Five Images For A Much Needed Sense Of Freedom

We’re four months into O’Neill x Stab‘s Feels Like Freedom photo comp. So far, the competition has been dripping blood. 

Here are a few recent submissions designed to transport you from the pit of cellular despair into lustfull bliss – if only just for a short arrest in your daily scroll. Join the party, send us your lineup shots. Let’s strip off the trunks / bikinis and dig our toes in the sand – we wanna feel free! 

The deal:
We have 12 Jordy Smith “Stab in the Dark” replicas to give away. We will have six winners, each winner gets a framed shot in their local shop and a board. Each shop will also receive a board to display their local Feels Like Freedom winning photog until they shut their doors for good.

The Rules:
This contest is for North American scum; so, apologies to anyone with the Queen on their currency, and, everyone else.

To enter use the #FeelsLikeFreedom and #StabFullFrame. You must also tag @Stab and @OneillUSA on your Instagram post – if you don’t tag all four, sorry your submission will be ignored.

The photos must be published within contest frame (ends in July 31st, we will announce the winners –who Stab will handpick – in the same month).

The photos must be shot in North America, they must be taken by you. The photos can be new or old; however, the timelier the better. And finally, they must be unpublished. Don’t send us anything you’ve sold. We want fresh. We want romantic. We want rolling on the fucking floor gorgeous.

“This photo was taken on a fall day in the Outer Banks of North Carolina,” says photographer, Graham Hunt. “Forecast was calling 4-5ft, south swell. Most of the time the water color is brown but I got lucky with the conditions this day, the water was crystal clear and the wind was light offshore. I haven’t seen many days like this. A buddy and I shared this empty wave for a few hours before anyone joined us. It was dreamy day in North Carolina.”

For more of Graham Hunt’s photography, click here. 

This shot was taken in Central Jersey across the jetty to the next town North,” says lensman Andrew Reiss. “It was a super moody morning with perfect sets rolling through one after another. All the local Jersey guys were out there on yet another cold winter swell for the East Coast. Although it ended pretty quick it was fun while it lasted.”

You can follow Andrew Reiss, here. 

“This was a very unexpected find,” sharpshooter Patrick Duggan tells Stab. “The surf had slowed through the morning so everyone left. However, the just as the swell backed off it came back up and with not a soul in sight. Seven hours of pristine Outerbanks conditions right off the beach.”

Give Patrick Duggan’s work a second look, here. 

“On this day, my back was kinda sore, so I remained on land opposed to swimming out and shooting photos from the water,” Robb Wilson tells Stab. “I was moving around, lurking under the pier for a couple hours in different spots, trying to get a different perspective of the surf. That’s when I nailed this photo that I have since named ‘X Marks the Spot.'” This photo was taken somewhere in Orange County.

Sift through Robb Wilson’s archive, here. 

“This image was shot in Monmouth County, NJ this April at one of the dredge created sandbanks,” Mr John Gilman tells us. “It wasn’t that big a swell but a great direction and conditions lined up really nicely to create an afternoon insane slab tubes. There weren’t a lot of waves completed because of how hollow it was on the takeoff, at the same time this made it a photographers dream day of extremely photogenic slabs.”

For more of John Gilman’s work, head here.