Chad Sharpe Big air Pic

Saw this over on Wakeboarder.com and didn't see it posted here yet. Not sure who deserves credit for the photo but nice job. Chad Sharpe winning the big air Title at Parks Double up contest.

Just sick

Holy Mother •••••• ••••

ditto. no photo chop on that one? that's incredible.

Awesome That is huge. I love the DU I practice them every day during my session

Hory fruck if that's real that is huge!!!! Randy Harris huge!!!

I would be in the hospital if I went that high.

thats almost unbelievable.

That's insane...I seriously dont' know how these guys can keep on landing flat from that high up and not blow out a knee...

That doesn't look real to me... but I'm a skeptic... If it is, that's freakin' crazy...

It's real, estimated at 24'. I've got a TFD but I assure you I'll never get that high on it... Chad Sharpe is one Great/Crazy rider!

uhm i dunno, but that rope looks like its coming out pretty darn high to be on a tower, but who knows.

it's impossible at that high if he land it on his feet (what is CRAZYYYY ) it will be landing 25 feet in the flat, who can do that maybe at 35mph with a translantic wake, with 3 feet air, it's just ijmpossible, and yes alessandro look at the rope really top high on that pic, but it was a good one !

rope doesn't look right. otherwise good shop job.

Those kinds of pics never look real, even when they are. I don't know this one isn't photoshopped but I have no reason to believe it is. Check out these pics from Orlando and notice how big guys went.




Just look at the angle of Danny's rope on his Blind Pete off the dup and you can tell how high he is.

Why do people always think that "the rope looks like it's attached too high?" Where else is it going to look like it's going if you take the picture from under the tower?

Anyway, it's not photoshopped. Here, I have the whole sequence:

hahaha nice one

salman, that is definatly a photoshop, look at the landing, not even close!!!!

yeah and where is that line going?? all the way to the nearest 747?

After looking at this closer in photoshop it kinda looks fake but you never know. Could just be bad compression.

(Message edited by fallinguphill on May 14, 2004)

To all the skeptics...

Have you even taken pics of people from behind the boat?

that sequence def does not look right, but the first one is real for sure I even saw the video footage of it at the award party.

Salmon, that's great!

Are you guys for real that some of you didn't get the joke? Geez... that's scary.

it doesnt matter where your standing taking a picture, when the rider gets to a certain height the line starts going down not up. You can see this in the second picture posted by BIll-J above ^^^^^

John O,

Tell me how the rope is going to "go down" (toward the boat) in the picture if it's attached ABOVE the photographer's head. THINK ABOUT IT. perspective... point-of-view... The rider could be 40 feet in the air and, since the rope is attached above the photographer's head, the rope will still "go up" (toward the boat) in the piture.

Bill J's second picture wasn't taken from inside the tow boat.

ofcourse the rope is still going to go down, it will be cut off the top of the picture, but the rope is still going down, not up. you take that sequence ^^ above, print it out and draw in the rest of the lines, what does this guy have a 60 foot tower?? i dont think so.

TO all you people crying "PHOTOSHOP!!" about the Chad Sharpe photo, I can assure you it is quite real. I too was sitting in the towboat all day for the PB Double Up Contest, and have a very similar picture of Sharpe. That's truly how high he was...it was pretty ridiculous...

the rope aint going down, ever heard of a fish-eye lense? looks like one to me, its real baby, real

Pretty sad how people are quick to discredit, though they have no reason to do so.

We have got to see this on video.

yeah does anyone have a video?

At first after reading the posts I was like how the heck does the rope look weird? How is it supposed to look? At least it is tight without any slack. Then I looked at the pic again and can see what they mean. It does look like the rope is attached high and goes straight up. I see what they mean but still, its a pro riding and reaching unbelievable heights. I have not seen many riders up that high so I can say I know what the rope should look like. Anyway its all good. Thats a killer shot. Man how the hell do you land from those height without breaking your legs.

At first after reading the posts I was like how the heck does the rope look weird? How is it supposed to look? At least it is tight without any slack. Then I looked at the pic again and can see what they mean. It does look like the rope is attached high and goes straight up. I see what they mean but still, its a pro rider and reaching unbelievable heights. I have not seen many riders up that high so I can't say I know what the rope should look like. Anyway its all good. Thats a killer shot. Man how the hell do you land from those height without breaking your legs.

(Message edited by zride on May 15, 2004)

That is friggin incredible...

Have any of the doubters here actually seen pics taken from a boat before? My god... The rope angle is fine.

I can understand how you can think it's fake however... I mean, just look at it...

If Mike says it's real, it's real.

Don't you people get it? The landing shows his legs snapping off and the red is supposed to be blood...an obvious joke. The first photo is real...but Salmon Tacos sequence shot landing is an OBVIOUS fake.

people are idiots these days, sangeria. people are so serious that when someone jokes they are blind.

