The Church of Sustainable Surfing...

Has an amazing stained glass window...

The Patagonia Store, Cardiff, California.

www.matarney.com is good to go!

It's all done and good to go people...go get yourselves a cup of tea then click your way on over to www.matarney.com and check it all out.

Big props to Mr Yan Walton (www.yanwalton.co.uk) for his design skills in making it all happen, and to all of you who've been on my case encouraging me to do something with my portfolio for all this time.

I hope you like it.

DR

For a good few years now Dane Reynolds has been heralded as the new messiah of progressive surfing - freakish talent stirred up with a good dose of innovation and an avante garde attitude to the modern world of competitive surfing. I clicked this moment during his heat against fellow "next big thing" Jordy Smith during the WCT France contest in 2008, the sort of showdown that I couldn't justify missing seeing as I was in the nieghbourhood. The Californian has a really interesting blog at www.marinelayerproductions.com full of photography, short super8 surf movie clips and out-takes from the life of one of the most scrutinised surfers today, which must terrify his team manager at quiksilver...

shooting pictures not people

It's Rememberance Sunday here in the UK, and Armistice Day is coming up on 11/11, when everybody takes a moment to remember all those soldiers who've died in conflicts since WWI. At the same time, it's worth sparing a thought for those who were in the thick of it shooting photographs not people and risking their lives to show the rest of the world the brutal realities of war. Photographers like Robert Capa (who landed with troops on D-Day, above) and Henri Cartier-Bresson who went on to found the Magnum Agency, through to those war photographers sending back images from Iraq and Afghanistan today in the hope that we'll be so shocked and appalled by what we see that we won't let it happen again. Here's hoping, and respecting.

Mowing Foam

My friend Nick Blair shapes beautiful surfboards. Aside from being permanently stuck under the feet of top WCT stylist Dean Morrison I keep seeing his joistik logo in magazine spreads and adverts being ridden by a whole host of the worlds top surfers throwing buckets of spray all over the world. It's good to see that the good will out, and that out of the cut-throat competitive world of surfboard design is emerging a shaper with international pedigree and an eye for perfection. On ya Nicko.

I shot a study of him mowing foam a few years back whilst I was living on the Goldie, and since then he's gone from strength to strength, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.

There's a shipment UK bound in time for Crimbo, so check the website http://www.joistiksurfboards.com/ and get on board.