Folks, Marc Hand from Hobart in Tasmania recently purchased a fine art print from me.
The picture was a capture of a perfect 6 foot swell on the fabled Hobart point breaks, back in 2006. At the time, it was claimed to be the best point swell in 15 years. I just happened to be visiting at the time and as able to walk away with a dream stash of perfect surfing lineups. Images that I had dreamed of for years of being able to shoot again if I ever moved back to Hobart. Never did I imagine that I would actually stumble upon such a perfect point swell while I was merely visiting. The Hobart points are very, very fickle and only break a few times a year and as mentioned already, very rarely at this quality. Marc tells me that his new picture is a real stoker. He can go to the beach and surf on shore 1 foot junk, but the moment he gets back home and walks in that door, there’s the picture staring at him, reminding him of what it’s all about. Thanks for sharing Marc and folks, if any of you are looking to maybe obtain one of my prints or canvas gallery wrap’s, I actually have a discount happening right now. Just enter the codeword: facemate, when you are checking out and you will get an instant 10% pre shipping discount. Check out my images here and here.
* Both sites are running the 10% discount.

Marc Hand from Hobart Tasmania chose this cool Tasmanian print

I just wanted to point you towards a pretty cool on line magazine from Brazil called Revista Parafina . I’ve been working with these guys for a while and I reckon they have one of the coolest on line magazines that I have seen anywhere, even despite that I can’t read it in english. It has superb art direction. This is a beautiful magazine. Take a look at the latest issue here: which features a 32 page (yes, 32 pages) of my Aussie images I’m stoked on how it looks too. Bravo!

Sean Davey's Australian pictorial in Revista Parafina 27

A simple wave of the day, here from King Island in Australia. This particular beach is as close to surf heaven that I have seen.

clean and green tubing magnet

The south swell pushed up a bit yesterday, so Wire and I lobbed into the falcon, (what we like to call “The Mobile Couch”) and headed up north, to take a look for ourselves…

lined up emerald magnets

King island is situated in Bass Strait, commonly viewed as amongst some of the roughest seas in the world. It’s open to all manner of weather and swell, sometimes expected, other times, completely unexpected. These guys however are 2 individuals that I’ve totally come to expect to meet when visiting King Island. Usually, we’ll be scoping the surf from the dunes and these two Bennetts Wallabies will cruise up and hang out with us for as long as we are there. Folks; meet our friends Barry and Kev

The north coast welcoming committee: Barry and Kev'

Well folks, usually I’m on my way to Australia right about this time of the year and usually, I end up at this very special little island in Bass Strait. I’ve been going there for many years, Seems that if I make it there this year, it’ll be a little later than usual, due to commitments here in the islands.

Surf Heaven

With all the radical weather that’s been hitting the U.S. and Europe this year, I thought I’d spare a thought for our colder surfing bretheren. As many of you know, I originated from a pretty cool place myself. The Australian island state of Tasmania, but unlike the Hawaii’an islands, this place isn’t tropical. What it lacks though in heat, it makes up for in natural rugged beauty. This is a snapshot of my old Datsun 1660from back in the early 80’s. Yeah, the Tassy’s do it tough too, especially in winter.

Coooooooooool surfing in Tasmania, mid 80's Snow and all....

Being a Tasmanian myself, I like to head back there around Autumn time each year as it is one of my absolute favourite places to shoot photos. On my 2006 trip with Mark Healey, Jamie Sterling and the Long bro’s, we scored the extremely elusive Hobart point-breaks on what many were calling the best point-break swell in over 10 years. As you would expect, I scored a ton of great photos of my traveling band of surfers, but I wanted to take this opportunity to show that the locals are all over these waves way more than anyone else. Simply put, if the points are on, all tools are downed. I put this pictorial together for the Aussie site; www.thecollective.net.au
Check it out……..

Hi everyone, well, one of the trips that I worked on in Tasmania, Australia recently just went live on Surfline. I worked on this gig with a bunch of very talented surfers and cameramen. The surfers consisted on legendary journeyman; Timmy Turner, Tassy charger; James Holmer Cross and Noosa surfer Dean Brady. On the film cameras were Jonny Frank and Jimmy The Rat. Stills crew was Stuart Gibson and myself and the wordsmith, none other than Brendan “B2″ McAloon. One of the best crews I’ve ever worked with. Let’s do it all again some time fellas…
Check it out by clicking on the picture:

Hi all, it’s been a slow start to my shoot here on King Island, due to some unseasonally bad winds, but it is meant to swing round today. I held an art show last night at the Nautilus cafe in Currie and invited the town to come and look at some of my pictures. It was a great time. King Island Dairy generously sponsored the show with an amazing array of fine quality cheeses and with a BYO order, many did in fact BYO. During the 2 hours, several dozen people filtered through the cafe for a look. I’d like to thank Shannon Cooper at the Nautilus Cafe, who helped to put on a great show for everyone. It was nice to give back to the town that has given me so much over the years.
Back to surfing, we are expecting some good winds over the next few days and should probably be able to get a few shots of some of these spots.

