An informational piece where you can pick up all kinds of esoteric knowledge to baffle your friends in the pub … Or win pub quizzes. Or not. This one is about the motherlode: Hawaii.
It’s long … and big
The State of Hawaii maybe invisible on most globes but the little bits of rock which stick up above sea level to make the islands and the reefs of the most famous surfing real estate in the world are part of a mammoth geographical feature. 132 islands, reefs and shoals stretch over 1500 miles from the Big Island of Hawaii to the Midway Atolls (famous for the big ass battle in WWII). If you picked them up and dumped them on the good old US of A they’d stretch from San Francisco to the Gulf Coast. Not just that the city of Honolulu is the largest in the world, due to some state constitution small print stating any isles or islets not belonging to a county default to Honolulu … So it’s got the longest border of any city by freaking miles.
It’s tall
Mauna Kea on the Big Island has a snow capped (and snowboardable) summit that scrapes 14,000 feet above sea level. Below sea level it goes down another 18,000 to the sea floor … which equals a total height of 32,000 feet. Making it the biggest mountain on earth. Mount Everest, in comparison, is a paltry 29,035 feet, not even in the 30G club. And to make matters worse the boffins reckon Everest has got four foot shorter in recent times due to glacial melting.
It’s been surfed for a long time
They may have a strong claim to being the oldest surfing race on earth, having invented the whole deal, but the Polynesians/Hawaiians aren’t a patch on the Peruvian goat boaters that have surfed on wave-skis made of reeds since year dot. But as goat boating doesn’t really count then the Hawaiians can take the honour.
The Union Jack is on the flag
Odd as it seems the Hawaiian flag has the British flag in its top left corner, much the same as the Aussie Flag. The rest of the flag consists of eight red, white or blue stripes that represent the eight main islands (Nihau, Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and the Big Island of Hawaii). It goes back to the early nineteenth century when the Hawaiians agreed to be a protectorate of Great Britain. We didn’t run the show, they ran their own affairs, but we looked out for them against the French and the Americans.
We’ve just moved in
The Hawaiian chain was one of the last places on earth to be colonised by mankind.
Earliest evidence suggests some traces of man around 100 A.D, but the Polynesians didn’t properly colonise the joint until 400 A.D. First contact with the western world was made on January 19, 1778 by Yorkshire’s finest, Captain James T Cook, he first hit land on Kauai.
There’s no shelf
It’s the lack of continental shelf that gives the waves so much power on the North Shore. In Europe, and the SW of the U.K particularly, we have a shallow water zone that extends way out to sea that slows up the swells. As the Hawaiian Islands are all volcanic islands that have grown steadily up from the sea floor there is no shelf to slow up the waves. The Big Island of Hawaii is less than 500,000 years old, cos its so new and fresh the lava reefs there are extremely sharp as they haven’t had time to erode.
It’s far
The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated bits of land on Earth. It’s over 2400 miles to the continental USA and the other Polynesian islands in the South Pacific.
24 miles is a long way to go in a canoe. 2400 is off the scale, especially when you consider the Polynesian explorers had no idea where they were going or if there was even anywhere to go to. They must have been so glad when they finally hit Waikiki and Ala Moana mall.
Spelling is easy
There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet. Cool huh? The vowels: A, E, I, O, U and the consonants: H, K, L, M, N, P, W. So that’s why so many place names, like Waimea, Haleiwa etc have such a distinctive ring to them. It also shows that few surf spots go by their local names, Banzai Pipeline is hard to make from only those letters.
Good java
Hawaii is the only state in the US that produces coffee beans. Considering how much coffee the Americans drink it’s kinda odd. The Arabica beans grown on the Big Island that are sold as Kona coffee make for a damn fine brew. Coffee is grown on the slopes overlooking the North Shore of Oahu between Wahiawa and Waialua, they also taste good.