Since were on the topic, trivia question: who can tell me who holds the record for bigget air on a wakeboard and how high was it?

shaun murray 24ft is what i heard? but i dont know if it is true. I saw a TRUE picture of shaun murray going offaxis and he was twice the height of the boat and tower, talk about air. that guy better watch out for low flying planes, they should make him get a pilot license.

Leo- was this the pic you were talking about?


Sorry about the poor image quality, best i could get it, but it is not photoshoped or altered in any way.

thats it mark...i dont know if thats the record though, but its pretty dam close.

I have an idea. Dave should start a new topic on the discussion board called "Haters' Forum." Then, whenever anybody posts anything of interest, a bunch of ignorant people can respond by saying that it is bullsh*t, and they can offer some nonsensical and/or scientifically invalid "facts" to back up their opinions!

Oh, wait.... That's kind of what we have already have...

I knew ST's pic was a joke. I was referring to the comments above that.

I'm a hater.....I hate idiots.

mike, if you have a similar pic i think we'd all love to see it for comparison. there's absolutely nothing similar about the height of the riders in bill's pics and that one of chad.

i have no idea whether this pic is real or not, but i don't understand what's wrong with questioning the validity of the pic. there have been plenty of doctored photos - even in ads in wakeboarding magazine.

the pic was posted by someone that i at least don't know at all, and who has no information about themselves in their profile. so we have no more reason to trust him than not to. and finally, the pic was taken from wakeboarder.com. that alone has to make it of questionable origin.

if mike says chad was going that high then i believe him, as he's a professional with no real incentive to lie as far as i can determine. but certainly there's no reason to accept a picture posted here by a basically annoymous user from another website as authentic. there's certainly nothing wrong with at least posing the question - especially given that the content of the picture is so unusual.

i've seen a lot of pics of folks going big, and even to me that looks ridiculous. although to be honest, it's pics like this that i expected to see from this contest. i was disappointed in the photo gallery that accompanied the article on the contest. none of the double-up tricks captured there come close to matching the height in chad's pic.

all that just to say, what's wrong with healthy skepticism?

Healthy skepticism is one thing...discrediting every pic posted in message boards is annoying.

Just to let everyone know there was a post on wakeboarder.com that said that you will be able to get footage of the event in a couple months, the guys from pointless are putting it together and selling it as a box set with their next vid MIXTAPE

Chris,

I'm looking for the Chad pic right now. I shot over 4,000 photos that day, and loaded 3,000 of them into WakeBoarding Magazine's computers without even seeing them. If Chad was in the first few riders, then I have it on my computer.. otherwise, I don't. I will though try to find a pic of someone going as high as Chad is going, and can assure you I will not doctor it at all =)

Darin off the double-up, attempting a triple-front.

All the haters have been put to shame by a professional, thank you Mr. Isler

Looks like Darin has time for a quad front with that much air!

Chris,

Just wanted to add that I appreciate your logical and up-front approach, and I agree, nothing wrong with a little skepticism when we're so surrounded by "modified" truths.

Also, by my recollection, Chad was going bigger than Darin's triple front attempts, and Chad's picture is cropped differently as well so that might add to the higher feel of it.

Mike

thanks much mike. that's an amazing amount of air and just what i was expecting from that contest. excellent photo. im looking forward as always to seeing your others. chad must be made of titanium.

how close did darin get on the triple front flip?

You'll have to stay tuned to coverage in WBM as well as for video coverage to find out...

Mike i have a question, i/m stuck over here in the philippines. Now when i went to malaysia there was a copy WBM in EVERY magazine shop i went into, after buying my first copy i loved it and have read it about 40 times cover to cover, however now i am back in the philippines and i have visited over 100 magazine stores, NONE of them have WBM?? do you have a distribution centre here? if so , could you give me the address? if not, where else can i get it?

Cheers

John

Leo, nope close but not it.

That first picture wasn't even his biggest of the day...... check this one out..

Kristian that's a good question and I want the answer. I've never actually heard of any official "highest air on a wakeboard" but I know a few years back some LF rider...I can't remember his full name, but he was heavier...I think his last name was reid, did this huge indy glide. I dont' know the height, but that's my guess. If that's wrong, I'd guess darin shapiro. And was this highest air pulled behind a boat or a helicoptor? Because if it was a heli, it's gotta be darin. Or was it parks when he did that giganto backside 180 in tehapoo (I can't spell it, but it's that crazy surf spot). Anyway, now there are so many possibilities...

Lastly, parks has the longest air...like 86 feet or something. That was in alliance.

(Message edited by electricsnow on May 17, 2004)

Isn't this the same pic? http://www.wakeworld.com/Galleries/GetImage.asp?GalleryID=179&ImageID=38

Must be real...

The LF riders name is Rob Reid & yes he did a huge Indy Glide off the Triple up. That guy taught at The Wakeboard Camp & that photo was taken the week before I was there, they talked about it a lot. He was a short guy kinda stocky & blew it up on everything. I'm guessing what happened to him on the landings happened to Chad Sharpe, he just straight crumpled from the hit.

