Behind The Shot: Steve Arklay

Last week we ran a Wave Of The Day image by Steve Arklay - see above - which received a great response on the website and on social media. Steve, who's from the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria, was travelling around Western Australia when he took the photo, and below fills us in on the backstory of the shot.

That shot was one of the most memorable and surreal times I've ever had in the water. It was taken at first light and was mega sharky with bait balls everywhere, yet I couldn’t resist it with an epic shorebreak and great light.

While swimming around, concentrating on camera settings, I noticed a shadow and saw a dorsal fin out of the corner of my eye and the amazing turquoise in my close proximity turned to brown.

Another dorsal fin appeared and I quickly realised it was dolphins - a massive pod  looking for breakfast. They then surrounded me for about fifteen minutes which was amazing

My wife and kids were on the beach exploring and watching the sunrise, which could’ve been a bad thing but turned out well. My wife Bindi scored these images from the beach.

Pumped after an epic morning encounter, I couldn't wait to get back to the caravan, rinse off the housing and check the images I scored.

To say I was shattered when I saw this message on my camera was an understatement. Our camping neighbours heard some pretty foul language while eating their bacon and eggs.

After trying every possible way to access it, and even asking some surf photographer groups on Facebook and Instagram, I had no luck. I tried everything I could without access to my home workstation which was a 35 hour drive away.

So I put the memory card on ice until I got home a few months later. When I did, I downloaded some data recovery software to have the best chance possible. This alone took some time as my Mac workhorse computer shit the bed two days before I departed on the WA camping trip.  

So the workhorse was with a great mate Casey - who has featured on Wave Of The Day before and understands the urgency of lost data on this Mac - and he successfully repaired it and gave the machine a second lease on life.

Finally time to get the images and check 'em out.

I was stoked to say the least.