Lava lava lava
Mt Kilauea is the most active volcano in the world and has been since 1983. Which makes the mapmakers in Hawaii angry, because every couple of weeks they have to redraw the map of the island, as it keeps getting bigger. This might not be a problem soon as a huge fissure, known officially as the Hilina Slump, and unofficially as the Big Crack is opening up and a 4,760 cubic mile chunk of the Big Island is poised to fall off. Cue much tsunami action for Oz. At the moment it’s moving four inches a year, but has moved up to 26 feet in one day.
Spam is king
The residents of Molokai eat more spam than any other citizens of this good Earth. 6,700 of them smash 20,000 tins a week.
How to survive Indonesia…
The glittering chain of pearls strung across the Indian Ocean. Where Asia ends, Australasia begins and continents divide. A seemingly infinite amount of islands home to waves of such quality, such class and, occasionally, such crowds it’s heaven and hell all at the same time.
If you call yourself a ‘surfer’ you’re not really a ‘SURFER’ until you’ve busted your Indo cherry. It’s adventure, intrigue, excitement, culture, flawless waves and more all topped up with lashings of banana jaffles and nasi goreng. Now’s the time to think about a main season mission so here’s some pointers.
WHAT TO BRING
The main thing with any tropical travel is travelling light. Essentials only. Reason? You’ve got to carry the damn stuff. It’s hot and sticky so you don’t need heaps of clothes. A selection of boardies to rotate and comfy pair of walk shorts and you’re good to go. Couple of vests, couple of tees and maybe one smart shirt, one long sleeve tee and some thin linen trousers in case you’re a) wanting to visit a temple b) are going anywhere malarial. It’s easy enough to pick up cheap clothes in Indo so don’t bring the farm. If you’re doing a Mentawai run you don’t even need clothes. A tee to travel there in. One for the way home. Then some boardies. On a boat it’s just boardies and top off for the whole time. Unless you’re the kind of hipster that wants to surf in an open shirt of course.
Board wise two boards is the minimum. A groveller for the small days and a something you’re happy on for the good hollow days. One board and you’re asking for instant snappage first sesh. More is good but there’s a moving around to consider and coffin bags are an arse to travel with. A good tight triple is ideal. Spare fins, spare leashes, luggage straps, too many fin keys and strip your wax before you go as you’ll need warm water wax not the cold stuff. Apart from that don’t go crazy, a mozzie net if you’re going deep, a first aid kit aimed mainly at repairing cuts and your own syringes are always a good idea, sunblock, any medical essentials and anti-malarials if you’re going anywhere past Bali.
Do you need a lappy? Depends if you want to spend your time on the other side of the world staring at the internet. They can be handy for watching films etc on flat days but it’s a weight and a risk. An iPad is the perfect travel companion. Light, battery lasts forever and you can get your fix of online guff.
WHAT NOT TO BRING
You have to be an utter muppet to even begin to think about bringing any recreational drugs in to Indo. Fancy the death penalty? Then don’t be a tool. When there also don’t dabble. Street sellers are often in league with the police so seconds after you score you’ll be tapped by the rozzers and in a whole world of trouble. Ice cold beer and surf fuelled dopamine are the only chemical recreations you need in Indo.
DON’T PLAN TOO HARD
It’s good to have an arrival plan. Book something for the first few nights if you’ve got a tip from an experienced mate. Have an idea of where you’re staying or at least the street/lane name so the bemo driver can drop you off. Coming out the airport confident is good wherever you go. Rip off merchants can spot a green neophyte in an instant so act confident and like you know where you’re going. Bemo wise agree a price for the fare as the traffic can be wondrously terrible.
