This shot, to me, shows how intense surfing is!
This is the other side of surfing, something that only a surfer knows the feeling and I think this photo tells the story behind surfing I think the combination of the situation with the use of a slow shutter speed create that feeling of power and intensity.
It's rare to be able to witness this moment as usually the surfer is getting worked in the white water, but here my friend Ryan is trying to survive and make it out of the vortex and i was able to see the whole situation.
The leash being under tension, the position of the surfer, the explosion of the wave behind, this is something I've been looking for a long time while shooting underwater these last years in Tahiti and I'm happy to have capture it for the Energy category!
Ben Thouard

About the shot
Biography
Ben grew up in the south of France, his father was a sailor and taught me everything about the ocean.
Coached by my older brothers, he quickly fell in love with surfing and spent the most time possible in the ocean.
He discovered photography at the age of 15 and start shooting his friends who surfed. Ben studied in a photography school in Paris, He managed to achieve his dreams of travelling to Hawaii and shooting images. During the next couple of years, I traveled the world alongside professionals in search of photogenic landscapes and waves that has never been surfed before.
At 22, he decided to move to Tahiti.
Ben quickly made Teahupo’o’s famous wave his backyard and his favorite place to shoot.
In the last years Ben has risen to the top of game being the one of the leading photographers based in the the tropical paradise called French Polynesia. Magazine covers, advertising campaigns, award winning images from the water and around it has lead to global success and acknowledgment from his peers and many happy clients world wide
Finally Ben now dedicates a lot of his time shooting Waves and Ocean images that are displayed in Art Galleries.
He recently released his first solo book "SURFACE", a 184 pages, hard cover, coffee table book that includes some very new and unseen images.