As New York’s premiere surf photography contest, the
“Yo Shot Challenge“ is proud to announce Long Beach photographer
Mike Nelson as the 2013 Champion.
TJ Gumiela, pictured in the winning shot, joins Nelson in the winner’s circle with Nelson taking home $1,500 of the cash prize and Gumiela $500.
During the 3 month fall surf season we had over 110 registered photographers, 320 entries and 2 rounds of voting, which ultimately narrowed it down to 12 finalists. With one of the slowest years to date as far as waves go, the contest forced all the photographers to really hunt down their moments. A lot of the swells were either too small or had only short windows of opportunity. Each swell saw new uploaded photos , and the competition grew more and more competitive as the days and weeks went on. It was 100% up to the public vote from start to finish.
Round one and the first week alone of voting saw 8,500 individual votes ranging from New York and every state on the Eastern seaboard, to Colorado, California, Puerto Rico, Canada, the UK, Costa Rica, Greece, India, Australia, France, Panama, Spain, Argentina, Sweden, Ireland, Brazil and Mexico. Round two swept the 12 finalists into a seesaw battle of votes, with Mike Nelson and TJ Gumiela edging out the field. The New York surf community embraced this challenge. With every photo telling its own story, the contest encouraged more people to get in the water and created many memorable sessions.
Be sure to check out our video recap of the Yo Shot Challenge with a few words from winning photog Mike Nelson !
Also check out the winning photo/story below.
Mike Nelson 2013 “Yo Shot Challenge” Champion from NYsea Collective on Vimeo.
Mike Nelson – “This shot was taken on september 20th , one of the only good swells we had this fall. I gave TJ a call because it looked fun and glassy. When we got in the water it was not as good as it looked, there was quite a bit of current and was very difficult to line up with him. This style of watershot is very challenging the surfer is hidden from view after he takes off so you only have a split second to guess where the surfer is going to hit the lip and focus the camera. We spent about 3 hours in the water trying to get a decent shot and this was the best one from that day. It was taken with a canon 1d mark 4 with a canon 70-200 2.8 lens in a SPL water housing.”
CONTEST FINALISTS:
Mike Nelson
James Katsipis
Matt Clark
James Parascandola
Josh Goetz
Gerard A. Pallotta
Be sure to check back for the contest finalists with their respective stories coming soon.
