March 23rd 2021: Lost in deadline

When you first agree to do a book project the world is a beautiful place. You have all the time in the world, you can take your pick of the best light and find the best stories to tell. Nothing can knock you down. My dog smells wonderful all of the time and his incessant barking at the imaginary sheep is blissful – actually makes me smile. When I miss a wave, it hardly bothers me. There will be another one. I don't even mind when the local greedy guts snakes me for a wave or two: that's okay, you probably really needed that more than me.

Then it all changes very swiftly one day when you realise the deadline is looming. Suddenly the window of time is slamming shut completely out of proportion to the long dreamy days of field work. Remi's bark starts to grate. I wish the greedy guts would move to another town. I hate my weak, piddly little arms for not clawing me into that last wave.

And then it gets worse. The deadline becomes a date stamped on a bottle of milk. I fill with dread. It's imminent. I go into a self-imposed lockdown. No waves, no outside distractions, no nothing, but a tiny room filled with hand written, barely legible notes and a comptuter screen. And there I sit for weeks and weeks and weeks. My only escape is through the images I'm selecting for each page and the inspiration from the characters as each story emerges.

Most of the images this week are from a chapter on two of the most inspiring people in Raglan. These are the ones that didn't make the cut. But they reminded me of the days when the journey was easy, fun and I could tack on a wave for myself after shooting all morning. Right, that's enough. Back to it ...

See you at the beach ... Derek

PS This weekend just gone saw Taylor Hutchison and Paige Hareb crowned as King and Queen of The Point. You can read that full story over on www.nzsurfjournal.com