John John Florence Surfing Wavegarden

Surfing’s wonder kid, John John Florence recently released a video of his time spent in Europe late last year.

John John also popped into the Wavegarden during his time in Spain to ride the half pipe and the prototype surf lagoon, and included a couple waves from his session in the edit (Starting at the 3:20 mark). — Video below

John John Florence Surfing Wavegarden’s prototype surf lagoon in the Basque country of Spain

“John wanted to give it a try and see how fun it was,” says the photographer, Mr Alex Laurel. “I was a bit in that same ‘fun’ kind of approach. It’s not a performance wave but the surroundings are pretty mental, lost in land, deep in the Basque Country, next to a river going through a forest. Well, not a performance wave until John gets in and carves the shit out of it. The place is rad. You just have to press a button to start the session. No tides to deal with, no swell charts to read and a wooden deck instead of sand-dunes to cross to get in the water. Once you finish your ride, let’s say a righthander, you don’t have to paddle back out ‘cause a left starts two minutes after at the exact spot where you kicked out on your first ride. Such a lazy-man surf spot. But why make it harder when you can make it easy? The whole scene was a good combination to try something a bit more creative than shooting your regular surf spot. The forest is about 50 metres behind the wave so I’ve pulled out a 90mm that is made to shoot architecture, originally. The forest was pretty massive compared to John so I was using this tool to make him stand out. At first we were down for a little two-hour session but I think we ended up staying for almost four hours. After the session, John just had to put his skate shoes back on, ready to sweat it out on a mini-ramp next to the pool. Just bring a DJ, light up a barbecue with a few beers and I think you could have a f***ing great day.”