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Sand scallops shot from a helicopter a few days after a week of flooding rains. I really love nature's textures and patterns you see from above. Photo: Tom Woods
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Australia has miles and miles of sandy beaches that noone ever goes to, let alone surfs, so it amuses me when crew complains about the crowds. Normally you only have to walk 100 meters down a beach to get a wave to yourself. Just have to shift your attention away from the break right out the front of the beach carpark. Photo: Tom Woods
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I am up every morning at sunrise, have hardly missed one in the last 5 years. I'm a big fan of backlit surf shooting. Photo: Tom Woods
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This rip bowl formed at a beach that never gets good waves. But during one swell this spot was just firing for three days straight and then it just disappeared. That's what I love about shooting the ocean: it's forever changing, so when you get a rare spot doing it's thing out of the blue it's all the more sweeter. Photo: Tom Woods
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I feel way more attached to the my photography when I am right there with the subjects. Shooting from the beach doesn't give you the same inspiration or stoke that the surfers and ocean are giving off with all the feel-good endorphins that fly around in lineup when the conditions are good. Photo: Tom Woods
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Log riding in good quality light is one of my favourite things to shoot...and this guy Brett Caller is one of my favourite targets. Photo: Tom Woods
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Autumn time at home is my favourite time of year. Tunnel time! Photo: Tom Woods
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Striving for different angles from the water is my goal for the coming year. I've already got a few ideas, just gotta find a way of nailing them. Photo: Tom Woods
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This was a one intense wave for its size. It just drew all the water back into the pit and sent these cool ribbed textures up the face of the wave. It was the only one like it all day and even though it was taken a few years ago now, both Harley Ingleby (the rider) and myself remember it vividly. Photo: Tom Woods
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Rusty Miller still super keen for the early session after all those years of surfing around the globe.. this taken on one of his road trips on the north coast of NSW. Photo: Tom Woods
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My local back beach is littered with kangaroos. You sort of don't notice them until you have a visitor from overseas who just freaks out and then you think..yeah it's kinda cool to have those fellas watching you surf and they make for good pictures too, I guess. Photo: Tom Woods
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I think we scored one of the better weeks of the Maldives season last year... such a fun park. Photo: Tom Woods
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Winki Pop near Bells Beach is a long way from where I live. Good place to visit, but too cold for me to stay... I like the sub-tropical climate of the north coast of NSW too much now. Photo: Tom Woods
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All the elements - sunny days, good waves, great surfers and the job of getting a good surf shot is so much easier. Photo: Tom Woods
A portrait of the artist: Tom Woods.
I was about 14 and living in the wave-less city of Adelaide when I found a copy of Surfing World. This chance meeting with as second hand, dog-eared magazine would change the course of my life. It was the beginning! I looked into the pages of that mag and was hypnotized. The photography was incredible, it sucked me deep into the blue/green barrels, I read this mag over and over and then I slowly began the mission of experiencing the beauty of the ocean.
It was a year or so later when I rode my first green wall at a beach called Moana in South Australia. Even before that ride came to an end I knew this was going to be the life for me. I struggled on in Adelaide with my surf addiction for the next five years, doing the necessary long road trips to get my fix until my partner Sherrin and I packed up a little campervan and traveled around Australia. On our travels we picked the mid north coast (in New South Wales) as our new home. That was 14 years ago and I love this coastline more every day.
I now run a daily surf photo website called stsurfimages.com and facebook page called ST Surf Images which you can find here.
