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Alive In New Zealand – Ep 4

Boy oh boy was October productive!

You’ll be please to know I spent plenty of time in the water, some fish were harmed in the making of this and most importantly…… It was a bloody good time!

On a final note this year is almost over which quite frankly disturbing.

You know where to find me (hint it’s the beach).

-Sam

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Hammer Down

Usually in my weekly write ups I like to try pick a topic and write something thought provoking about it. I think.

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This week the hammer is down so I don’t have time to drink coffee and pick my own brain. I’ve had my best week on the spear with Snapper as seen in Saturdays vlog. I managed a couple more on Wednesday.

Sunday was a day to just cruise about. Managed to shoot some tasty drone footage to finish the weekend off

As for this weekend and why the hammer has been placed on the floor, we are off to Coro to hopefully score some long awaited wave skim! I’m not sure when I’m coming back.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Finding My Style

Photography and videography. What do you like about it? I bet the colours, the style and of course the actual imagery all have a big part of it. Sometimes a big part that people don’t realise is the personality behind it that’s selling it to you.

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This is a huge thing and is why some “Youtubers” are so popular. It’s them, not the actual content.

I believe I found my own personal style and interests a long time ago. I’m more than happy with how I see myself on film vs real life because it’s the same person. My photography style is one thing I’ve struggled a little bit with. Just this week I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I just typically snap away with whatever I’m doing and capture images. Slightly more focus is what I’m after and I do know what I don’t want to do.

There’s plenty of photographers travelling the world photographing the exact same places that everyone else is and it’s become so boring to me. Think the bloody Wanaka tree and how people go there to photograph what is just a shit tree in a lake. Creativity and skill in my opinion is hardly set to high and my interest has waned. Focusing more on my skill set is where I’m currently at and going to pursue!

Anyway last Saturday was a bit of an eye opener. I spend far too much time by myself and not because it’s my first pick. It’s because it’s the way it is and I like it!

Sunday I rose far too early and started shooting a little short film called “Addict”

I think I’ve found my style now. I’ll have to go take a dip in the ocean later to  ponder it.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Keeping It Interesting

Something didn’t make the cut in the last week. It’s nothing serious but it was a point I wanted to touch on in one of my vlogs. It was about keeping content interesting and in this particular case, spearfishing.

Now I consider my video content I create, quite different from most. Spearfishing videos for the most part are cool but repetitive and most people are even going out of their way to use the same music. Cringe.

Being a weekend and anything interesting vlogger, it does become quite hard to make content consistently interesting. Throw some bad viz, no fish and no dive buddies it can become quite difficult to keep it spicy. The same can be said for any of my interests I like to get on film.

I have some great camera set ups and do my best so it’s a welcome change when you can peg something nice and get it on film. I will be uploading the full snoop of the fish I’m referring to at a later date but first up is Saturday vlog. Work and a skim at Pakiri which was a bloody good laugh like usual.

And onto Sunday, the video I’m referring to in this here blog post. The dive itself was decent, just a little solo dip with far too many Snapper about. I honestly had a shocker with spooking several as there’s usually not any in this spot!

As for the rest of everything, I really want to do a better job of everything. Skimboarding is also on the must do list which is even harder to keep interesting seeing I only have one other regular skimmer. One.

That’s it for the week, hopefully we will be keeping everything as exciting as possible. Oh and I bought this this week đŸ™‚

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See you at the beach!

-Sam

 

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There’s No Kingfish Like A Stoned Kingfish

Kingfish. The hard fighting, delicious tasting and desirable fish of the sea. They almost always put up a great fight whether it be on a rod or on a spear.

The one below measured in at 97cm and around the 13-14kg mark. A nice fat, delicious fish that wasn’t a tough fight due to excellent shot placement. Just a slight wiggle, opened it’s mouth and started to sink.

I managed two almost identical fish this day and is included in the vlog here.

See you at the beach.

two-fish-blog

-Sam

 

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You Can’t Win Em All But You Can Try!

They say you can’t win em all. This is something until fairly recently I believed just like everyone else.

These days I do believe that yes, you can in fact “win em all”. It will however come to you in a way that you didn’t quite plan for. Picture bumps in the road or a pinball machine. This week has been Pinball ha.

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As I’ve been informing people on several mediums, I was going to be moving into a nice little pad right by my sheds. The keyword there is “was”. I sold my boat last Saturday after a longer than expected wait and now it’s looking like a longer than expected purchase date due to a couple of things out of my control right now.