From there on out being fluid in Indo is good. You can adapt to what’s happening with the swell then. No point having a rigid structure then missing the swell of the decade because you were up a volcano or drunk off your gourd in the Gili Isles. You will meet people, things happen, a crew for a G-Land mission or a boat trip down through Lombok and Sumbawa can come together in a day so. So be adaptable. Be mobile. Base everything around the swell. Because…
IT’S NOT ALWAYS GOOD
This isn’t something you want to hear obvs. But, friend, we’d be remiss if we painted a picture suggesting ‘best ever’ waves every day. Sure Indo has better waves on a vastly higher ratio to anywhere else in the world but it still gets bum every now and then. Funky winds are an occasional issue, like the back end of last season thanks to El Nino weird. Thankfully you’re sat in one of the most interesting places: culturally, geographically and biologically on earth. If the surf is going to be arse for a few days then hit the volcanoes, the nature parks, go see a Komodo Dragon or orang-utans and yes go to the Gili Isles get drunk (not on Arak unless you don’t mind going blind) and chase backpackers. Hang out with the locals. They cool. Your eyes will be opened when you’re sat in a wooden shack in Sumbawa with your friendly local moped taxi rider and his family as they bring out the biscuits and weaponised strength coffee. You’ll see a happy, family centred, chilled out bunch of people that don’t give a fig what’s happening on Facebook. Living close to the land and all the better for it. Of course every island is different. Bali is garish and so modern in parts now you’d be hard pressed to know you were on the magical island that’s been such an integral part in surf lore for forty years.
WHERE TO GO
Look at a map of Indonesia. There’s surf on pretty much every island that faces into the Indian Ocean. Some of it well known and documented, surfed and crowded since 1974. Other parts you could still well be the first person to draw a line.
There are plenty of waves outside of the well known hotspots of Bali that are classy and uncrowded. For a short trip Bali is all you need. If you’ve got the time then other islands need exploring. The shortest hop from Bali is over to Nusa Lembongan, an island not too far off the east coast. The classic mission from Bali is to Java and the legendary G-Land which with the fast boats is not the 24 hour ferry/bemo hell mission it used to be. The longer run is down to Lakey’s in Sumbawa but Lakey’s is best in the shoulder seasons in April when the trade winds are not so dominant. The other option is to really explore and avoid the classic spots entirely. Sumatra and Java are huge, wave rich islands, you could spend years just exploring there and there are waves equal to Lakeys and G-Land to find. It all comes down to how much adventure you want. Bali is easy. A green run. Lombok and Sumbawa a red and past Sumbawa and Java/Sumatra and the outer isles a black run. Much more potential for things to go wrong but also a richer, deeper experience and no Starbucks or McDonalds to fall back on.
Whatever happens any Indo voyage is going to be one that’ll give you stories for years to come not to mention upping your surfing game. It’s rightly considered the best surf zone on Earth, you owe it to yourself to find out why…
So Big OW has been back into sea after recouping from his head injuries suffered at Pipe. He is still in the early days of getting back on his feet, so he is right back to basics, from elite Chopes charging pro to foamy king, just like that. It must be a huge source of frustration as you can imagine. Not being able to surf sucks at anytime but at least we can surf.
And this is the point. Owen’s latest Instagam post below (www.instagram.com/owright if you want to follow) highlights why we all love surfing. Sure we beat ourselves up for being so kooky, we all want to rip like Owen, pull big airs, get barrelled but at the of the end of the day, when we forget all around and immerse ourselves in the ocean, and just go surfing, it is then we have the most fun.
No hooters, no points, there may not even be any spectators or anyone else around, or you could just snag one in the middle of a metropolitan crowd. It could be one foot, it could be ten, onshore, or offshore, 30 degrees or minus 10. You may have a Firewire Tomo or the latest custom sled, you could just as easily be in rag tag third-hand board shorts riding a piece of wood until your belly drags on the sand on some far flung corner of the earth. But you are, gliding along a wave, performing the greatest activity, art or sport on earth – surfing.
And in that moment nothing else matters, you are lost in the stoke.
Those long hours being battered, practising, hoping, dreaming all coming to fruition in one heady mix of adrenalin and endorphins. And there lays the truth in surfing, on any given day any surfer of any ability can feel gloriously victorious. You can hoot, scream, high, five or just smile but at the one minute moment in time you feel you are invincible…
Of course five minutes later you could be face planting, chewing sand, or pulling the nose of your board out of your ass which can generally make you feel like an inglorious bastard for a week. And this is where the genius of Owen Wright’s observation lays, “…self improvement is necessary but to focus on comparison of what used to be, what others can do or why you’re not good enough is detrimental to the now; negative emotion in your self will hinder improvement and happiness.”
