On the morning of 27 June, 2015, a large swell was predicted to hit the south west coastline of Western Australia, so I packed my camera gear into my car and headed south the night before, arriving just after midnight.
For some reason, I thought getting a few hours sleep in my car in the carpark at Injidup Rocks would be a good idea. I mean, I knew it would be cold, but man, was it cold!
There was a bitterly cold wind blowing off the hills behind me and even in the darkness, I could hear the larger than average swell as it crashed into the rocks below the carpark. I didn’t really sleep very well, so as morning approached, I headed down the narrow path to find a safe spot to set up. There is something about the ocean at night that invokes a deep, primal fear. It is unpredictable at the best of times, but in the dark, there is a whole other level of respect that needs to be given. So I set up and waited for the first glimmer of morning light.
The two images below were taken whilst it was still quite dark, so a long exposure was needed, resulting in some interesting blurring of the waves.
The following image is looking north toward Canal Rocks (from a lower perspective) and gives you some perspective of the size of the swell.
As it got light, I turned the camera south toward Injidup Beach. The surf was really cranking and the amount of salt spray made keeping the lens clean an issue.
After a couple of hours shooting, I packed up my gear and headed further south to one of the popular surfing spots to see what was going on. It was already crowded by 9am so I found a spot and watched the surfers as they did their thing.
