a year in review
There is no 2023 year in review sorry! This year I’ve stashed away all my best photos for a new book I’m working on. Will be available for pre-order September 10th 2024.
a year in review
I’ve lived in New Zealand my whole life but this year I was stoked to experience parts of this beautiful country like never before. I was able to access so many new zones thanks to the legends at Action Sports Direct for the Ski and GFab for the touring trailer to haul it around.
Elke & I had a blast camping out for a couple of weekends at The Surf Lakes test facility in Yeppoon. Definitely my favourite swim of the year and rad to hang out with Chris Hemsworth (Thor rips!), get breaky cooked by Ben Player and listen to Occy’s camp fire stories. Can’t wait to see Surf Lakes roll out their commercial pools in the future. We came out of YouTube retirement to make a vlog from our time at The Surf Lakes, click here to check it out.
Thank you to everyone that’s bought a Print or Lightroom Presets this year. I really appreciate the support.
Thank you to Seafrogs (water housings), Need Essentials (wetsuits) and Sony (cameras) for all the epic equipment I used to create these images.
All the best for 2023. Rambo.
a year in review
I clocked up a lot of miles this year. Thanks to border restrictions and local lockdowns it felt like I’d driven our van 30 years back in time. New Zealand was like a giant ghost town. Stoked to get down South twice this year and surfed some new spots in both islands. I looked at weather maps a lot more and took a few chances. Most of the time I was wrong, but that’s the best way to learn ha ha.
Elke & I traveled to Queensland when the Australian bubble briefly opened, but then it closed, then the state borders closed. But what an epic place to be stuck! Queensland is massive and we had a ball exploring in the Trekker Adventures Defender.
Thank you to everyone that’s bought one of my prints, presets or a surf photo from me this year. I really appreciate the support.
Thank you to Seafrogs (water housings), Need Essentials (wetsuits) and Sony (cameras) for all the epic equipment I used to create these images.
All the best for 2022. Rambo.
installation guide
the sunshine state
2 Months in Queensland with Elke Mai. This was my first winter spent in Australia and I’m not going to lie, I loved it. Thanks to Trekker Adventures for the epic adventure mobile.
Burleigh Heads.
Like all great modern love stories I first met Marc on the internet. A sly DM about something I can’t remember, probably some camera nerd stuff no doubt. At the time Marc was the marketing bro at Rhythm (I’m hoping his nickname around the office was “Marky Marketing”) and was looking at transitioning full time into photography. It was a risky move sacrificing the regular paycheck and prestige that goes along with being a surf industry bigwig for the peasant life of freelance photographer, but Marc went at it hard. Pretty soon I was looking on jealously as Marc was taking epic photos in exotic locations I’d always wanted to visit.
When I relocated to Burleigh for the winter Marc was the only bloke I knew, so it didn’t take long before we were going surfing and having man-dates at Govindas. I mentioned I had an idea for a photo project, and even though I couldn’t explain specifically what the project was, he was kind enough to humour me and let me shoot his favourite surf-craft and other things that caught my eye when sniffing around his house. 
How long have you lived in Burleigh?
I’ve lived in and around Burleigh my whole life (37 years), though I’ve also dipped outside of the suburb from time to time. I spent my early years in Mudgeeraba, in the hinterland behind the coast, but first learnt to stand up in the Burleigh shore break on a cheap morey boogie board when I was about six years old. My folks moved out from Wales via South Africa in, I want to say, 1981? About 20 years ago dad bought one of the last remaining vacant blocks of land on Burleigh Hill which he’s since built a super nice duplex, sold one of them which basically paid for the land and build cost…free house! Smart man, my dad.
Marc’s favourite surf-crafts L > R
5’3 ‘Monad’ twinny by Josh Keough.
It’s an epoxy with carbon kevlar parabolic rails and goes like a bat outta hell! My absolute favourite board of all time!
5’10 (could be 5’9?) Channel Islands ‘Fish Beard’ twinny.
Probably my closest thing to a high performance shortboard and goes great.
6’11 self-shaped single fin called the ‘Big Banana’ with the helping hand of legend Neal Purchase Jr.
Everything that is wrong with the board is my doing, and all the is right is thanks to Neal. He hates it haha but I’ve got a special bond with it and it’s been very kind to me ever since. I swear there’s built-in wave magnets somewhere in there.
