15 October, 2012 15 October, 2012

Shot Bru turns 25,000 images old – Contributor Philip Taylor wins

Philip Taylor at the Hurley Gateway store with his new Phantom boardies he won by uploading the 25,000th Shot Bru image.

Zag’s reader photo portal shotbru.co.za has just received it’s 25,000th image upload, making it one of the world’s largest collection of reader-submitted surf photos.

In celebration of this milestone Hurley have come to the party and offered up a pair of their slick Phantom boardies to the contributor who loaded up the 25,000th Shot Bru image, in the process helping us reach this milestone.

Having submitted an impressive 727 surf photos himself, Durban’s Philip Taylor is the avid photographer responsible for the 25,000th upload and wins the boardies. We caught up with Philip to give him the good news as well as to pick his brain about www.shotbru.co.za;

ZAG: Howzit Philip, well as the contributor to have uploaded the 25 000th surf pic to Shot Bru, we’ve got a Hurley hamper on it’s way to you. Surprise!
PHILIP: What a pleasant surprise to find out I had won a prize, I think it’s the first time I’ve won anything.

You’ve contributed a significant portion of those 25,000 shots, having uploaded over 700 yourself. Do you have time to do anything else after shooting that many?
I may have uploaded over 700 shots, but if you consider that when the surf and surfers are good, then you can take up to 400 or more shots in a morning. Unfortunately (or fortunately for Shot Bru) I’m fully occupied during the week running my engineering business in New Germany otherwise I could have contributed all 25,000 shots myself.

How long have you been into shooting surfing, and what equipment are you shooting with?
I started photography late in 2010, I bought myself an early xmas present – a Canon 500D with kit lenses, which I soon upgraded with a Sigma 150-500mm lens, and a little later added a Cannon 70-200mm F2.8. I attended a few photography courses and started taking action photos, surfing being my favourite, by then the bug had truly bitten. Earlier this year I upgraded the body to a Canon 7D – Stoked…

Most of your photos are from Durban, is there anywhere else you like to go and shoot?
Being based in Durban it is convenient to shoot locally, however, if I had the opportunity I would like to go to the Cape to shoot at some of the breaks (the mountain as a back drop always looks great) or further afield – Indonesia and the Maldives look awesome.

You obviously check out Shot Bru often. Some rad stuff on there don’t you think?
I think the Shot Bru site is brilliant. When I see some of the shots I realise how much I still have to learn, it’s also great to see shots from so many different breaks and the following (1610 members – ED) is good.

Phil’s favourite submission so far is still the very first photo he uploaded to Shot Bru. Bianca Buitendag whacks an early morning North Beach lip.

Out of all of your photos, do you have a favourite?
My best, or rather favourite shot would have to be one of the first I submitted to Shot Bru, which I’m sure it’s far from technically correct, but it’s the one of Bianca Buitendag hitting the lip at North Beach, which I uploaded on 27 June 2011. It was taken early morning hence the strong back light – a similar photo of Bianca was featured in the Zag at about the same time and when comparing the two I don’t think I did a bad job. Ha ha…

Well, thanks for your time Philip, we hope you enjoy the Hurley boardies and we’re looking forward to your next submissions.
Shot, bru.

Check out more of Philip’s photos on Shot Bru by clicking here>>

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