TransWorld SURF Photo Annual-10

QHi TransWorld, In some photos I see water photographers in the lineup wearing helmets, which I understand means it's dangerous out there, but what exactly is dangerous about it? BEN GREER VIRGINIA BEACH, VA BRIAN BIELMANN is one of the most decorated, versatile, and talented lensmen in surf photography. And he's been a TransWorld SURF senior photographer since the mag's inception. “If you get sucked over the falls, or take a big one on the head, it can be really shallow, and you don't want to hit your head and crack your skull open.” WEARING A HELMET PROTECTS YOU AGAINST A NUMBER OF THINGS, but first and foremost is the reef. If you get sucked over the falls, or take a big one on the head, it can be really shallow, and you don't…

THE RIP CURL PRO BELLS BEACH, THE WORLD TOUR'S LONGEST-RUNNING EVENT was a test of both mental stamina and multi-conditional prowess. The comp ran at multiple breaks ranging from sloppy mush (Bells), to perfect head-high rights (Winkipop), to slop (13th Beach), to punchy weird beachbreak (Johanna). The surfers were thrown into every different kind of contest setting imaginable, and the ones who stood out and progressed did so by adapting to whatever Mother Nature (and the contest directors) threw at them. Rip Curl deserves kudos for putting on a technically fantastic event—the Webcast and coverage of the 2010 Bells event was spot on, and if there were good waves for more than one day it would have been a great viewer experience. Unfortunately the waves were primarily eggy making viewing…

GUESS WHAT? STEPH GILMORE WON A SURF CONTEST. I know, crazy, right? Yeah, this story is not surprising at all. Steph is yet again in a league of her own on tour this year with every other girl seemingly battling for runner-up at each event. The waves for the girls' event at Bells were some of the worst that we've seen in a long time. It was actually kind of sad. They made the most of their conditions, though, putting on a small-wave clinic for those of us logging on. 1. STEPHANIE GILMORE—Yep, she'll be World Champ again. Is there anyone who doubts that fact? 2. SOFIA MULANOVICH—Sofia surfed well in the poor conditions and has had a solid start to her year. She looked pissed off on the podium standing in…

MITCH IS ONE OF THE FEW AERIALISTS IN THE WORLD who is able to do full-rotation 360 airs. While it may look like he's just hucking himself into the air carelessly, there's actually a lot of technique that goes into pulling one of these things off. FIRST OFF, you obviously need to be going really fast, but you want to be in control of your speed. When you're about to hit the lip, you want to already be thinking about where you're going to land. Mitch knows what he wants to do when he hits the lip, which allows him to fully commit to the air. START THE ROTATION right when you're at the top of the wave by opening up your leading shoulder. Then, right when you get above the lip,…

$16 Available at Rite Aid, Target, etc. These are the first water cameras most of us used when we made our first attempts at taking surf shots of our friends. Not much has changed with these cameras over the past decade other than the fact that you can get them in the digital variety for roughly the same price. We tried an old-school point-and-shoot film camera with no frills, just a button to shoot the photo and a knob to wind to advance the film. The shots taken on this thing are literally hit-or-miss, as you need to be about five feet from the surfer to get anything usable. Overall quality isn't that bad, but you won't be getting a cover of TransWorld SURF anytime soon using this camera. All in all,…

$270 Available at surf shops and goprocamera.com The most popular new form of “shoot yourself” photo equipment is the GoPro cameras. With so many ways to shoot yourself and your bros, you really can't go wrong with one of these little beauties. It's kind of cheating though, 'cause we used the video setting and basically just took the best frame grabs for our photo picks. You can mount GoPros to your board (most people do), but for the sake of this test, we went handheld. When surfing on a wave in video mode, you get some serious shaky activity, but sometimes that works in your favor and you produce some cool images. GoPros are best (and meant for) shooting video, but while in the act, you can no doubt get yourself a…