Wise words. Just go surfing. Get stoked. Live in the now.
Get well Owen, you are legend whether you can surf one foot or ten.
You sir/madam, yes you, reading these words. Did you realise we make a non-internet version of Carve? A highly flexible, extremely portable, easily shareable, high-definition, full colour, chunk of recyclable, wood-fibre based, renewable source, entertainment technology? Yes folks, it doesn’t need batteries, a power source or any interweb wifiness. It costs very little, brings a lot of joy and hopefully inspires you to go out there and do that there surfing. It is what we like to call in the trade a “magazine”.
A certain Mr Gutenberg was the first to start knocking out printed goods on his new fangled press in his arches workshop in the east end of Europe some time around 1440. Being based in Germany his early works were guidebooks to places where men could drink pilsner, discover the best and worst (sorry) sausages and cavort with busty Bavarian maidens. He also did the odd nightclub flyer at night when things were quiet… He started a revolution that disseminated ideas and knowledge to the common man. Reading material was no longer hand copied by monks and hence not controlled by the church. A knowledge explosion happened shortly afterwards. If it wasn’t for him then who knows where we’d be, would the Guardian, Private Eye, Carve and many other genre defining titles ever have seen the light of day?
Surf magazines have been the cultural core of our sport/art/hobby thing for 50 plus years now. Alongside surf films they define the era, reflecting what people are riding, where they are surfing, the characters and views of the time. They’re little papery time capsules. Of course some end up in the landfill to become the lining for seagull nests but the bulk survive for years. Collected, treasured and re-read … Not something you’ll ever say about a web post.
They are part of the glue that holds the surf community together and that has great value. I may be biased as I’ve been enthralled with surf mags for 20+ years now but a good surf mag can’t be beat. You should be chuffed, the last decade has been the golden age of the British surf media. You’re lucky people, twenty years ago the mags weren’t so hot. Brit mags used to exist on the C-grade photos the American and Aussie mags didn’t want. Now we are running A+ images of our riders, our waves, shot by Brit photogs on a regular basis. Our riders are international names. The surge in talent level in British and Irish surfing and the push into the cold, hollow reaches of our end of Europe has helped things along.
Things are good. Well… Except the oft-quoted ‘death of print media’. Death is a slightly over the top word for it, it’s not dead, it’s just evolving.
Print media means magazines and newspapers. Which are very different beasts with different aims, objectives and readership. The newspaper industry used to be huge; most cities had four or five papers providing the people with news, ads from local businesses and classified ads from local people all in all a useful service. The last fifty years have seen that number go from four down to one. The problem isn’t print is dying … it’s that the papers aren’t making the obscene profits they are used to. The immediacy of the internet, especially Twitter, is purpose built for breaking news. Rolling TV news: another kick in the balls. The big, national newspapers are ahead of the game in the online world making cutting edge websites that reinforce their titles. Even if the DM is mainly focused on what Kim K is up to. But newspapers are evolving with analysis and reportage that, even though the internet generation would dismiss as TL;DR*, is valued and needed. Not every story can be reduced to 300 words of SEO friendly copy.
On the magazine side it depends on your content and target market. The cheap men’s mags are gone, screwed themselves as you can look at nudey folk, talk balls about sports and watch people hurt themselves all day on the interweb for free. The higher end titles like GQ are okay because people still like to read good long form journalism and they have premium advertisers. Niche mags, like Carve and many other sport/hobby titles only appeal to a small section of society and hence the content and information they provide isn’t so readily available online. They are also increasingly a premium thing: heavy paper, timeless content, photos and design to die for. They have evolved away from being disposable to collectable.
As for surfing websites, sure we feed you daily goodness, there are plenty. But show me a website that engages you for any length of time and gives you the experience of reading a good surf mag. People spend on average about two minutes on most websites. Pop in, read a post, watch a vid, go back to Facebook. A good mag will give ten or twenty times that. Quality time without distraction immersed in the good gravy contained between the papery folds. Sure websites are free but that can’t continue indefinitely, unless you want the professional surf media to die. Photos and words cost money, trips cost money, our website exists because the magazine pays for the photographers and writers to do what they do. And if you aren’t paying for the sites then you’ll be paying for it in endless ads in your face, or thinly guised advertorials.
