yeeeeeeeeeeewwww!!!!

Darmaputra Tonyo, home break.

Tonyo is all over surf news right now. Nice write up here: "In the surprise upset of the event so far..."

They refer to him as "...a small and wiry bundle of energy that never stopped smiling..."

He's even on Surfline: "making history as the first Indo surfer to make it to Round Three at this event..."

Surf media has taken to calling him Darmaputra Tonjo usually, with a j, and it looks like it's going to stick. In that Surfline feature, he's called Tonyo, Tonjo, and Tonya. Tonyo is his nickname, it's pronounced Tonyo, that's how he writes it, it's what he paints on his boards, and that's what his brother and all his friends call him. When asked about people now calling him Tonjo, he just smiles big and says, "It's OK..." He doesn't really care.

this film project on fb: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hangs-Upon-Nothing-a-16mm-surf-film/246361802068338

over the edge of the world

Chuck Corbett, twin fin cutback on his prized beat up fish. Chuck surfs with the reckless abandon of a kid, and with style that reflects the era he grew up in. On land Chuck sometimes reminded me a of a cartoon character, bumbling around, usually on some sort of near impossible mission, fully committed. Sometimes he's ten thoughts ahead of where he's at in a conversation. The way Captain Jack Sparrow walks, there's something similar going on with Chuck. There's this wander to his walk, an uncertainty to where each next step might land.

His surfing has this too. In the moment. Spontaneous. Flowing. A bit off balance and wandering at times. But there's this awesome style to it. Usually made me smile.

this film project on fb:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hangs-Upon-Nothing-a-16mm-surf-film/246361802068338

equatorial

Daniel Jones, hand on the equator. 100th post!

this project on fb: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hangs-Upon-Nothing-a-16mm-surf-film/246361802068338

shallow

Equatorial Pacific. Midday howling trades. Good at sunset. Coral heads. Go right.

reentry

Daniel Jones, atmospheric entry.

the next breath

I never truly felt mortal until I experienced getting worked by a powerful wave. Underwater, reaching a place where I realized, wow, I could die under here. It's only happened to me a few times. When it does happen, there is nothing that matters except the next breath. It's an amazing thing to experience.

kekoa

Kekoa Cazimero. 16mm workprint. "...best surf trip I've ever been on."

The full version of this 16mm sequence made it into the new Surfer's Journal, vol. 20.2. It's at the bottom of Michael Kew's article(about a different trip of his own), and the sequence spans about nine pages or so.

I wasn't even supposed to be on Chuck's boat for this trip, I almost got left behind. Chuck squeezed me on as crew. I had 7 rolls of film left. I surfed way more than I shot. And helped out on the boat more than I surfed. It was a misadventure, nearly a few disasters, such as the motor-less 60 foot Tuaraoi 360'ing through the channel into the lagoon of the atoll on the way in, just missing the reef.

It was an amazing trip of a lifetime though.

emerald on the inside

Caught inside. I got worked a few times this session. Offshore, green, and barreling.

end of the day

Dylan Amar paddling out. I think that's Blacky dropping into that wave. There were some pretty big ones this day. This session my aluminum housing hit my head hard while getting worked in a closeout, left a nice lump and little gash. It made me realize how easy it'd be to get knocked out with this big heavy housing. I went and reluctantly bought a helmet after this session.

deep

If you're wondering...he made it. Mikala Jones, glassy morning barrel.

bleronk

throw your hands in the air

Daniel Jones up top on his Bonzer. Darmaputra Tonyo below. Super 16mm film frames.

spray

Bleronk, Super 16mm film frames.

I've been noticing that a lot of shots that won't make it into the final film, still have really cool moments. Shots(clips) that I'd otherwise overlook. Now that I'm looking through some just for interesting frames, I'm finding imagery I didn't really think much about when watching through the footage.

The difference between stills and motion pictures is really interesting in this way. With surf photography a photographer can get a cover shot out of a ride that might not make into a movie. With stills, you only need a fraction of a second. That's not really an advantage. It's just a difference. With motion pictures, a shot usually needs to be strong from beginning to end, many frames in succession where the composition is sometimes constantly changing. For a surf film, I think this is most difficult when filming in the water.

There are moments in modern history burned into our consciousness as a result of still photos. I don't think these moments would still be remembered so clearly generations later if only shot with motion pictures. A couple examples that come to mind:

the kiss

and

"General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon"

With stills we remember the composition more clearly in part because we only see one frame. With motion pictures, especially when the camera is moving, or what's happening on screen is changing quickly, we don't remember as much visually.

