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Yadin Nicol, the walking dead, Indonesia

“Yesterday we surfed this crazy left, with an end section that goes dry,” says photog Tom Carey, currently in an Indonesian island chain with Yadin Nicol (pictured), Zeke Lau, Andrew Doheny, Dusty Payne and Alex Gray. The wave Tom refers to is the one Yadin’s riffing through here, which looks tame enough, until it reaches its end. And the dry reef kickout meant an unhappy ending on a lot of waves. “Everyone was charging,” continues Tom. “The boat was covered in blood.”

But the day’s bumpiness didn’t end there. “Then, we didn’t make it back in time to navigate back to the camp,” says Tom. “It was too big, so we had to stop at some random village and motorbike through the jungle. The surf camp was tripping ’cause we didn’t show up till 9pm. They thought we were all dead.”


Photographer profile

Tom Carey

Tom Carey is, like, 31 years young. Things may change when he’s older, but for now he ain’t shot much he digs: “I get sick of looking at stuff,” he says. “But, I guess the first remote flash shot I had run of Nate Yeomans was pretty epic. People probably wouldn’t remember. But it was a game-changer to me.” That says a lot about Tom. He does things for himself and he’s honest. Just ask him about being ripped off by the industry: “Everyone wants to skim a few dollars off you. Its not coming out of their pockets but it’s sure as hell coming out of ours.” And since he was so thrilled to answer, Stab’s gotta include Tom’s fav retired shooters: “I love this question. No one asks it anymore. Maybe Chris Van Lennep. I don’t know, the list could go on. Tony Roberts f’sure. His shots really inspired me. His angles in the water were so ahead of his time.”

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