Magazines exist for a reason: it’s because they work. Not to mention the fact that taking your laptop or iPad into the shitter is still considered just plain weird. Print maybe a centuries old technology but it’s not fit for the dustbin of history just yet…
For us Northern Hemi types it’s finally looking like spring. That time of year when we finally consider leaving the house without a full set of waterproofs, hiking boots and winter survival gear.
That’s right. Those shoes, trainers, daps, pumped up kicks or ratty old Cons can be looked at as viable options again without fear of your feet getting soaked, acquiring trenchfoot and/or frostbite.
Conversely as nature uncurls itself from winter hibernation so do we. Outside is a thing again. Not just somewhere to be endured between home and work/office/pub/waves. You can get changed for a surf without needing speedy ninja wetsuit on and offing skills to prevent blast frozen exposed flesh. Hell, there’s even enough radiation blaring from that ball of fire in the sky to singe a bit of colour in our pasty skin. S’right, the season of poo face/hands is upon us. The mark of the surfer. Relish it.
Now the big question we all face as surfers as the days lengthen and warmth seeps back in to the world is when to lose the gloves, hooded suits, or twat cap if that’s how you roll, then finally, and this is the big one, losing the boots and getting the wax between your toes again. Before you know it that 6 or 5mm will be living up to its classic name: steamer. On those clear, wonderful, crisp cold mornings just perfect for a slide as you peel off your superman suit you’ll literally steam. Like a welcome cup of java. Which looks pretty cool. Unless it’s wee steam. Which is inevitable but gross…
Soon be time to roll out the 4 or 3mm and which after a heavy winter will seem like you’ve lost a couple of pounds without eating salad or going to cross fit at all.
Of course being British spring can be a double edged sword. It can be mega sunny and pump, we’re on for a week of lovely surf on the left coast at the moment, or it can go flat for seven weeks. And rain the whole time.
How ever it plays out we’re glad the darkness is over. Spring starts astronomically next Sunday and for the meteorological sorts it’s been here since the start of March. Now we just need the ocean temperature to crawl back into double digits…
You probably don’t think too much about the surf photos when you’re flicking through magazines or scrolling your Insty, yes they look nice, they can be inspirational and they make you want to go surf or travel but you rarely think about the actual photo and how it was achieved.
Because somewhere out there is a photographer who shot it, a photographer that has dedicated his life to his art, a photographer eating a lot more noodles than steak, a photographer that’s suffered not surfing the best waves he or she has ever seen just to take photos.
American photographer Jeff Divine once said, “Surf photography is starvation on the road to madness”. So you really should be thankful that this strange, often slightly eccentric, sometimes officially mental, noble breed are so obsessed with getting the shot that they keep doing so even though they could make more money slinging burgers in McDonald’s.
The current crop of UK shooters: Nunn, Sharpy, Smith, Lacey, Gartside et al are the product of nearly eighty years of progression. Nearly eight decades of creativity behind the lens from maverick geniuses that have pioneered techniques in and out of the water; it has been these guys out-of-the-box thinking that has got us to where we are today. Combine these creative minds with the ongoing technological revolution that has seen one hundred years of manual focus replaced by auto focusing and film emulsion replaced by zeros and ones and you get to the current stellar, mind-blowing level of photos you seen month in, month out in the magazines and online.
So where did it begin? Who was the first surf photographer? The first photo of somebody with a surfboard dates to 1890, who took it nobody knows (its part of the collection at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu), but it’s quite impressive considering photography was only just getting out its experimental early stages at that time.
The first actual surf photographer documenting surf culture as we know it was the hugely talented Tom Blake. A pioneer in every sense of the word, he revolutionised board construction, was the first man to put a fin on a surfboard and even invented the sailboard (otherwise known as windsurfer) but his main contribution -that sees him regarded as the father of modern surf photography- was his invention of the first water housing for shooting surfing from the water. It is this surfer’s eye view of the action that makes surf photography unique in the sports photography world and Tom Blake first did it in 1930. He got his first spread in the revered National Geographic magazine in 1935.