Look at the rope it doesn't even connect with the handle in the first pic. But I could be wrong. And in the sequence it looks as if it is behind the board. Sorry doesn't look real.

I don't know why I bother, but.... Obviously if the photo is annonymous, (sp?) I can not say whether or not it is real. However, a lot of people on this board do not understand photography and perspective. From the angle the photo is taken, it will look higher than other perspectives. I don't think he is any higher than the photo in Mark's post and he is only slightly higher at best than the photo of Darin. I guess it would be nice to know where the photo came from, but knowing the one of Darin is real, is enough for me to believe. I wish someone would explain how to land from this high, so when I jolt myself coming down from 4 feet, I can apply their technique.

Mike Souza (ridn9high),

Are you high right now? Notice in the first pic that you can see the rope extension. That means that point of the rope is probably about 10 feet away. At the handle, the rope is more like 70 feet away. Ropes get harder to see the farther away they get.

As for the sequence...did you notice the blood spraying everywhere? The way the legs were separated at the knees? The visible bones in the lower legs? Do I need to make the joke more obvious for you?

My bad Mr. Burrito. Didn't realize you were making a funny. What crawled up your A$$ and had a family.

Stinky Taco - no need to convince us. The Joke is obviously you and I'm sure you had fun doing that in photoshop.

MANGO

can we all just agree that Chad Sharpe can get some great air on the dub up?

people get pissed when you question the authenticity of photos taken by professional photographers. Remember that picture from All or Nothing where Parks was hitting that HUGE slider jump? Even with him 20 feet in the air (or more) it still looked like the rope was going up. It's just the perspective of the shot, just like Troy said.

J-Rod,

People get "pissed" when other people are stupid.

Mike,

Next time I'll be sure to add more than one laughing smiley in case the cartoonish gore isn't enough.

mango,

Huh?

The photos came from parks dup contest... steve hahn I do believe... and he's probably just a little reputable seeing as he is responsible for the gallery. Ofcourse maybe he edited all like 20 pics of the pros that look unbelieveable... check out that gallery people, it is insane
Darin trying triples??? WHAT? That is sh*t made in video games, it is amazing and brings to light the endless possibilities behind the x-star and long long ropes.

- Duane

Salmon- If you go back and look at my post it reads "I COULD BE WRONG" and that was referring to the first pic. And for you information maybe you should take the smiley to photoshop, stretch and skew it 400% so "I" know it a joke. Might be eaiser than adding more than one smiley. My bad I didn't see your little smiley at the bottom of you comic.

Hey, I personally thought the blood looked real. If I had children I wouldn't let them visit wakeworld anymore. Shame on you Salmon Tacos.



I made sure I put lots of different smiley faces so people would get my sarcasm.

Ding-Ding-Ding! we have a winner. Its is right, LF rider Rob Reid has the record. 30 foot indy glide (AKA 411) behind a toyota epic in 98.

Wow, a guy you never here. Well i can get 10-11 ft off the double. Maybe if I triple the weight in my boat I will get 30ft!

SERIOUSLY How the heck do you come down from that high and not look like the sequence that salmon tacos so artistically showed us how i would look.
SERIOUSLY HOW??????????????????????

wow krisitan...I would never have guessed 30 feet. But it was one of the gnarliest things because in the sequence, they talked about how the trees were out of the picture or something...It was crazy.

that pic is just a screenshot of wakeboarding unleashed for PS2 lol... you can get some crazy air in that game. the rope is a big elastic.

I posted the pic orignally on wb.com. It came from a reliable source and is real.

Where can I find a picture of this Rob Reid fellow going 30ft high?

I don't see what the big deal is anyway. Measuring using the wakeboard as reference, his feet are *only* about 15 feet above the bottom of the wake. Obviously, it's not the most accurate way of measuring but it's accurate enough to tell me that there's no way he's higher than 20 feet.

Now, I want to see this 30 foot business that you guys are talking about. I'd probably yell "Photoshop!" on that one!

Leo/Salmon its in an old WBM. and it ain't fake.

Do you know which month/issue? Do you think if I email WBM they will send me a pic.

Leo, if you want to buy it, it's the march 1999 issue. I was able to find the sequence because I remembered he was riding gregg's pro model from 1998. It doesn't specify that it's a triple up, and it doesn't say 30 feet (tom king's quote said he must have been at least 20 feet up). Anyway, here it is...in two posts.

I'd also like to add that I only cropped out the black border that WBM had around the edge of the sequence. After that, what you see is what you'd get if you had the mag.

Also, here is the quote from the photo: "If you're wondering who robb reid is, let's just say he's a guy looking for a good orthopedic surgeon. "He had to be 20 feet in the air. It's the biggest thing I've ever seen anyone do on a wakeboard." Those words are from a guy who's seen a lot of people ride, Tom King. To get an idea of how big this move actually is, try to think of the last time you saw a shot from the boat with no water or trees in the background."

Lastly, I'd again like to give the photo credit to the masterful tom king.