Aloha

Sean

It’s now the 17th and I’ve already moved on to the final stage of my trip, up here on King Island. But before I left, I managed to squeeze in a couple of shoots at the always amazing Shipstern Bluff. There were a few name surfers from out of town like Jamie Obrien, Ryan Hipwood and Andrew Mooney, but the local boys held their own with the best of ‘em. Here, I present a gallery of pics from the sessions. These are of course not my best shots. I kept those for the magazines, but you’ll still enjoy these, all the same. I even captured a local guy by the name of Dom, who had the balls to bodysurf 2 set waves. (one of them in this pictorial. Total legend!!!

Hi folks, it’s pretty late into this trip now. I only have a couple of days left before I move onto the next leg of my journey. It’s also that time of the year here when Shipstern Bluff starts to show what it can do, so I thought I’d share with you the very first time I shot this place, way back in 2001.
We had just hiked the 1st half an hour of a three hour hike and were all watching this wave that we’d never seen before, doing it’s thing far off in the distance. Because none of us had ever seen it before, we couldn’t gauge if it was actually any good or not, so we just continued on. The fellas (Kieren Perrow, Drew Courtney and Mark Mathews) all paddled out at different spots on the point because none of them knew the best spot. A few waves, a few wipeouts later and they were starting to see what a mutant of a wave, it really is. Some locals including Andy Campbell rocked up halfway through the shoot and it ended up being one of the best shoots I’ve ever had. Even after so many years and photo sessions, some of these shots still stand the test of time. Enjoy!

Sean

Some of you may have heard about the 13 year old Tasmanian girl who was attacked by a 5-6 meter great white shark on the east coast of Tasmania back in January this year. I happened to meet her quite by chance just a couple of days ago and she showed me the remains of her surfboard. Judging by the bite in the surfboard, the shark must have been a submarine of a thing. The girl who’s name is Hannah Mighall impressed me with her attitude. Certainly she doesn’t hold it against the shark at all and pretty much put’s it down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Apparently the shark had her in it’s mouth and was shaking her around, much like a pet dog does with it’s favourite toy. For some reason, the shark let go and her cousin: Syb Mundy, who happened to be surfing near her, placed her on his back and paddled back to shore, all the while with the shark following closely. The shark was so determined to follow, that it ended up being almost beached in the shallow water near the shoreline before finally turning around and heading back out to sea. My hat go’s off to Hannah Mighall because she has even gone surfing again despite more than 200 stitches from the attack and plans to be a marine biologist. Now that’s a great fighting spirit, if ever I heard of one. Hats off to Syb Mundy as well for saving Hannah and fighting the shark off, each time it went for them.
Sean

Hi folks
just sharing some more images from the past week with you, here in Tasmania. The water here is soooooo clean. Everywhere we went, there was never any murky water. Just pristine white beaches with clear torquise waters. You’ve gotta love that, eh. :)

Sean

Hi everyone. I’ve been traveling very intensely during the past week and have not been able to get anywhere near a computer, to give you any updates. Now of course, I have. In this last week, our group traveled more than 1,000 kms by road, a few hundred by boat, long days in the elements, I had a half day of severe sunstroke. wallaby’s were spotted, grinding barrels were had, hysterical laughter ensued, a couple of cramped calf muscles from the cold, and a smile as wide as you’ll ever see on this face. It’s been a non-stop road to adventure, sometimes mellow, always promising an awesome scenic experience at every turn. Here is a selection of recent images.

Cheerio from Tassy.

Sean

Hi folks, it’s been a busy few last days at the O’Neill Cold Water Classic at Marrawah, right here in beautiful Tasmania, Australia. I’ve been kept so busy shooting with all the great surf that I’ve not been able to convert files over for you to view from the past few days. I just drove 6 hours to Hobart, immediately after the event finished. Here, I present you 3 images from the O’Neill website.

* Also if you’d like to take a look at the images that we (myself and Billy Morris) shot for O’Neill, visit their
O’Neill CWC

Then select whichever day, you’d like to see, then the Photos tab. (You have to select the day first before you press on the Photo tab, for it to function correctly)

As for me, I’m now in Hobart, about to embark on another 6 day mission, this time into the deep south. I will be making sporadic reports from the field. Hopefully, I’ll have more internet access this time round.
Enjoy!

Following on from my report, yesterday, here are some more images from the epic day of waves, had at the Oneill Cold Water Classic, a few days ago. Enjoy!

Sean

Alrighty then. Time has come to “pull up stakes” (Aussie lingo for packing up camp) and make the big drive up to the far north west of the state, to a small farming community known as Marrawah. For the next 8 or 9 days, this place will have a couple of hundred foreign surfers in town, competing at the Oneill Cold Water Classic. A 6 star World Qualifying Series event. That’s as big as they get folks.

My travelling partners will be Flynn Novak, ezra Sitt and Mason Ho, all from the north shore. Pancho Sullivan was to come along also, but injured his back recently during a rare big wave episode on the north shore. I say “rare” because there’s been hardly any big swells this year. As Pancho says: “I feel like I’m 80 years old right now, me backs so fingered” Get well soon Panch’!
In the meantime, here’s a few scenes from where we are headed to…