It was Blake’s early shots, in particular a watershot of Waikiki that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, that inspired the next great, the first dedicated surf photographer- ‘Doc’ Ball. To give him his full name: John Heath ‘Doc’ Ball first started playing about with cameras as a kid around the time of the First World War and started surfing at a time when there were perhaps twenty riders in the whole of California. He had just started taking a few photos of the burgeoning scene in 1929 with a Kodak Autographic given to him by his dentist father’s assistant but it was Blake’s spread in the L.A. Times that appeared in 1931 which made him dedicate his life to recording surfing and surf culture. Not just capturing the action, he recorded the parties, lifestyle, board makers and everything that goes with it. Like his father he qualified as a dentist and seeing as it was the time of the Great Depression money was tight for photographic gear, but this was a time when you made your own boards and shorts and everything was a bit more DIY. So he traded expensive gold dental work for a better camera with the L.A fire chief and in 1937 he built his first ‘water box’ for his new Graflex camera. It was literally a wooden box with a brass handle on the side, to take a photo he had to pop open a little door at the front and close it again before the water got in. Shooting on 3 x 4” film the results were impressive. He laid the foundations of modern surf photography by always exploring new angles and techniques. The Second World War put the brakes on the development of surfing in California as many great surfers went to war and never came back. Doc became a ship dentist in the Pacific theatre and kept himself sane by bodysurfing whenever he could with the new swim fins invented by Owen Churchill; the swim fins photographers use these days have hardly changed in over 60 years. After the war surfing and Doc’s photography picked up where they left off his photos appearing in newspapers, books and even the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Tragedy struck in 1964 when Doc’s house was hit by a flood and drowned his archive but thanks to the fact he gave copies of hundreds of photos away many of his timeless images survive.
The ‘60s were a great time of change as surfing and surf culture took off in the mainstream. The first surf magazines appeared and for the first time surf photographers had like-minded souls to talk to. Guys like Don James, John Severson (the man that founded Surfer mag), Ron Church, Endless Summer creator Bruce Brown and Leroy Grannis were freed up from the restrictions of heavy medium format cameras by the new lightweight 35mm SLR cameras from Canon and Nikon. Grannis in particular defines the early ‘60s shooting water shots at many of Hawaii’s most famous waves and documenting classic Californian swells.
The mid ’60s saw surfing explode into the world’s consciousness through films and music. The transition from the black and white to colour film mirrored the loosening of society’s attitudes from post-war conservatism to the drug-fuelled psychedelia that followed. This era is encapsulated by one of surf photography’s most tragic heroes: Ron Stoner. He didn’t pioneer colour surf photography but he was the first one to master it. From 1965-1967 he was ‘the man’ at Surfer Magazine, his sublime work blew the doors off the competition, his images were simply better than anyone else’s working at the time. He shot everything: action, water, line-ups, portraits and more. Proof if proof were needed: he had the cover shot of Surfer for six consecutive issues. His beautifully composed images and undeniable talent however had shaky foundations. Stoner was schizophrenic and like many at the time had drug problems. Electroshock therapy in the late ‘60s left him virtually catatonic; he’d given up shooting by 1971, was listed as a missing person in 1977 and declared dead in 1994. What happened to him is an enduring, tragic mystery.
Surfing grew through the ‘70s (as board lengths shortened) with big names like Art Brewer and Jeff Divine documenting the birth of professional surfing. The next pioneer came from a tangential source- skateboarding. Warren Bolster is widely regarded as the most influential skate photographer from the sports 1970s heyday. He was among the first to use fisheye lenses, motor drives and strobes to document the four-wheel culture. Inspiring through his work in Skateboarder magazine, amongst others, the young Tony Hawk. Bolster moved to Hawaii in 1978 where he quickly established himself as an accomplished surf photographer. The innovation he bought to skating continued as he pioneered shooting the North Shore surf from helicopters, developed remote-control board mounted cameras and later on shooting half in/half out water shots with extra large custom made domes. Like Stoner his creative genius came from a mind on the edge, and sadly he committed suicide with a shotgun in 2006.
