I Shot a Roll of Kodak Portra on Nikonos V 400 by Víctor Seguí
To Be At The Right Time At The Right Place
When we ever heard about surfing, some amazing images come to our mind of skilled surfers from California, Hawaii, Australia or Indonesia riding impressive waves. Perfect conditions of transparent water, palm trees as background, infinite white sand beaches, ukulele songs, blond long hairs, endless fun parties and of course everyone showing perfect tan bodies wearing shorts or bikini only like they are born for that. Well, that is kind of true but somehow we could say that is not exactly a real truth.
There are so many surf spots around the globe and not all of them in tropical countries like in dream paradise. Apart from that well known surf culture, there is indeed surf in many other countries where the weather changes a lot from summer to winter and differs much form the ones seen in TV and films as we are used to. This means surf is so different from place to place and must be considered as more difficult under a lot harder conditions from each season and spot from every single country.
Here in the West side of the Mediterranean sea by the Spanish coast we are not so lucky to have that amazing swell we would love to, like in the Ocean. In the north of Europe for example they have really brave surfers which practice this amazing sport even on winter under freezing conditions. Despite a little warmer temperature here in the ‘Medi’ unfortunately we have a quite rare, and also smaller, swell pumping in when a storm is placed somewhere inner sea.
That usually brings us good waves which sometimes last only few hours until the wind comes or the storm gone and brings back that calm again, always too long for us. If we are lucky to have those conditions, we need that let us wax our board quickly we know what that means: leave everything you are doing and jump into the water no matter what.
When the surf call is on, we run off (sometimes is impossible) from where we are. We always fancy with funny but ‘credible’ excuses to leave work that day. That means we have to get our equipment quickly loaded into our vehicles and drive to the best spot available for those conditions on a rush because we know the swell, wind or light conditions may vary soon and ruin that opportunity of surfing. Once we are in place if the conditions are good enough to surf, we lose track of time in the water until our strength lets us down or the night cuts off and it is time to go home hoping tomorrow will be some surf again.
So the struggle for Mediterranean surfers is to be at the right time at the right place, and this is the story of my Nikonos V with one of my beloved films ever, the Kodak Portra 400 – which gives light, speed, insane texture and colors even in low light conditions. Also being so happy taking part of the project Your Next Kodak Film is on the House from Vincent Moschetti’s On Film Only website, and for the final touch of Carmencita Lab which nowadays are doing an amazing job in my second home city, Valencia, the ones who are responsible of making that magic happen again bringing these ephemeral moments when pressing the shutter button to the reality in best developing ways.
And so, this is the result of to be at the right time at the right place, a surfing evening in the Mediterranean sea under a magic changing light conditions sunset, an autumn day of 2019 by the Catalan coast enjoying great moments with this fascinating sport and sharing time with good colleagues and friends. Hoping you enjoy the texture, colors and captures taken with a Nikonos V with 35mm lens and Portra 400.
My name is Víctor Seguí, I love photography since teenage and now at the age of 36 when technology goes so fast and digital is ‘our world’ is when I enjoy the most shooting film.
www.victorsegui.com
