Shiny!

My first gloss polish. Takes a bit of time but it came out looking pretty sweet!

A full rack!

This is what we like to see......a full rack of quality finished boards ready for their owners.

The Moors!

Sunrise over the foothills of Dartmoor. It' nice once in a while to forget about exotic locations and pay a bit more attention to what's on your own doorstep. The Moors are just a few minutes drive out of Plymouth and offers amazing scenery with it's highest point being 2,o37 ft above sea level. It's an epic spot to loose yourself walking for a day, drive by the mean and moody Dartmoor prison, bike ride, check out some cool rivers and perfect to let the dog go mental for an hour or two. Get out there!

Boojangles

Even our friends dog Boo, who is known for hanging out near the oven door and burying under your duvet, was struggling with the heat! Here's a pic of her trying to chill in the garden.

Reunited!

Joni and her dad, Derek.

Tea anyone?

Don't let this ever growing pile of tea bags fool you into thinking there ain't much work going on at Luke Young Shapes. Boards are flying outta there quicker than you can say "put the kettle on"!

Ozzie who?

A little bit different this one! You never know what the customer is going to ask for and in this case the guy wanted some Ozzie Wright inspired artwork with the word sparkles somewhere on it. That's easy you might think, and technically it is, but trying to come up with an idea is the tricky part! Black hull with angry clouds chasing a flying speaker?...why the hell not!!!!

Hoop

Captured this image walking to the beach to get some sunset pics in Mount Maunganui. Just thought it looked cool!

Jimbaran Sunset

The thing I like about this photo is all the activity going on, even though the day is drawing to a close. This time of the evening is when everyone comes out of hiding from the sun and there's always a buzzy vibe. The Indo sun is brutal so dog walking, football and beers on the beach are best saved for sunset. Not a bad way to end the day.

New York

My girl Joni trying to contain her excitement while making her pose for a pic, must be hard for a little kiwi girl to keep it together when you're in Central Park up to your knees in snow.

Spray jobs

Some recent boards sprays I've done for Luke Young Shapes. About time I got back in touch with my creative side. Ain't used any paint since I finished college! The owner of the orange beast came to pick up his board just after we took this shot and said he could "almost shed a tear"! I think we'll take that as a complement!

Welcome home

It was so good to catch up with family and friends after traveling for nine months but I must admit, I was equally chuffed to get stuck into some good old British fish and chips, washed down of course with a choice pint of ale...unbeatable!

New edition to the family

My nephew Wolfie. Handsome young devil, just like his uncle!

Who you lookin at?

This is Rudy, my Mum's English Bull Terrier. Don't be fooled by his rather menacing looking pose, he's pretty much the softest dog I know and just loves cuddles...if you can get your arms around him!

Sky Scrapers

A major contrasting picture from the last one. These buildings were at the bottom of the hill on Hong Kong island .

Hong Kong

I loved the mix of new and old buildings in Hong Kong. I saw these crumbly old apartments from the Mid-levels escalator, a series of escalators going from Des Voeux Road in central up to the Conduit road in the mid-levels (the mid section of the hill on Hong Kong island). It just keeps going up and up!

Bali

My initial thoughts on arrival were that of shock, even though I'd heard heaps of horror stories and that I should be prepared! I got used to the constant hassle and pestering fairly quickly, because lets be honest, there's no avoiding it, when you're anywhere near Kuta that is. But this is how I like to remember Bali. Watching a stunning sunset from Nusa Lembongan without the toothless old crones fighting over who's going to give me the cheapest massage!!!

Luke Young Shapes

The drips of resin really caught my eye while Luke was glassing this board so I took a quick snap. The application of cloth and resin to the foam is sometimes unfairly overlooked as most of the emphasis is centered around the actual shape of the board. It takes years to learn how to make this particular process quick, neat and stress free.

A whole bunch of blanks lurking in the factory just waiting to be whittled down into wave shredding machines!

Impossibles

Puerto

Another picture of empty Mexican magic to get the juices flowing!

South Ballina

You can imagine my excitement when I first saw this beast freight training it down the line...well it didn't take long to remember where I was and the fact that Ballina is pretty damn sharky! Every time I've been to Australia I seem to recall someone being attacked down there. As it turned out after watching for a while, these rights were just too fast and also closing out...well that's my excuse anyway!

Luke Young

I've been hanging out a lot with with my good friend and talented shaper Luke Young at his factory near Langage. Heres's a few shots of him working his magic in the glassing room and and setting up the FCS plugs. I'm doing the sprays for him now so I'll post some shots of my spray jobs when the boards are finished.

Zicatela beatings!

During my stay in Mexico I was put on to water photographer and bodyboarder, Edwin Morales to try and get some shots for the next issue of threesixty, I thought great! can't be that hard, it's just pulling in! So we met up on my last day to find quite a decent sized swell, small by Puerto standards but not what I'm used to surfing! I gave it a stab and as you can see in the second shot that it wasn't as easy as I'd thought! Edwin probably had a lot more fun than I did that day watching me get axed all the time. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" kept going over in my mind! We scored some good shots in the end so well worth it.

Whitehaven Beach, Whitsundays

Ever since my first Australia trip, I had seen pictures of this stunning beach and thought to myself, well it's very nice looking but I don't want to go all the way up there when I can just stay on the Goldy and surf! But my attitude towards only wanting to visit surfing locations has changed and I dare say it comes down to age, I'm no old fart, but it feels quite natural to gradually mellow a bit. I'm learning that there's more to life than just surfing, and having other interests is a really healthy thing. It made getting back to pumping D-bah all the better anyway!

San Clemente pier

A very typical shot of Southern California, the likes of which you'd associate with Pammy bouncing around in that iconic red bathing suit, however this was taken during a small break in some very savage weather, not what you'd expect when you're only there for a few days and Cali is usually blessed with year round sunshine! The locals were saying it was the worst storm in 10 years! Good timing.

Puerto Power!

Hello!

Welcome to my new blog. I do apologise if it seems to be somewhat lacking in content, but I must admit that I'm not the fastest when it comes to getting grips with technology or computors in general, so please be patient and keep popping in for a look to see whats new. I promise there'll be lots of images of lifestyle, surf and whatever else I reckon is worth throwing up here. Thanks, Al