7th Annual Reef Sweetwater PRO AM 2011 | Oceanic Street, Wrightsville Beach, NC

July 15th-17th kicked off this years 7th Annual Reef Sweetwater Pro Am at Oceanic Street along the shores of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. In its 7th year, the Reef Sweetwater Pro Am attracts thousands of spectators, surfers and professional athletes from around the globe, flocking to the North Carolina Coast for a weekend of fun in the sun. Once again this year, we were blessed with a stomach to chest high swell that stuck around all weekend, providing ample conditions for competitors to compete towards the $20,000 prize purse. I shot the majority of the contest on friday, saturday, and sunday, through all divisions: Pro, Junior, Longboard, Womens, and guppies. I’ve put together two slideshows of the event. The first one is of the finals on Sunday July 17th. Finalists include Phillip Goold, Aaron Cormican, Fisher Heverly and Rob Machado. The second slideshow is a compilation of competition highlights throughout the three day festival. Enjoy!

Click the image for a slideshow of the finals!

Click the image for a slide show of the whole event!

Many thanks to the Reef, Sweetwater, Tony Butler, Event Staff, Sponsors, Volunteers and folks who make this event a success year after year!

Full Results can be found here!

Linville Gorge Backpacking – November 6th & 7th 2010

Took another trip out to the Linville Gorge this past weekend. We (John Zachary, Allie King, Drew Hayes, Justin Wilson and Myself) headed up there without a decided itinerary and we weren’t sure whether there was going to be any fall color left. But we lucked out and scored some great weather. There was still some great color at lower elevations. The weather channel was calling for snow, but we only came across a few flurries and a few spots where some snow had stuck the previous night. After arriving mid-day saturday, we ended up parking at the Table Rock picnic area. We then hiked the mile up to the summit of Table Rock for some great panoramic views before heading back down to the Mountain-to-Sea Trail and Spence Ridge Trail to reach the Linville river. After crossing the river and hiking down a ways we found a great spot to camp up on a ridge above the river. I’m not sure the mileage, but we probably hiked a total of about 10 or so miles. It was cold but we came well prepared, had a good fire raging for a good amount of the night and brought a heavy supply of hot tea. On the hike back we took a different route, which involved hiking a very strenuous up-mountain route to the summit of Little Table Rock which offered an amazing view of the gorge and the surrounding mountains. A great way to commence the hike. Here are some of the photos I made during our trip.

Shanice | Senior Portraits | Fort Fisher, NC Photographer

Had a fun Senior Session with Shanice the other day down at Fort Fisher. Here’s what we came up with.