Cold water surfing

Surfing in Sweden- it's unexpected.

I first came across the notion that people actually walk out into the surf of the Baltic Sea in Intelligent Life magazine. Their story was inspired by and featured the beautiful photographs of Daniel Månsson.

The art of photography has been long established and with digital cameras giving most of us the ability to take passable photographs it is easy to forget just how remarkable these still moments in time can be. Månsson's pictures reminded me how much I wished I was a great photographer and that I am definitely not.

The pictures speak for themselves- both for his talent and for his desire to share the story of the Swedish surfers. You can view a slide show of the pictures at Kontinent. Daniel also has his own website with a print shop and guide to his books- and you can like his Facebook page (if you like to like). He doesn't just do surfing- he has some awesome pictures of skateboarders doing things I don't understand which look good and gorgeous pictures of Sweden that are making me want to visit there again sooner than now (happily I am actually going in May).

It was the cold water surfing that first led me to him though- and which particularly inspired me too. Having surfed in the relative warmth of British waters in the summer (with a wet suit on, obviously) and found my body elated but exhausted afterwards I can only imagine loving something so much that you would wear a 5cm thick wet suit and get into water that is colder than the freshly chilled glass of water on my desk- that is making my teeth stand on end and my fingers turn white when I drink from it. To need to do something so much, that's cool- that's what I want to find in the world.

If you like surfing stuff why don't you also check out this blog by Joanna Goddard on pre second world war surf photographer Don James- with a great re- print.

When I got in touch with Jo to ask if she could give me the link to this story she also recommended a really interesting documentary called Surfwise about an 85 year old surfer, his wife and their nine children- thanks Jo!

I've started making a Spotify playlist of surf songs which I will be popping up here later- but you know what- just put on the Beach Boys and you're pretty much there.


Thanks very much to Daniel for letting me use the above image.