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

"i am surf!" - 10 year old raju

Here's a poster concept sketch based on a ride Raju got recently. The kid gets barreled a lot. Describing himself he yelled out, sort of rapping, "I am Raju! I am 10 years old! I am surf!..." and on and on.

bleronk

Bleronk. Bolex Super 16mm film frame.

Shankar, a surfer from India said to me, "You know, anytime I see these guys, they are smiling! I ride by on my bike, they are smiling, I see them out in the water, they are smiling." He was really blown away by this. This local crew in Bali is having fun just about all the time. It's why they are so fun to surf with,and so fun to film with. It looks like he is smiling to me here in this frame. He might be gritting his teeth, but chances are, with Bleronk, he's smiling.

dylan

This is Dylan Amar, from Padma, Bali. I filmed a lot with Dylan last year, usually while filming with Tonyo and Bleronk, and Blacky, and a bunch of their other friends. They're usually all surfing together. This was such a fun session to be in the water. It was absolutely perfect. The water was so clear this day, diving under the waves with my eyes open...it looked so amazing with the sun shining through. And feeling the power of the wave while diving under, just escaping the lip coming down. Feeling the the entire ocean around me move through. As I would dive under I could feel all the momentum of the water leading up towards the lip of the wave, pitching out into a barrel. To be right there, and to become part of that movement, eyes wide open in such clear water, it was one of the best experiences I've had in the ocean. Its hard to put this into words really. It feels supernatural almost.

shade

mikala

jones

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.