Mickeys Smiths Dark Side of the Lens, perhaps the best surf film ever made, certainly from a surf photographers point of view up there with Greenough’s classic ‘Crystal Voyager’.

And in these times of war, divisive politics and corporate greed Mickeys words resonate more than ever.

“If I only scrape a living, at least it’s a living worth scraping. If there is no future in it, at least the present is worth remembering.”

Sit back and take it in, it only gets better the more you watch.

Mickey now plays with Ben Howard and in his own band Blaze of feather.

Dark Side of the Lense

“Me ma always encourage us to open our eyes and hearts to the world. Make up our own minds for experiences and be inspired.

“I see live in angles, and lines in perspective, slight turn of the head the blink of an eye, subtle glimpse of magic other folk may past by, cameras help me translate, interpret and understand what I see, it’s a simple act that keeps me grinning.

“I never set out to become anything in particular, only to live creatively and push the scope of my experience for adventure for passion, that still all means something to me. Same as most anyone’s with dreams.

“My heart bleed Celtic blood, and I am magnetized to familiar frontiers, raw brutal cold coast lines for the wave riders to challenge. This is where my heart beats hardest. I try to pay tribute to that magic through photographs, wherever in the endless storms for rare glimpses of magic is winter. It’s both a blessing and a curse I relish. I want to see wave riding documented as the way I see it in my head and the way I feel it in the sea. It’s a strange set of skills to begin to accrue and it’s only achievable through time spent riding waves, all sorts of waves all sorts of crafts, more time out learning in the water, floating in the sea among lumps of swell, you always learn something. Life long classroom teacher of sorts and hopefully always will be. Buried beneath headless, shaping the coast, mind blowing images of empty waves burn away at me. Solid ocean swells powered by deep cold water, heavy waves, waves with weight. Cold creeping in to your core driving you mad, day after day, mumbling to yourself to wait for the next set to come. The Dark Side of the Lens.

“An art from silent workhorses of the surfing world. There is no sugar or cliche, most folk don’t even know who we are or what we do or how we do it let alone pay us for it. I never want to take this for granted so I try to keep my resented keep simple, real and positive. If I only scrap a living, at least its living worth scrapping. If there is no future in it, at least the present is worth remembering.

“Fires of happiness and waves of gratitude for every that brought us to the point on earth at that moment of time to do something worth remembering photograph or a scar. I feel genuinely lucky to hand on hart to say that I love doing what I do and that I never be a rich men If I live long enough I currently have a tale or two to the nephews. I dig the feel of that.”