decided to break down the trip into sections. The first one is one of my favorite things to photograph…surfing. What a difficult sport. Like anything, it takes such dedication to be any good at it.

Let’s begin with something I’ve never seen before…remote control SURFING!!

His board was probably a foot long and the controller was standing in the surf, just off the pier, having him surf the smaller waves. I must say, he was pretty good!

Now, on to the dedication part. The temps were in the high 40’s each morning. These guys were decked in full, hooded wetsuits WITH booties. No thank you. Too cold for this lover of oceans.

Even in Cayucos, near the pier, in the afternoon temps of mid-60’s, full wetsuits, booties and hoods were the norm.

We ended up in Cayucos, north of Morro Bay, for our afternoon/sunset shooting location. Photographing surfers from the pier was great fun. I shot all of these images with my Lumix GX-8 and 14-150 mm (28-300 mm with a crop sensor) setu-up.

High shutter speed is a must. Photographing the wipe-outs was just as fun as a good run!

There was a lone stand up paddle board surfer.

It seemed to me that catching waves was easier for him as he was already up on the board and used his paddle to drop in.

Once there he just had to balance and not let go of his paddle.

Paddleing out seemed to have its challenges though. He had the paddle to occupy one hand and a board to occupy the other as he crashed through the waves to get out for another set. It all looked very exhausting.

Most of the surfers were on longboards and these two guys were all about walking out to the end of their boards and “Hanging Ten”.

There were a couple of young guys out on their short boards working the waves.

These two joined the mix late in the afternoon. They seriously looked like synchronized swimmers heading out on their boards with pointed toes at the ends of legs that were moving up and down in a rhythmic kicking motion timed to their arm strokes. The boys became less focussed once these two showed up. 😉

At the end of a session, walking out of the surf on a lonely beach shows the potential solitude of surfing.

This was new to me. Covering a board before loading it up after a morning in the water.

Back in Cayucos, the sun setting and a lone surfer calling it a day.

I decided to put these end of the day, sunset images into black and white. I really like how they turned out.

Check out the Arizona Highways PhotoScapes site for information on our upcoming Women’s Retreats and co-ed workshops. It’s shaping up to be a busy workshop year! AHPS.org 

Happy Shooting!