It has been a big year for MRP, there has been big storms, perfect surf, and lots of kodak moments. I got a chance to go back and score my faviourite reef pumping in Victoria, and also seen many changes around The famous coolangatta surf breaks. Next year will be an even better year as I have my new camera and plan on more upgrades and lots of adventures through out the year, so I hope you enjoy the photos from 2009 and watch out for 2010.

Cheers

Matt.

Storms are one of my faviourite things to shoot, I love the moods and the colours that you can get out of a storm. I usually end up getting soaked by terenchal rain and have to worry about getting hit my lightning while using my tripod but the end results are all worth it. The Gold Coast is an amazing place for storms, downs south when I lived in Melbourne we would only really hear about how perfect the weather is. In November 2008 the Gold Coast was hit by a massive super cell, I read later that it was very close to turning into a Tornado.

I went down to Coolangatta to get some photos of the storm over the Gold Coast. I parked up on Greenmount Hill and walked down on the the beach to shoot, the Sky was the scariest I had seen it, abit like doomsday. If you have been to Greenmount Beach it is like a desert, even worse back then. So having a camera set up on a tripod while there are lighting strikes all around isnt the smartest thing to do, after awhile I thought I better go back to my car, by the time I had ran back up all the stairs to my car the rain was so heavy i could hardly see. Driving back along the main street of Coolie all I could see were blurry lights from shops and cars and managed to pull into the under cover parking. I was pretty sure I was going to crash but it all ended up ok. In the future I hope to go out west and see some of the big storms out their untill then i’ll hang out on the Coast.

Hope you enjoy the photos.

Matt.

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Mick Fanning is now a 2x World Surfing Champion and will go down in history as one of Australia’s best ever surfers and one of the best surfers of all time. To celebrate I have put together a pictorial of Mick surfing his home breaks in Coolangatta. Enjoy!!!

There are some amazing waves in Victoria that are well worth the search, here are some favourites.

Here is a selection of images of Snapper Rocks that I thought would show how much the beach and wave changes there, I have never known a beach to change so much. At the moment Snapper is going back to how it use to be before the superbank, Its probably already is back to how it was.

Yesterday I went to Snapper Rocks for the first time since the May Storms and I was shocked at what I saw, the Superbank is in serious trouble, so much sand has been stripped from Snapper that there are rocks that I have never seen before and the take off zone is totally different. There was about 12 guys out at Snapper Body Boarding and a couple of surfers that were surfing a wave that had a rock sticking out of the water just after the take off that they had to dodge, the rest of the surfers were down at Greenmount. It will be interesting to see what happens from here, I have seen Snapper bounce back before so hopefully it does again.

The first sequence Is to show how good this wave can be.

Nick Vasicek – April 22, 2009

And Snapper and the Superbank now…

Usually this pool is not here, its normally all sand. the pool is pretty deep as well. Snapper is a amazing beach the way it changes with the sand.

Yesterday I drove down to Byron Bay to take some photos, it was probably the nicest I have seen in since living up this way. Blue skys, light offshore wind, warm water and fun little waves. if there had have been a decent swell it would have been amazing but it was still pretty nice, not sure whats going on with the winter up here but it sure doesn’t feel like winter.

Here are some photos from the day.

Yesterday I got my new NDx8 filter  I thought I would try it out, I am happy with the resaults but it was a super sunny arvo and cant wait to try it in some better conditions. I have big planns for this filter, I am also getting some new gear soon which im stoked about. A canon5d mrkII and a fish eye, can wait to have a full frame sensor. So look out in the future for heaps of new pics, I might head inland for some shoots also.

Doesn’t get much better than Burleigh Point on a warm winters day.

On Sunday I managed to get away from the markets for a short time to shoot Kirra Point, Kirra that morning had long aqua tunnels that peeled down the bank creating perfect tubes, on Monday however I ventured south across the border to the Reef which was a whole different story.

The waves at the reef would have been an easy 8 foot, maybe 10ft, it was totally maxing out yet there was still rideable  waves if you made it past all of the wash through sets. The Reef was a mutating beast, waves were forming on the face, barrels were forming and heading back into itself. It was a very angry looking wave.

I have known about the reef for a while but never shot it until Monday, Although Monday was huge it was far from perfect and the wave can look a lot better so look out in the future for more shots from this break, and in the meantime try mind surfing some of these beasts..

Beauty…

And The Beast…

On Sunday the 12th of July we went to our first Coolangatta art & Craft market, it was a great day with a pumping swell and 25 deg weather. We had our best day yet at the markets and we are happy with how things are going, the most important thing is to get our name out there we think.

Here are some photos from the day, with Kirra Point in eyes view and only a short walk I couldn’t help but take some photos.