Meet Leigh

This is another nice guy for me to talk to. His name is Leigh. He is from Melbourne. I met him when I was taking some pictures at The Peak this morning. The Peak was working so hectic, and there was five people surfing, and I was busy taking some pictures when this man came out of his camp, walking with his monopod, approaching me.

“Hello,” he said. (Or I did say first, I am not so sure). He smiled.

“Are you a professional? Working for a media?” I asked. He got a nice lens with a 600D Canon. It was a high tech lens professional photographers usually use.

“No. It’s just a hobby. What about you? Are you working for a media?” he asked me back.

“Not really. I take pictures for my blog.”

“A blog? Internet?”

I nodded.

“You got a nice lens. It must be expensive; more expensive than the camera,” I said.

“Yes, it’s twice more expensive,” he replied.

“What’s your mode when you’re taking surf pictures?”

I am always curious about other photographers setting when they are taking surf pictures. I wonder how those pictures become so stunning as they come out on the surf magazines.  

“I usually put it on ‘sport’.”

I eyed his mode dial. It was on ‘sport.’

Mine was on ‘auto.’

We kept on talking and gave it a pause every time the surf was on and somebody was riding the wave. He said that his pictures do not go anywhere but into his computer memories. Only sometimes his friends come and ask to print some, he said.

For Leigh, it was his first time in Krui. He surfed other parts of Sumatera the other years but this is the first time he surf the mainland.  

And as I like talking to an English native speaker very much, and he is kind of man easy to talk to, I enjoyed talking with him very much. And when I asked him how he describe the surf that particular morning, he said it was ‘glassy,’ a word that I never heard before to describe the surf.

And when the small rain came at about 10:00, we parted. He moved back to his camp, and I rode my bike home.

Thank you for the word, Leigh.