Bruce Irons, dancing with Chopes, Tahiti

Typically, we try and afford you the best possible visions for our treasured Full Frame segment. But, unfortunately this isn’t the case with the above image of Bruce Irons at Chopes. You see, it was Bruce’s girlfriend, pictured in the left of the frame on the back of Raimana Van Bastolaer’s 1400cc water pony, who was granted the best seat in the house.

“It was several feet smaller than the forecast predicted, so naturally JJF’s massive crew was rather disappointed, but Teahupoo still had plenty of overhead barrels that evening,” said photographer Morgan Maassen. “Several hours into bobbing around the rock star lineup, a lone boat pulled up and a large man jumped off… ’twas Bruce!” he said. “He paddled to the top of the reef, waited 20 minutes, and dropped into a set way too deep. He popped up behind the photographers and paddled back out for another. He waited another twenty minutes and turned around to catch this one. Nothing special, but Raimana came roaring around the foam ball with Bruce’s new girl hanging on for dear life. Raimana pulled right up to Bruce as he stalled on this up-the-reef wave, and she got the best view of the house of him doing what he does best.”