The ’80s saw great leaps in camera technology and an event that fundamentally changed surf photography in the same way the introduction of the leash changed surfing.
Canon got a jump on the opposition in the late ‘70s introducing the A-1 the first SLR camera to feature one of the new fangled microprocessors; a fancy device that ushered in the era of auto-exposure. Previously photog’s used handheld light meters and crude in camera LED light meters to help them make their settings manually. Canon also debuted their manual focus 800mm lens in 1981, which became the surf photographers long lens of choice for the decade.
Big names of the era include the legendary aquanaut Don King. An Olympic standard water polo player credited with being the first heavy water wide-angle guy. Previously in Hawaii when the surf got solid photographers would shoot with a long lens from the relative safety of the channel. King used the new fisheye lenses to shoot big Pipe and Backdoor from spots previously considered suicidal. He leaves a lasting legacy that we’ll come to later. He’s still shooting now but tends to shoot moving pictures for Hollywood (Blue Crush, Castaway, Lost, etc). Another big name with a lasting influence was Larry Moore, otherwise known as Flame, as a photographer he documented the new high-performance surfing in California of kids like Christian Fletcher and as photo editor of Surfing magazine he instilled a professionalism and mentored younger shooters with a passion that still inspires today. He was also a pioneer of the pole cam, a water housing mounted on a minimum 3-foot pole that enabled a whole new perspective. Initially he created the system as a way to shoot back towards land on otherwise backlit Californian afternoons. The device came into its own as aerial surfing progressed through the 80s and 90s with Santa Cruz’s Tony Roberts defining a whole new look in fisheye action photography.
The history of surf photography has been entirely American so far so it’s time for a notable nod to the Australians… Being a professional surf photographer in the early ‘80s involved a high degree of skill. Manually focusing an 800mm lens on a fast-moving surfer was a skill worth its weight in gold. One of the leading proponents of long lens work was Sarge. Paul Sergeant earned good money shooting Formula One and surfing and was instrumental in the careers of many young surfers notably Occy. He was also the first gonzo surf photojournalist- filing contest reports, photos and stories as he circled the globe following the then extremely hedonistic pro tour. He wasn’t just a casual observer, in true gonzo tradition he was often seen leading the charge and like many photographers eventually had to admit he had a drink and drug problem and ended his career in utter disgrace.
The approaching tipping point in camera technology was the death knell for photographers of Sarge’s generation summed up in a word: autofocus.
Pentax brought in the first autofocus SLR 1981, but it was the arrival of Canon’s EOS system in 1987 that was the beginning of the end of the highly skilled surf photographer. With the arrival of their now industry standard 600mm lens in 1988 and the launch of the EOS1 pro camera body in 1989 pin sharp photos were achievable by anyone that could borrow $10,000 and could stomach the ongoing cost of purchasing and processing slide film. The era of the artisan was over and for the next 10-years surf photographers multiplied like flies and the previous high earnings and respect for the old guard disappeared…
The ’90s saw little in the way of technological advancement, the EOS1 eventually morphed into the EOS1V a camera capable of shooting 10 frames a second meaning you could shoot a whole role of 36 frames of slide film in 3.5 seconds and Nikon finally caught up with Canon in all fields beginning the arms race which continues to this day.
The ’90s was the decade of excess, the surf industry boomed and the top photographers made a good living, guys like Brian Bielmann, Hank, Ted Grambeau, Sean Davey and Chris Van Lennep defined our surfing world with many exotic trips opening up Tahiti, the Mentawais and many more destinations.
