Somewhere in mid-2017, I received an email from Michele Fleury who was putting together a trip to India for prAna, a lifestyle clothing brand from California. After a lot of back & forth communication, The trip was scheduled for late September making sure it fitted into everyone's timing, including Chris Burkard, the legendary adventure photographer, and prAna ambassador.
Now, I and Chris have known each other for a very long time but never met and had missed each other on our previous surf trip in 2011 with Craig Anderson in India. In the years leading up until now, we had communicated a number of times over social media, phone calls etc.. to make a surf trip happen to Rastas, the pier wave in Lakshadweep but for some reason, it never came through.
In the end, the schedule was broken into 3 parts (Surfing in Lakshadweep, Chris's movie screening in Bangalore & factory visit, Rock Climbing in Hampi) with surfing being a bit tricky due to untimely ferry schedule, permits etc.. to Lakshadweep. This trip was certainly one of the most challenging productions and logistics we had done until now with India Surf Tour, a premier surf tour company of ours which specializes in organizing high profile surf trips in India for pro-surfers, surf magazines, surf brands, and filmmakers.
The group consisted of prAna talents Nole Cossart, Anna Ehrgott, Taiana Geifer, Paul Robinson and Nathaniel Coleman with producer Michele Fleury, art director Jeff Haack, Stylist Kirra Sheppard. Photography was by Chris Burkard with his assistants Ryan Hill and Russell Holliday. The cinematography was by Ben Weiland, Content writer Aaron Hurst and managed by myself and Kishore Kumar.
