Albemarle Tradewinds October 2016 Final

Arts & Entertainment
Kreplin named Silver Medalist in photographic competition
By Outer Banks Voice
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http://outerbanksvoice.com
Photographic artist Gordon Kreplin of Kill Devil Hills was named a Silver Medalist
during Professional Photographers of America’s 2016 International Photographic
Competition.
A panel of 46 jurors from across the United States selected top photographs from
nearly 5,700 submitted at Gwinnett Technical College, in Lawrenceville, Ga.
Judged against a standard of excellence, more than 2,420 images were selected
for the General Collection and 1,007 were selected for the Loan Collection, considered
the best of the best.
Kreplin’s image, “Resolute,” was one of the 1,007 images selected for the Loan
Collection, earning him the title of Silver Medalist. “Resolute,” captured at dawn on
the beach in Kill Devil Hills, is from his “Morning Meditations” series from summer
2015.
Kreplin’s work will be on display at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in
San Antonio, Texas, from Jan. 8-10. This International Photographic Exhibit is held
in conjunction with imaging USA, an annual convention and expo for professional
photographers.
Filmmaker challenges women’s surfing stereotypes
Dayla Soul has spent most of her life living by the coast and
looking for the next big swell. But what she found while surfing
Ocean Beach, Calif. for the past two decades was that
the true story of women’s surfing needed to be told.
She tells that story in “It Ain’t Pretty,” which will air on the
big screen at the Dare County Arts Council in downtown
Manteo Friday.
The documentary is a featured film in this year’s Surfalorus
Film Festival, which kicked off Thursday.
Not long after Soul began filming the documentary on the
women who surf the icy breaks of Ocean Beach and Mavericks,
she soon realized she had an opportunity to change
the way people are talking about women out in the line up.
So as Soul interviews women surfers who go up against the
biggest waves on the planet, her film is going up against
some longstanding stereotypes about women’s surfing.
Featuring big wave surfer Bianca Valenti, Soul describes the
documentary as a film “about the challenges and triumphs
of female big wave surfers fighting sexism in the water, in
competition, in the media and in the surf industry.”
Like Soul, the female surfers she interviews are standing up
against the status quo in and out of the water. “There’s been
a turning point in surf history and how we see ourselves in
it,” surfer Easkey Britton says in the film, which first aired in
February.
By Michelle Wagner
“The way the media portrays female surfers is really
skewed,” says big wave surfer Mika Kosaka in the film. She
along with other surfers interviewed talk about what it’s like
to be a minority in the surfing industry.
“We need to break down the whole idea of sexualizing everything,”
surfer Rebecca Sandidge says in the film. “There’s
nothing sexual about surfing.”
Since it first aired, “It Ain’t Pretty” has been featured at 10
film festivals, including the Maui Film Festival, New York
City’s Women’s Surf Film Festival and the Honolulu Surf
Film Festival.
“I was originally just going to put it to music and show it in a
local theater, but it turned into a bigger story for the rest of
the world,” says Soul, a native of Hanalei, Hawaii who owns
a tile installation company in San Francisco “This film is
meant to empower women. Sexism is still in the world, and
my film shows it through the eyes of surfers. We as women
need to step out of the box that the media puts us in that we
need to look a certain way. That’s inaccurate.”
Soul began filming in March of 2013 and soon after launched
a Kickstarter campaign that raised $36,000 for equipment.
“Things spiraled and doors opened,” said Soul, who uses
aerial photography, drones, water photography and other
media to bring big wave surfing to viewers.
Gordon Kreplin’s “Resolute.”
“Told through the lens of surfing, this film is about creating
new role models based on ability and determination. It’s not
just about the waves,” says Soul. “This film empowers a
new generation of girls to live their dreams and overcome
the challenges they face along the way.”
It Ain’t Pretty will begin at 8:30 p.m. Friday at the Dare
County Arts Council in downtown Manteo. The Surfalorus
Collector’s Classic Longboard Exhibit reception will begin
at 6 p.m. with film screenings to follow.
For more information, call the Dare County Arts Council at
(252) 473-5558 or visit darearts.org.
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