Season's Greetings

Season's greetings to all followers of the Rolling Road blog. I hope that you have a fun christmas and a happy and peaceful new year.
For all of us I hope that 2018 is peaceful and the mad men, wherever they are, are restrained by cooller heads.
2017 was a bad year for the planet and a particularly bad year for civil society in the USA. It was also my personal annus horribilis. 2018 can only be better.

Despite everything I did manage to take a few good photos through the year-except when I was in hospital even I was defeated there-and my favourite is this one. Taken on the last day of the summer school holidays in January at Avoca Beach, Central Coast of NSW,Australia. It was taken late morning on a very hot day on my Leica X Vario. I completely fluked this one and caught the boy mid air with the two girls framing the scene. It was in the last six for the Sydney Morning Herald 'Summer' photo competition but sadly I missed out on the first and only prize.

Surf days

In the last two months I have been looking at a book of photographs- A lifetime of Looking- by the British photographer Jane Bown who died in 2014. Jane worked for the Observer newspaper and was best known for her superb portraits of celebrities but she also photographed many of the newsworthy events in the UK in the post war era. She was a master of her craft.
On the back cover of the book is a quote by her-"Some people take photographs.I find them." This really hits a chord with me. I guess that it is something I have known for many years but not always applied .
 Our long very hot summer has drawn to a close-it is not cold but it has been wet and very stormy. Yesterday I went out to nearby Avoca Beach between the showers and the storms seeking to follow Jane's axiom and look for pictures.  The strong winds had whipped up the sea and the surf was big. I came back with some good photos. Today the storms had passed but the surf is still high and at Avoca there is a big surf competition. I drew an almost total photo blank. The one  shot I did get was of one of the pro surf photographers in action on the beach. He was using an enormous Canon lens and the latest Canon pro DSLR body. He said the total kit was worth over  $25000. No point in trying to compete with that.
Here's my photo haul from the two days. I am particularly pleased with the photo of the young surfer on the rock against the big storm out at sea-above. This one just came together for a couple of seconds. It was not staged. The sun broke through right on cue, a big wave came and he turned in my direction. Eureka. Sheer luck.

All photos taken with the Leica XV