The Freestyle Blog

March 29th, 2008: 1:27pm

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines! It’s Friday, we have an ad due in Alliance Wakeboarding on Monday. Melissa Marquardt? Hmmm, yes indeed. Teleport engaged we blasted out to Canyon Lake, CA to meet up with Melissa to shoot some action shots for the ad. We already had some great lifestyle photos of her rocking the new Shark Classic 80’s, but we were in desperate need of a complimenting action shot. Good thing we left when we did, any later and we would have sat on the 91E for days. With perfect timing on our side we pulled up to the lake and Melissa, Randall Harris, Ricky Gonzales, and Kyle Murphy and friends were just getting ready to shred.

3:36pm

After Ricky stomped a few passes it was Melissa’s turn to boost, and as usual she didn’t disappoint, hucking all sorts of stylee tricks like only she can. Of course, photographer Nick “Nailed it!” again, and captured the image we needed for the ad.

5:41pm

With the sun setting and the work day over and the sun setting, Melissa invited us over to her pad for some extracurricular activities. I tell you what…Canyon Lake is like its own planet. A lot of interesting and fun stuff goes on behind the guarded gates. Sometimes I found myself stepping back saying, “Where the hell am I?” Melissa calls it the bubble, and I couldn’t agree more. If I didn’t live at the beach or was forced to move inland, I’d darn sure find a way to live in the bubble. Only problem this night is that we were an hour and half from home and I was the designated driver so photographer Nick was on his own, and he took full advantage!

11:28pm

As an edgy and A.D.D. prone designated driver, I probably pulled the eject button too quickly on the fun, but we knew the waves would be good in the morning so we bolted home. Ended up being pretty darn productive afternoon and a fun evening! Big Thanks to Melissa and her crew of cool folks. Hope ya’ll like how the ad turned out.

February 28th, 2008 – 7:55am

Finally we locked down a time to shoot Nic Lamb for his ad. It’s been a busy year for Nic with the California absolutely pumping most the winter.

Just last week Nic paddled into a bomb at Mavericks that is sure to have him up for a Billabong XXL nomination. Anyways, was thinking about all this as I drove to the OC airport to pick up the young shredder. The Flight was right on time so we waist no time jetting back to Freestyle headquarters to shoot some lifestyle’s with our staff photographer Nick “diculous” Meistrell.

10:23am

After what our photographer likes to call “Nailing it”, we turned over the lifestyle shots to our Art Director, Adam Sarpalius, for him to start laying out the ad. Nic, Nick and I then set off to see if we could score some surf and some action shots. We had in our favor a decent combo swell, but unfortunately in Newport we also had the south wind cheese breeze making the surf suck nuts. So on to Plan B. Luckily we know of a secret little spot in the OC that magically turns the south wind into a nice grooming side offshore wind. Bingo, we were into some clean surf and Nic took full advantage, punting airs, slashes, and even a sweet mini-tube ride. Plus he got to test out the new Tide 3.0 which Nic called “simple and right on!”

That was a fun session for sure, and a treat to see Nic surf in person. He really has the whole bag of tricks, just super solid. Then it was back to Freestyle headquarters to see how Nic’s ad was laying out. We decided to run with an action shot from a gnarly central coast slab that Nic surfed a few days earlier combined with the mornings lifestyle shot and the new Shark Classic 80’s

4:45pm

End of a productive day and time to get Nic to the OC airport so he can get back to Santa Cruz in time for the next swell! Look for Nic’s ad in a surf magazine near you.

The Invasion continues with the Freestyle team as they travel north again to a LA County secret spot to inform the local surfers about the release of Freestyles new tide 3.0.

Chad getting after it

Local surfer Randy Meistrell found a nice one!

I headed up to Ventura, CA last weekend to scout out some new locations for a couple of up coming photo shoots we have planned, it most definitely was a good time to be up there with a nice solid north west swell and clean conditions coming in we also got a surf in!

Mr Mike getting out from a nice little session!

Marketing Director Chad Labass found his wave after a 2 year absence

January 31st, 2008: 11:29am

We are happy to announce the addition of Sage Erickson to the Freestyle Family! While she’s been rocking the gear for a few years now, it’s about time we made it official. No doubt Sage is one of the most stylish young surfers today as well as a super cool down to earth chick. So what do you do when you sign a new athlete? Photoshoot, ya’a! So here’s a glimpse at Sage’s Freestyle photoshoot for her upcoming ads featuring the Tide 3.0g and Shark Classic 80’s.