Both of these are fairly major things to me and makes me feel like the little ball on that pinball table. Pretty much everything else is keeping the table steady with a few boards starting to sell and it hasn’t rained all week!

The last week was spent on a little bit of prep for this coming Labour weekend with a beautiful smokehouse build on Saturday

Sunday, with no boat, we set off for a shore dive up the coast where we were greeted by some dolphins. They also came through straight after we got out of the water but I manged to get them with the drone

Tomorrow I pick up a new camera body, the beautiful Sony A6300 which is a great addition to my A6000. I’m also settling in for a few days of beach side camping, skimming, winching and spearfishing. No boating though!

Stat tuned for the updates over the course of the weekend, it’s going to be a good one!

See you at the beach.

-Sam

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Hustle Hard

It’s always nice coming home. I’m not even sure if it’s nicer to go away, or nicer to come home.

One thing I do know is that the grind never stops and after coming home from an incredibly exhausting weekend away, that’s when the real work starts! Firstly it’s the vlogs which I always push to get them out in a fast but realistic time frame. Realistic is the keyword here so I’ll kick it off with the Friday arvo trip up and ripper of a Friday evening dive

Saturday was pretty much the reason I went away with a perfect forecast (after months of the opposite) and loads of enthusiasm. The best water viz, warmest day and best beach vibe I’ve experienced in some time

Sunday I awoke feeling like I’d been hit by a bus as is usually the case after a full on week. I haven’t shot waterfalls with a drone before but it’s something I’m going to do again

After the vlogs are done it’s time to actually rummage through the pictures and work out how they’re going to be displayed. I shot a lot over the weekend, haven’t uploaded much or worked out exactly how I will display them yet. There’s actually more nice ones than what I thought so I will add a couple now and save some for later.

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So arty!

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Matapouri just looking horrible

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Whangarei Falls

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Tutukaka in the morning

That’s a wrap for this weekly wrap. It’s titled Hustle Hard because no one hustles softly, do they? My 15 hour nonstop day is almost at a close and I need some sleep.

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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You’ve Been Warned

I remember the very first Tsunami warning I experienced. No idea what year it was but it was probably about 2009. I was working at the Golf Course and the volunteer fire brigade came into Omaha and told us to evacuate the course. For reeeeeeal?

Nothing happened and with several warning over the next year or so it actually lessened the credibility of it all. Then in Omaha and I believe around most coastal towns they erected Tsunami sirens. Big structures that they seem to love testing on Long weekends just so everyone knows the drill.

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Last night they issued a Tsunami warning after a 7.1 magnitude off the East coast which brings me to my actual point here. I’m a very heavy sleeper but I certainly did not here boo from those sirens. Maybe the person who’s meant to push the button was also asleep?

The last week as usual has been spent in the water. I even manged a bonus vlog on a very wet Thursday of my first Thundercat experience

Saturday was full on action with skimboarding, podcasts and Orca!

Sunday was dive and adventure day. No fish but look at the place we live!

I have some pretty fun projects on the go, one of which is Tsunami proofing my gear. Until then I will sleep with a life jacket on.

Orca 5 blog

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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H2O

You know what they say about water.

It makes the world go round.

Or is that money? Either way I’m all for it!

You can jump in the stuff, be under it and over it at the same time, freeze it, steam it, you can even run a business that heavily relies on it! Without water I would be bored shitless and doing something completely different with my time.

The last week, like usual has been quite… Wet. Saturday we had a winch session that was too much fun. Actually too much. Check it below

Sunday was a day for surfing. No other plans. We set off to Pakiri early and I managed a nice drone shoot in the evening

In celebration of the wet stuff here’s a few pictures from the last week!

Slothy blogMatt Surf blogMatt Surf Hang blog Matt Surf Turn blogScott blogMCB Winch blog

H2O. Without it, we’d be dead!

See you at the beach!

-Sam

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Oh July

It’s now August! This means that we’re in the last technical month of winter, which means we’re edging closer to summer.

This is great for some things, bad for others. July was super fun even though it was spent dodging storms and tackling the cold water head on. Here is the month in review

Vlog of the month was this walk to a new and absolutely beautiful spot

Picture of the month which couldn’t sum it up any better

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August is already off to a ripper!

See you at the beach.

-Sam