this year.

I saw this photo in a recent surfing magazine I was flipping through, then saw it again on the Boston.com ‘The Big Picture’ The year 2008 in Photographs. The rider is Kerby Brown, and the image was taken at some secret reef off the coast of Western Australia. The image is also an entry in the Oakley Surfing Life Big Wave Awards, a contest to see who can ride the biggest wave around Australia. Don’t let this beautiful photo fool you, because moments later the waves lip dropped hard (how could it not when it looks like the entire ocean is surging above him) and he took a pretty wild wipeout ripping some shoulder muscles.