The big change of the ‘90s was happening in the background. An American student by the name of Thomas Knoll had been slowly coding an image manipulation program on his monochrome Mac. Which finally saw the light of day in 1990 as Photoshop v1.0. The boffins at the camera companies meanwhile were beavering away on digital technology leading to Kodak bringing out the first commercial digital camera in 1991 a 1.3 megapixel bastard son of a Nikon F3, priced at a cool $20,000US. Canon delivered the more realistically priced D30 at $3000US in 2000 at the time 3 megapixels was considered pretty cool. These days we scoff at that on a mobile phone.
The 21st century has seen another sea change in photography. Digital imaging at first was resisted strongly by the surf fraternity. In the same way that board-shaping machines took the soul out of the shaper’s craft photographers saw digital as eroding the last vestiges of their trade. Even with state-of-the-art light meters in the cameras surf photographers still relied on handheld light meters and simply ‘knowing’ what the light level was and setting their cameras accordingly; because even the most expensive camera in the world still gets confused by white-water. Slide film and processing was expensive and if you didn’t expose a slide correctly then it was ruined, there was no such thing as ‘fixing it’ in Photoshop then. Digital cameras removed the cost of film and stripped away and knowledge necessary to get correct exposures. Modern times see cameras that trained monkeys could take surf photos with. But all is not lost…
The digital age has also ushered in a new era of experimentation and democratisation. Photographers that learnt their trade in the era of film continue to prosper, as long as they’ve come up to speed with the computer geekery essential to being a photographer these days, and to get incredible shots all you need is a £300 GoPro so anyone can shoot. Along with the big lens, the camera and waterhousing the other modern essential is a laptop with as much horsepower under the hood as possible teamed with the latest incarnation of Photoshop.
Removing the cost of film means you’re not throwing 20p down the drain every time you take a duff frame.
Digital has opened up a whole new world, especially with flashes, flash has been used in the water for more than 20 years but inspired by skateboarding again guys like Tom Carey have pioneered using remote flashes (where an assistant swims with a flash unit in its own housing) to develop a whole new genre of surf photo, Dustin Humphrey and Dave Nelson also did sterling work to progress this field.
The other big change, inspired by legends like Don King and Chris Van Lennep, was in the field of heavy water photography. An area, at its peak, dominated by bodyboarders- Mickey Smith, Scott Aichner, Tim Jones, Jeff Flindt and Daniel Russo et al all regularly swam in what can only be termed as life-threatening surf to capture mind boggling fisheye images. Every season they pushed each other deeper and bigger at the three key heavy water photo studios- Pipeline, Puerto Escondido and Teahupoo. Where it will stop nobody knows and there’s now a whole new generation like Leroy Bellet and Zak Noyle getting crazy in the heavy salt.
So here we are in 2016, digital cameras and the arms race between the big two camera manufacturers has peaked, with Canon’s full frame cameras hitting 20MP at 14fps (EOS1DXII) which also shoots 60fps 4K. Nikon’s D4S hits 11fps at 16MP and Sony’s stunning mirrorless A7 range is disrupting established theories.
The tit-for-tat war will only continue incrementally and established surf photographers will moan for a bit and only upgrade when something crazy is added.
A technological plateau has been hit as there’s only so many megapixels we need, future models will be eventually hit 50MP and 4K filming capability is becoming standard. Frame rate wise once SLR cameras hit 24fps they are no longer stills cameras … they are movie cameras which is a whole different tax headache. The point where you can grab a mag spread from a video frame grab is already here with RED cams. In the future photographers will be filmers that are good at picking key frames from footage.
Is there anywhere left to go creatively? You’d think every angle had been exhausted. 80-years and hundreds of surf photography devotees later there is still plenty of room for shots that make you stop and draw breath, Laurent Pujol pioneered the ‘behind in the tube’ shot. Building on early deep swimming work by Billy Morris and others getting smashed getting behind surfers in the tube this evolved into surfers carrying housings themselves, and now GoPros, but the Pujol angle is a huge leap and young Aussie Leroy Bellet has taken it further adding flash to the mix. It’s the very definition of suffering for your art. Every shot end’s in an ass kicking.
Where we go from here is anyone’s guess, the only thing you can guarantee is the strange, charmed breed that label themselves surf photog’s will be out there suffering for their art. The money is awful but the office can’t be beat…
