Some sports are just so visually stunning that you don’t need to ask why someone would ever want to do them. Surfing—the activity in which you stand on a board and accelerate across a massive moving wall of water that’s curling over into a beautiful and perfect blue cylinder—is just one of the sports.
Of course, surfing doesn’t always look like that and the proof is anytime I try it. I’m a total kook when it comes to surfing, and when I do it, it looks more like a rag doll getting thrashed around in the spin cycle.
But as a visual person, I can’t help but find myself drawn to surfing imagery and films.
“Teahupo’o, Du Ciel” is one of the more insanely beautiful bits of film that I’ve come across lately. This new video from Eric Sterman & Brent Bielmann, shot for Surfing Magazine, is a short piece that captures the surfing at Teahupo’o, one of the most famous waves in the world, located in French Polynesia.
What I found so interesting about this video is that it’s filmed entirely using drones. In doing so, the filmmakers have captured their sport from a new perspective, one that shows how the waves look from the air, how shallow the water is at the reef, how the surfers position themselves in relation to the wave, and just how improbable it really is to see a tiny person standing on a styrofoam board being shot out of a frothing pipe like a cannonball.
The other cool part of this video is that it’s almost a behind-the-scenes look at how surfing imagery is made. You see photographers treading water in the pipe and narrowly dodging surfers zooming past their lenses. You also see all the boats on the sidelines, from which they staged this production.
Hats off to Eric and Brent for this great video: stunning, informative footage, really interesting and a great music track to boot!
