Andre Botha - Part 1 "Let's Roll" - Bodyboarding Documentary 2022

Whereas there's a bit of a conflict with bodyboarding as far as I'm concerned. There's a sport bodyboarding that's more competition driven and there's more of the expression of bodyboarding which is more free surf driven okay where there's no rules or regulations. I went through the whole competitive part of bodyboarding and then now currently I'm back at the more expression part for me personally and you know throughout that whole period of the competition and the expression I always had shorebreak involved in the whole process. Now a lot of competition riders they don't get involved with shorebreak. A lot of bodyboarders don't do shorebreak. It's a closeout. It's a heavy thick wave that is basically dumping close to the shore. So it requires a different approach to riding a wave. You know you're not going to make the wave. You know it's going to be there's a violent element to it. You know you're not going to make the wave and often it's you know we're riding big shorebreak especially when Clark's shooting. Over the years there's been different photographers but it's a relationship we have where I'm going to go on this wave. I know I'm not going to make it and I'm going to put my body at risk and go over the ledge. You're there getting the image and we're sharing a moment and you know that's sort of the thing how it goes because I mean you're out there sometimes some people will go shorebreak big shorebreak with no photographer but I've been doing this as a profession so it's always been working with the photographer that pushes me into bigger waves in the shorebreak. So that's that from that aspect of bodyboarding shorebreaks been there from the beginning till the end and it's not something you want to do all the time but for me you know when the stakes are high you anyone that's played in the sea will know that those waves can break on shallow sand. It's just because it's not reef or something doesn't mean it's not gnarly. You can break your neck and break your back on the sand easy. That's why most people that when they see the ocean if they don't know should just um go and figure I don't know everything happens very quickly if I think about riding shorebreak you know you're catching the the gun the clock will be there shooting I have to decide the set comes in which one I'm on there everything happens super fast even the beating it's fast and then it's done and then I compare that to when shooting shorebreak which I've been doing for many years I mean even back in the day when I was 18 19 and I was first you know my beginning of my professional career I was going down to shorebreak some days and there was no photographers and I was there with my buddy Eddie and he was ready to charge and we were both ready and we were like well there's no one here to shoot it that's when I picked up a camera when I started shooting Eddie on these massive shorebreak waves and um yeah so I was like his personal photographer and I learned a lot about photography that was back almost 20 years ago so um we were shooting on film on slide film on velvia 50 and um even I remember one surf when I was shooting Eddie it was big it was like six eight feet my first time shooting I didn't pull the film across the camera so nothing no shots got fired the whole surf like eight feet no one taught me nothing none of the photographers I worked with would tell me anything so I learned everything from scratch and then I even ended up getting some covers of some bodyboarding magazines of Eddie who was shooting on slide film I learned all the settings I learned everything I used to be kind of like not that big I was trying to surf trying to learn and I was like this is taking too long I'm over it I'll get a bodyboard that's why I got a bodyboard paddle out now the waves are big I don't have a hard surfboard I can pedal out I'll just bail and make it onto the back line on the bodyboard this is way better than surfing for me because I can go big waves right away you know what I mean straight away I go big waves even don't even know how to do it that's why I got hooked like that with bodyboarding so that was my process I mean for me it's always there's not a big thought thing or trend that I go okay I want that it just I just go there