If everything from architecture to furniture making can be Art Nouveau – then busting aerials and shooting can too. |
Aerial surfing began in the 1980s (though some argue earlier) as a reaction to the 1970s disco moves, and survived – no flourished – despite so called purists like 1977 world champion Shaun Thomson’s protests. “I think aerials are the biggest hoax ever perpetuated on modern surfing. They’re just trying for aerials on every wave, and they don’t realize that 99.9 percent of the photos they see in the magazines are flying kick-outs.”
Now to be fair to Shaun, I’m positive the power airs of guys like Martin Potter, Matt Archbold and Dane Reynolds have (over time) twisted the South African legends arm to the positive.
It’s even harder not to appreciate the modern aerial specialists – especially today. Creative heads like Kai Neville and Taylor Steele and their surf-film out put can’t be ignored. Even by those with heads firmly in the sand. Sure Kai’s Modern Collective movie was an over publicized, commercially hyped monster, but the vision was anything but pedestrian. Smokey intros and arty cut a ways dazzled the eyes while mind-blowing airs filled the screens.
I even liked the session based editing that allowed us to witness airs gone wrong (a no no for a long time and probably not Shaun’s cup of tea).
But I did not wee myself with delight. These two new clips from Kai however won me over hook line rod and wheel. Described as Landscape Altered (a four-part web series) Kai dragged Mitch Coleborn, Clay Marzo, Jay Davies, Josh Kerr and Chippa Wilson on a (dodgy looking) boat trip through Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands on a mission to film the winning wave of the 2010 Kustom Air Strike. The online shootout has started (kustomairstrike.com) and runs until end of August 2010. But big money (50K US) isn’t the only carrot for these boys – feeding of each other’s surfing seems to work just as well.
And knowing someone like Kai is there to document it, and then present it to the surfing populous is enough for any well respecting show off to go big… It is Air Nouveau after all.
Landscape Altered – Episode 1 from Kustom Airstrike on Vimeo.
Landscape Altered – Episode 2 from Kustom Airstrike on Vimeo.
Note: What camera did Kai use? “…shot on a Sony EX1 with a few 7D lifestyle cutaways.”