Alba
I was invited by Ben Gulliver to shoot photographs alongside his filming of The Seawolf, his cold-water, high performance, surfing masterpiece. I also made a little book about this trip which can be purchased HERE. The foreword for said book was also written by Ben Gulliver and can be read below.
It turns out, there’s a chilly little town beyond the mountains at the northwestern tip of the U.K. that’s riddled with every sort of wave you could imagine. We knew it was isolated and temperamental so it didn't seem foreign from our lives in Cascadia, other than the fact that the surf was rumored to be shallow and heavy. Too many trips trying to score mythical slabs and reefs shortens ones patience. And when you’re trying to make a film, fickle locations are maddening. But this journey was to be different since we knew there was plenty of opportunity to score.
A couple days in and we had already sniffed out eight spots within two hours from our lodging, which was tucked in behind a church/schoolhouse. We had our bearings and groveled for a couple days waiting for some swell from the north to arrive. When it did, it was a frigid paradise. Half the spots we looked at were barreling, with no one out. We moved to the most popular wave and met some local fellows who were suiting up. They greeted us with smiles and a dialect we couldn’t decipher. As our stay lengthened, each interaction was refreshingly pleasant; down to the two elderly ladies that served us coffee three times a day every day at the local grocery. I’d be a liar if I said I didn't enjoy their questions about surfing and our lives at home.
It was always windy. It was more like a hurricane that everyone seemed to be ignoring as if it were normal. It was normal. The North Atlantic is a fierce beast that takes no prisoners during the winter. I went for a walk with my camera one afternoon to film some bluffs and got hammered by the relentless gale. The wind pushed me around in a muddy field for an hour before I scrambled back to the car. We moved around the tip of the island where the wind would be favorable and surfed beneath a 1000-year-old castle teetering over a 1000-foot cliff. The wave was garbage, but the moment was exactly what we were after. There are many times on trips where it’s easier to stay in and wait for the waves to get better rather than go and explore a little, but we never fell victim. It seemed every time we went exploring, we found something incredible and different. I had no idea that on the West Coast there were mountains and islands with untouched white sand beaches and waterfalls spilling to shore. As they say, you get what you pay for and we got pure gold in exchange for long and exhausting days navigating the coastal nooks and crannies of this raw and rugged land.
After a couple hundred cans of Guinness, five bottles of scotch, four broken boards, and three terabytes of data, we had to move on. I have never enjoyed a trip quite as much as this one based on the crew, but also the atmosphere and history of Alba. Something about a place where there is no law against trespassing is wonderful for a couple hungry fellas looking to bounce off of some old – and very jagged – rocks.
Surfers: Pete Devries, Noah Cohen
Placement: Assets from this trip were used as a full-screen feature on Surfline which can be seen HERE.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer driving deep in a barrel.
A photo by Mark McInnis of several surfers walking across a grassy plain.
A photo by Mark McInnis of stunning cliffs dropping straight into the ocean.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer backdooring a peaking wave.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer holding two pieces of his broken surfboard.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer doing a huge air.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer walking against the wind up the beach with a massive castle in the background.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer doing a huge turn with grassy hills in the background.
A photo by Mark McInnis of two surfer walking at the base of a grassy hill.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer getting barreled on a left with stunning cliffs behind him.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a ram.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a man opening a gate, shot from inside a car.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer driving through a barrel section on a wave.
A photo by Mark McInnis of surfers walking on a beach, taken from inside a cave.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer driving up into a barrel with massive cliffs in the background.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer holding a board and half a board in the other hand.
A photo by Mark McInnis of the ruins of a castle in the later afternoon light.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a right hand wave with hay bales in the foreground.
A photo by Mark McInnis of surfers walking over a bridge taken from the water level of the creek.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surer doing a hard turn, taken from the water.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer playing with the wind.
A photo by Mark McInnis of three surfers walking on a grassy plain to check the surf.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a man in a red phone booth.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer doing a huge air.
A photo by Mark McInnis of three white horses.
A photo by Mark McInnis of surfers looking at a wave.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a layered landscape in the evening fog.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer in a barrel with a rocky foreground and stunning backdrop.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a broken board at a house.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer sitting with his broken board watching another surfer get barreled.
A photo by Mark McInnis of laundry drying.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a wild looking horse.
A photo by Mark McInnis of an idyllic lineup with green hills and cliffs surrounding.
A photo by Mark McInnis of two surfers watching waves out the front window of their car.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a waterfall and rainbow light refraction.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a horned yak.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer about to get slammed.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a surfer laughing after wiping out.
A photo by Mark McInnis of two surfers walking along a trail with the ruins of a castle around them.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a wave with hard offshores and cliffs and castles in the backdrop.
A photo by Mark McInnis of a man doing a heel click in the middle of a road.