This is truly amazing ! Big congrats to Matt Clark !!!! GRAND PRIZE WINNER !!!!
Here is the full story from Matt himself.
” Of the 40,000 photos submitted to the 2015 It’s Amazing Out There Photo Contest, my photo of the Jetstar Roller Coaster post-Hurricane Sandy won the Grand Prize of $15,000.00
A little backstory for those still reading: I had been working with Everest Isles in Maryland that weekend shooting their bathing suits (everestisles.com) and had travelled with Takashi Fruitabashi who had linked us together and Jessica Ferrandino We drove down to Maryland and had an awesome shoot and stayed over in Annapolis, which is a really awesome city if you’re able to visit.
On the way home, I specifically wanted to go out and shoot a photo of the Jetstar before it would be dismantled and gone forever. We took a detour and pulled up to see police barricades blocking us from going onto the beach. @TakashiFruitabashi said “let’s show a police officer a surf magazine and see if he can do anything for us, maybe we can get a little closer?” So Casey (Takashi) grabbed a magazine I had in my car that had one of my photos published in it and we went to the officer and asked if we could get closer…”Matt shoots surf photos around here pretty often and wants to document this moment because we know it’s going to be torn down” Casey said. “Oh yeah, I know his photos, I grew up surfing here, yeah no problem, just be super careful there is still a bunch of debris in the sand, go ahead go through.” said the officer.
Casey and I walked down to the shore and I shot about 10-15 photos of the Jetstar and went on my way.
This July, I submitted a bunch of wave photos and a photo of the Jetstar to the It’s Amazing Out There photo contest presented by The Weather Channel and Toyota. I didn’t think anything of it, I hadn’t submitted images to anything since the Red Bull Illume. A couple of weeks later I got a call and they asked some questions, then a week or two later they asked some more questions and then finally I got a phone call to tell me I was the Grand Prize Winner of $15,000.00. Can you believe it?!
Shout out to Casey for making this moment happen and to Jessica who took the long trip down to Maryland with her eyepatch on from her eye surgeries and toughed it out. These two people are big believers in my photography and I’m so happy that we were there together.” Matt Clarg
Follow Matt – Instagram – Facebook – Website
READ MORE ABOUT MATT AND THE CONTEST HERE
