Recap: The Clique | Women's Surf Photography Workshop | Byron Bay, NSW

Last December, just a few weeks after our move from Seattle to Australia, we took a walk around our new neighborhood and popped into a cafe for brunch. While waiting for our delicious ricotta hotcakes to arrive, I scanned a lopsided stack of magazines near our table. All of them were dated by at least a year but I was drawn to a surf publication called Paper Sea Quarterly.

Flipping through the pages, I stopped at an article titled “Freedom: Exploring Self-Expression in the Ocean” by Cait Miers. Images of female surfers covered the next few pages and I was enamored by the way Cait captured women’s femininity and style in the ocean. I started following her on Instagram and thinking about how to make surf photography a personal reality.

Not much later, Cait announced the creation of The Clique, a creative hub for women in photography.

The aim of The Clique is to provide a fun, relaxed and nurturing environment for women to gain industry knowledge, learn valuable photography techniques and gain the confidence to kick start their photographer careers.

With this announcement came to the debut of her first women’s surf photography workshop, which sold out within days (or was it hours?) Regardless, I couldn’t make it to the first one, but by the time she announced her second workshop I signed up immediately.

It’s been a week since the workshop and I’m jonesing to get back into the water. I’ve always been torn between wanting to surf and wanting to capture surfers and the decision just got more challenging. The workshop was a great introduction to surf photography and included explanations on water housing, suitable camera settlings, water safety and positioning, as well an editing and workflow session and business chat.

We got to have two sessions in the water and a lifestyle photoshoot in between. Needless to say, it was a long day lasting from 7am-6pm but it went by so fast and I didn’t want it to end.

Thanks to Roxy, Aquatech Imaging Solutions, Canon Australia, Future Dreamers and Nife Fins for sponsoring the day and all the wonderful surfer gals we photographed.

Below are some of my favorite photos from the day! Oh and PS - surf photography is a lot harder than it looks. In case you thought it looked easy ;)