Dane Reynolds, San Francisco, US

Kelly Slater won the world title twice this year. At least, he was awarded the trophy twice. Both times were in San Francisco, at Ocean Beach during the Rip Curl Search Pro. The first time Kelly was given the ASP’s most valuable cup, he had to surf against Dan Ross, and win. It’s a damn safe bet that the heat was this year’s most-watched on the webcast. The sand was covered with 10k people, all wanting to be a little piece of history. Down the beach a little ways, freesurfers and some pros had been surfing a bank. Before Kelly’s heat, all went in. Everyone wanted to go watch the Floridian make history. Everyone, except Dane Reynolds. “It was crazy, ’cause Dane was surfing these fun peaks and there was noone around,” says photog Nate Lawrence, who shot this. “Everyone had gotten out 30 minutes prior to watch Kelly surf. All the photographers were down the beach with their lenses focusing on Kelly. I missed most of the Kelly heat to shoot Dane. I walked back to the contest zone just in time to nail one photo.” Luckily for us, Nate’s decision resulted in this amazing image. And luckily for Nate, he got a second chance at documenting Kelly Slater’s 11th world title victory. That don’t happen every day.