A big south swell was pounding the southern coast of Maui, especially La Perouse Bay. Ekolu Kalama told me he was going out so we packed up and cruised down there. I did not nail this shot but it still turned out great. After this wipe out, Ekolu described the following beating he took as violent and said there was nothing to do while you are being held under but sing church songs to yourself. He also said "There are no atheists in the impact zone" and it really stuck in my head. These waves have some serious power! More pictures and video coming soon! Ekolu Kalama catches a big wave at La Perouse Bay. After I filmed this he was describing what it was like and what stuck in my head was "There are no atheists in the impact zone." The wave before this one, before I was flying, was even bigger and he nailed it. I have been bummed all day that I missed it. These waves are moving really fast and I can't get my Phantom to keep up. It was flying full bore 11 m/s and was falling behind. Not a shining example of drone flying, but I still think it is interesting.
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A few months ago GoPro contacted me about the whale footage I shot and I also showed them the footage of Ekolu Kalama and they wanted to use both sets of footage! Getting footage that is good enough for GoPro is something I am proud of because I get to see it next to all the other amazing footage that is shot on GoPro. I have not been flying much in the past month or two because I have been focused on learning to surf but I am finally going to fly again with Ian and Marty from DroneMaui.com. We are going to go fly around the windmills / wind turbines on the west side of Maui early Friday morning. Hopefully we get some cool footage - I love collaborating with these guys! Below are the two videos that GoPro put together. In general, the edits turned out pretty cool but my favorite thing they did was to add some sound effects like the sound of waves and the whales exhaling. I am about 100% they did not pull that from the original sound files! I am really looking forward to getting more awesome footage this winter from my drone in maui! Aerial photography is so damn fun. Both of these videos were shot on the GoPro Black at 720 120FPS. The GoPro takes awesome videos of surfing and whales but it is also an amazing camera to shoot your kids with. Some of my favorite family videos have been shot on the GoPro. The wide angle lens makes it easy to get everything in frame. I love my GoPro! Today (March 6 2014) I went to Ho'okipa to film because the waves finally were getting good again after being so huge they were closing out and rendering Ho'okipa unsurfable (but very incredible to wave watch). I was fortunate enough to have Ekolu Kalama as my subject again. His style on the stand up board is just unreal. I am getting better at filming surfers, but you can tell that I am still learning because a wave almost ate my Phantom and one time I could not keep up with Ekolu because he was just ripping all over this wave - left, right, up, down - hard to follow in the fatshark video goggles on shore. I trust the Phantom 2 platform enough to get within a few feet of the waves and this is surely going to cost me a drone eventually. The footage is so cool that I am willing to risk it, it is why I own this cool toy isn't it? |
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