The phone always starts to ring off the hook when there is the possibility of a large swell hitting my way. This time Mark was rattling off some crazy idea about double towing at ‘The Right’, and at the same time he would shoot Taj Burrow from behind.
A few thoughts popped into my head. Firstly, Mark is absolute crazy as this may go extremely wrong, secondly, that if Mark gets the shot he is going to put a lot of photographers out of business and they will have to pick up their games, including myself.
On this day both Mark and Taj started with a couple of warm-up waves, smaller, cleaner and user-friendly. However it didn’t take long for Mark to say, “lets go this one”. I could see this dark mutant beast coming from miles away and knew it was one of the biggest waves of the day. They both let go of the rope so there was no escape; they were at the mercy of the ocean. I documented a piece of history, the wave decided not to participate – it shut down violently. Taj made it to safer ground, however Mark got the beating of his life.