Night Surfing Waikiki with John Hook

Waikiki, Hawaii is probably the best place on earth to get pictures of night surfing.  The water is warm, the ocean is lit by the moon and hundreds of hotels on the beach, and there are little logger waves year round. I originally swam out to try to get a cool shot of my buddy surfing, using a slow shutter speed so I could get light trails.

These photos actually took two cameras to make: my camera and my buddy’s camera with a flash. I used his flash for the off-camera lighting, so we had to time our exposures together. We surfed and took photos for about three hours, til about 2am. Then the tide went out, the waves went a little flat, and it started to rain. I was stoked because I love shooting photos in the rain, especially in the dark. I had my buddy paddle out to the lineup and sit on his board toward the horizon. Then I had my other buddy with his waterproof flash swim out behind him. I held down my exposure for a few seconds, and when I yelled “NOW!” he popped the flash from the back.  When the photo showed up on my LCD screen, I was surprised. I had no idea the camera would pick up all the water color and rain from the flash and the ambient red from the light pollution of Waikiki in the sky. We shot a few versions while it was still raining, then paddled in and ate at Zippy’s.

See more of John Hook's funphotography in our summer issue , on his instagram, and his tumblr

Chance Adventures

Like the kid says "Sometimes the best adventures are those left to chance".

Finally: A Bag Towel!

From the doods who brought us Urban Barrels comes The Bag Towel.

We want one! Will you get one for us? Pretty please? Come on, we'll be your best friends. Oh, fuggit about it. You do you, brah! We'll just pitch into their kickstarter and you'll never hear us ask YOU for a favor again.

Also, this bag towel is going to be in our Fall issue along with a bunch of other rad packs in our backpack roundup & review.

Plant-Made Shades

But what about the plants? It's like all we do is care about humans. That's all we do. It's true! We're a cancer on the Earth eating away at every available resource until it's gone and the polar bears melt to death (seriously!).

So if you're one of those "Fuck it, it's cheap, I'll buy it!" kind-of-sunglass-person you need to get your head out of your butthole and start buying things that won't kill polar bears (for reals!).

Zeal Optics makes plant-based sun glasses that look freaking cool. Plus they're 100% biodegradable because they're made of plant stuff. If you plop them in a river, drop them off a mountain top, or lose them while riding a giant avalanches it's not even "littering" it's "composting".

We tried some of Zeal's shades out on some of our favorite plants. They didn't seem to mind that the shades where made of their same life-juices and you've got to admit these fruits look cooler wearing these shades.

Plants will think you're cool if you wear these shades!!!

Who wants to win a pair of plant-made shades? You do!

Just repost this pineapple and tag Stay Wild magazine & Zeal Optics. Whoever gets the most likes gets the shades. Repost from Instagram / Twitter / Facebook / Tumblr

You're Welcome!