The Kite Mag - Tarifa

I arrived in Tarifa and met up with Antonio, and we decided to shoot the following day at sunrise. We woke up at 6 am to head down to the beach before sunrise and set up. We decided to shoot with the water housing on the first day. We got the most amazing sunrise, and everything was absolutely perfect, but there was one thing we slightly forgot about: a water housing works brilliantly and can create some amazing photos, but it doesn't work well when shooting into the wind, especially with a lot of chop. So our first sunrise session failed. Now we only had one sunrise left. The next day was incredibly windy, blowing around 45 knots, and there were no waves to get a good takeoff. I struggled to maintain my edge, and since I prefer having kickers to take off, it was quite challenging for me, and I couldn't achieve very high jumps, unfortunately. But luckily, Antonio, a very talented young photographer from Spain, was behind the camera, and he made everything look absolutely insane.

We also ended up shooting the sunset later that day, where the lighting was completely different from the morning but still very beautiful. After seeing the photos, I felt relieved, excited, and incredibly proud that I had the opportunity to fulfill a dream I had since I was a 13-year-old.

Antonio: This mission with Stig was so insane! When The KiteMag asked if I was able to do a photoshoot, I immediately checked out the weather conditions. Looking at them I knew that this mission was going to be challenging, with 40 knots of strong Levante on its way to Tarifa. When I met up with Stig I told him my idea, which involved waking up early to get one epic shot. On the first day we went to my local spot Balneario before sunrise, and as Stig has said we decided to shoot with my water housing and me in the water. But it was so difficult to take an epic shot and with the wind coming straight onto my housing, it was impossible to shoot as we had planned. So we headed home, a little despondent, but with another idea for the following day.

We returned to the same spot at the same hour, and even though it was windier than the first day, we didn't give up. As we planned, I went to a slightly different spot but with the same angle, and this time without the water housing, and we finally got it, the shot we were trying for. The best thing is that we learnt a lot from the first day and learnt that even if things do not go as we expect, make the most of second chances.