Compare the two different Star Wars trilogies. The first trilogy is full of shots where the camera is not moving much, or maybe there is a simple pan. Such as shots showing the vastness of Tatooine. Those simple shots with strong compositions are burned into my mind forever. When I think about the second trilogy, I don't remember many shots...I remember more of a blur. The one shot that I really remember from the second trilogy was a shot that echoed the famous shot in the first Star Wars where Luke is standing outside his Uncle's house, staring at the double sunset.

I sometimes love shots where the camera is moving. It can work wonderfully. I like the contrast of cutting from a moving shot to a stationary shot, or vice versa. I feel like watching a lot of movies over the past fifteen years or so, that the camera is moving though, just because they can move it through space. And because of this, I feel like a lot of recent films have less shots that stick in our minds because with a moving shot we are likely not going to remember one singular composition from it. It's more of a blur.

monster of the deep pt 2

We had taken a day trip, and it ended up being a lot flatter than we expected. I gave the local guys my paint markers, and they covered their boards pretty quick. I guess they liked the squid, because a few of them started drawing their own tentacled monsters. They kept looking back to my housing for reference. This is Sablar drawing here.

bolex

My Bolex Rx-5 from 1967. Wind it up and go, no batteries or electronics. It works like a wind up clock. This camera has survived getting half filled with saltwater, and it is still going strong. WD-40 and some other corrosion blocking oil saved it.

grey

Bleronk on this one. This was the last wave I shot of this session. Light rain, ominous skies, and fairly glassy. While Bleronk and crew kept getting slotted, I kept getting pounded to the shallow sand bar/reef bottom by these little barrels. Pretty much after every good set the current would drag me away, I'd have to swim in, then work my way back over to Diah and the boys. Diah, a young gal from Seminyak surfs out here, and this was her first time trying it at really low tide.

wallpaper

Click on the image to enlarge + right click + save, if you'd like this as a wallpaper. Its 1650 pixels wide.

Dylan Amar, local surfer from Padma, Bali. Bolex Rx-5 Super 16mm film frame sequence. Honestly, no correlation here other than Dylan getting barreled, and the look on his face there as he paddles back....but this sequence reminded me of something I saw scribbled on a guard rail in Hawaii a few years ago: under the lip and smokin the crip.

swell

raju vs blacky vs kadek

Not really sure what the rules are for three player chess. This was right before an end of the day surf in Padma. Brothers Tonyo and Bleronk are looking on. This frame is from an HD transfer, though I did downsize the image. Decided to include the full super 16mm frame in the transfer, and I love the look. I like seeing the dirty edges of the film gate. Seems to add a lot of character, and make it seem more genuine.

I'm doing my film transfers in Chicago at Filmworkers and Astrolab. Ryan Emerson is the colorist on this, and all the footage I've transferred there. Just want to give a big thanks to Ryan, Duke Shin, and Chad Rohrback. They've been awesome to collaborate with on this, and have really gone out of their way to help me out with this no-budget film project/dream. Thank you for believing in this project, guys.

Ryan invited me in today to see some of my recent footage projected in their theater, cinema quality digital projection from the HD transfer. After more than four years of shooting, this was the first time I've seen my footage on a big screen. I was so happy to see what it looks like projected big. I thought it looked beautiful. The super 16 bolex footage looks like a painting in motion when projected big. Like a pointillism painting in motion. I had been really unsure of how this footage would look projected in a theater...I had concerns it might be too soft, or just not hold up. It holds up beautifully though, and I'm excited about that.

the surfer, the fisherman, and the barrel

Super 16mm film frames of Daniel Jones. The super refers to the wider 16mm film format, where the film gate is wider, and thus the edge of the film that used to be reserved for sound in years past, gets exposed also. And you get a native widescreen image. My cousin Rob and I converted my old Bolex camera to super 16 last year, and this footage is from the first trip I took after that. For the most part, it worked really good. A few rolls were all blurred though as I threw a few things off internally on the camera when I tore it apart to convert it. Had the camera serviced by Dieter Schaefer at Procam earlier this year and it works great now. I should mention that this camera filled up with salt water a few years ago in Kiribati, when the small boat I was on nose dived. WD-40 kept it working on that trip, and its still going strong, though it has a bit of rust.

I have a habit of getting my gear soaked in the ocean. While filming Daniel at this spot above, his last wave of the trip, he went over the falls and broke his board in two. When the front half of his board floated in with an oncoming rush of water over the reef that the fisherman is on, I went to grab it. I forgot my ipod was in my pocket. It got soaked and never worked again. My girlfriend had given that to me for my birthday. I was so bummed. If only it operated on a wind-up spring driven motor like my good ol' Bolex from 1967.