i’ve know Neal Miyake for a very long time. he use to shoot Backdoor all the time back in the early 1990’s. he’s a really good photographer with unique and artistic angles. i saw him out at Bowls the other day and he was in the perfect spot when a took off on a set. i knew he had a fisheye so i had to get really close.
so i’m flying down the wave on a very fast section. i saw Neal and i had 2 choices: one was to do a floater so i could keep up with the wave after the section. that photo would have turned out average. the second choice was to do a big turn right in the pocket for the photo, and forget about completing the wave. and as a surfer, you have to make that decision in a split second. one part of me wanted to float over that section because i could have done 4 more turns after. another part of me wanted to do a turn so i could get the shot. what did i choose??? i chose the middle choice which was to try to do both. and guess what? i failed a 100%! Neal did his part in capturing a close up super sharp photo. but i didn’t do my part because you could tell by my expression, i was confused. that one was on me…
back in the day, my job was to get the shot no matter what. so when i was paddling out, Neal was laughing at me because he knew i screwed up. haha. next time i see him out, i’m going to put my mentality back in the 1990’s and get the job done. i won’t fail again!