Alaia by Maywood Surf
9’4 Corey Munn longboard
Tell me about the little twinny, it looks like it’s been through hell and back?
That particular ‘Monad’ is the third one I’ve had off Josh. The first one I got was actually one he’d just finished shaping for himself which he let me grab. It changed my surfing 100%. It destroyed all twin-fin stereotypes of “they don’t go on your backhand” and “you cant turn a twinny”. It was the fastest board I’ve ever stepped on and turned as good as any of my old high performance thrusters. So if it goes fast and turns like a demon, I’m all in. I took that board on my first year away. It came to the Mentawai Islands (the only board I took for 2 months in peak season and handled everything I put it in), Skeleton Bay in Namibia, England, France, Spain, Portugal and Scotland where it eventually met it’s demise under the wheels of an RV. However, they’re so strong that it was eventually repaired and lives in somewhere in England.
This current board is now probably 3 years old and has also been to the Mentawai Islands, Western Europe and the UK. As my primary board, Its taken some abuse over the course of its life; the nose was split in a heavy shore break, the tail snapped off thanks to a high speed floater to the flats, both fin boxes and the leash plug have busted out multiple times and are basically held together by ‘beng-beng’ wrappers thanks to a Mentawai ding repair man who’d paddle to our island in a canoe, collect, paddle back to his island, repair, paddle back to our island to deliver, all for about AUD$30. It’s discoloured, has random strips of carbon acting as band-aids, old as wax job, looks like it should’ve been put in landfill 3 times over, but it has all the magic and spark as it did on day 1.
What was your role at Rhythm and how long did you work there?
My role at Rhythm was Marketing Manager and I had to look after the Australian, European and US territories. It was an absolute dream job for the 8 years I was there. Such a great brand, amazing people still there and some of my best friends have come from my time there. It allowed me to travel the world and definitely played a part in shaping who I am today.
When did you finish up at Rhythm and what have you been doing since?
I finished up at Rhythm in December 2017 to take a year off to travel and pursue my passion for photography. Within 30 days I was 11hrs up a river on an Island chain in the Mentawai Islands staying with and documenting the indigenous Shaman of the area called ‘Sikerei’. I then spent the following 2 years bouncing round the world ticking off locations that were high on my photography list including Namibia, Iceland, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Western Europe and parts of Australia. At the time Covid got really out of hand I was working in the Mentawai Islands as a surf guide and photographer. But as the pandemic worsened and counties started closing their borders, I headed back home to Burleigh Heads.
You can check Marc’s photography on his website www.emvielle.com (he’s got some epic prints available).
Go give him a follow on the gram instagram.com/emvielle/
winter adventure
youtube camera tips
I’ve uploaded a bunch of “Rambo’s Sony Secrets” to YouTube. These are a series of short videos where I get straight to the point and share some of my secret camera tips for improving the usability of your camera when shooting surfing and ocean images.
I’ve only just started out on YouTube so I’d be super stoked if you subscribed to my channel.
Lightroom editing solutions
Below are before/after examples of my current Wedding & Portrait Lightroom presets which are available for purchase as either a Lightroom Desktop set or a Lightroom Mobile set. These are what I use as a starting point for my Wedding & Portrait edits. Generally after applying the preset I will manually adjust exposure and white balance to finish the image. The presets will work consistently well on images shot with any brand of camera.
[ DESKTOP LIGHTROOM PRESETS ]
[ MOBILE LIGHTROOM PRESETS ]
WEDDING & PORTRAIT – MODERN LOVE PRESET
Drag the slider side to side to see before and after. There are 3 different intensity versions of this preset for editing versatility. I’ve used the mid intensity version of the preset on these examples.
WEDDING & PORTRAIT – LITTLE WONDER PRESET
Drag the slider side to side to see before and after. There are 3 different intensity versions of this preset for editing versatility. I’ve used the mid intensity version of the preset on these examples.
WEDDING & PORTRAIT – B&W PRESET
Drag the slider side to side to see before and after. There are 3 different intensity versions of this preset for editing versatility. I’ve used the mid intensity version of the preset on these examples.
[ DESKTOP LIGHTROOM PRESETS ]
[ MOBILE LIGHTROOM PRESETS ]
OTHER PRESET PACKS
