About a year and a half ago I found myself heading to Indonesia once again, however this trip was a bit different. Usually when I go to Indo it is aboard the Pelagic, on trips that I have put together. This time, though, I was heading out on a Red Bull trip aboard the Indies IV, the luxery surf yacht of all luxery surf yachts. I was pretty stoked for the trip, while I was there mainly to get images of the two Nike team riders aboard, Kolohe Andino and Evan Geisleman, there were a bunch of Red Bull’s premier guys on the trip that I hadn’t had a chance to work with. One of which was Adriano De Souza. I knew Adriano just from him being such a big part of surfing for the last few years, but had never had a chance to shoot with him outside of contest areas. To make a long story short, I walked away amazed by the guys surfing.
This particular day was one for the books; I literally shot on the dingy from sun up to sun down, having the crew run food, water, and fresh batteries, back and forth for me: it was was pumping, there was no other option. HT’s was as good as it gets, a bit over head, slack wind, and sunny as could be. We had the lineup practically to ourselves and the guys were on fire: Adriano especially. He was sitting as deep as anyone, rushing solid waves and standing tall in the tube through the inside section. As the tide filled in, and the barrels were as great as an option, Adriano adapted as well as anyone, punting ridiculously tweaked out air reverses and stylish straight airs. As I said, impressive.
His ripping wasn’t what really got me though; what really set him apart was how thoroughly stoked Adriano was. After every wave the guy was kicking out all smiles, hooting for himself, hooting for the guy on the wave behind him, arms raised in pure stoke. It was cool to see a pro surfer really not care about what others were thinking but rather acknowledge how fortunate he was and just be amped to be able to go out and surf perfect waves. A few days after this session I asked Adriano about the claiming, his answer was that he just loves surfing. That a good wave gets him excited and makes him happy and he’s not afraid to show it.
