Table of contents for Issue 35 in White Horses

From the pintails that helped him get deeper than ever at Pipeline to camo decks that cut the glare of the tropical sun, Gerry Lopez has always tuned his designs to a simple and functional aim—riding the best surf wherever it’s found. This season, we’ve built four of the prints Gerry used on his surfboards into an exclusive collection of equally functional surf and kite gear for chasing waves and wind around the world. “It’s a cakewalk when you know how.” Gerry Lopez puts decades of practice to work on a classic Pipe day in 1990.…

Camera: Nikon d750 Settings: f7.1 @1/800 sec Lens: 85mm f1.8 The annual pilgrimage into the Western Australian desert started for Bronte Macaulay went she was two years old. Her dad, Dave, was absolutely obsessed with this wave and would do anything, including packing four kids under five years of age into an old caravan with his wife and drive 14 hours to a sun-kissed patch of red dirt that overlooks the Indian Ocean. Bronte first surfed this wave when she was nine years old and instantly fell in love with it. “It was probably about two to three foot and at that size, it’s the longest, most playful left-hander you’ve ever seen,” she recalls. “I remember just trimming for about 100 metres. You couldn’t get the smile off my face for days.” After…

Camera: Nikon D610 Settings: 5.6 @1/640 sec Lens: Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 I had arrived in the dark and patiently sat waiting for the first hint of light before venturing down to the beach for a closer look. You can actually see my footprints left in the sand that snake around the rocks near the water’s edge. After watching the sun rise over the pumping waves, I walked up a hill, past these two campers and their four-wheel drive that had obviously seen better days, but was still been put to good use. “G’day,” I said, and carried on walking. This is the type of place you come to be alone, and I felt guilty about entering their space and disturbing the peace, so to speak. It was clear the surf was going to…

Camera: Canon 5D mkIV Settings: f4 @1/400 sec Lens: Canon 70-200mm f2.8 When swell and wind forecasts are suitable, an expansive sheep and cattle ranch in the Hawks Bay region is a favourite destination for photo expeditions. There are several different breaks on the farm, offering a variety of vistas and compositions that have a genuine New Zealand rural nuance. The farmer there has a fierce reputation for being protective with a tendency for violence. Surfers and photographers are not allowed in, which means you can get images that others don’t if you’re willing to risk it. I always enter in the early twilight before dawn when I can just make out where to walk, so that I am in my shooting area before anyone might appear. The terrain is very steep, and…

Camera: Canon 5D Mk IV Settings: f8 @1/2500 sec Lens: Canon 16-35 mm f4 Kandui sparks a sort of love-hate relationship that surfers here are painfully familiar with. The wave barrels so quickly that the spit can barely keep up. You can either get the best barrel of your life, or get absolutely hammered, over and over. It’s brutal and daunting, but also incredibly beautiful. On this day, there were only two of us in the lineup. Anthony was surfing it completely alone while I shot from the water. I was sitting at the last section of the wave, which is by far the most gnarly – it sucks so much water off the bottom that the wave almost breaks on dry reef. I could see this one coming from way up the…

Camera: Unspecified Settings: f8 @1/640sec Lens: Canon 100-400mm I don’t know a single photographer who’s not obsessed with light. Perhaps that’s why, as a grom, my eye was always drawn to gorgeous pictures taken during California’s Santa Ana winds and the inevitable brush fires that came with them. I’d pour over these photos in American surfing magazines like SURFER and Transworld Surf. The eerie light and surreal colour palette caused by smoke filtering the sun’s rays (with obligatory beachbreak peaks brushed clean by raging offshore winds) was something so alien, so fascinating to a young lad hailing from Britain’s soggy coasts, that I dreamed of one day seeing them in person. In stark contrast, Californian Greg Long is a lifelong veteran of the Santa Ana experience. And so, when some late season Santa…

I met Ray in Tahiti in 2015. I had long been an admirer of his work and we were introduced by our mutual sponsor who make water housings. We were lucky to get one of the heaviest swells of the year in late July while Ray was here and, after the swell, I invited him to come and stay at my place. We went out shooting and I took him to the little slab that I had been documenting for a while. We had a few amazing sessions there with incredible afternoon light and lots of laughs, just shooting beautiful, empty waves. At that time, I was still heavily involved in the surf industry and was still a “surf photographer”. I was already shooting a few images of empty waves…

Camera: DJI Mavic 2 Pro Settings: f7.1 @1/120 sec Notes: I followed the boat with the drone while we were paddling upriver. I kept it low above the palms because I wanted to be be able to see the tree reflections in the water. One of our local friends invited us to visit the small rural village in which he was raised. After three hours cruising upriver on a little wooden boat, we arrived at a tiny village lost in the jungle, where life has not changed much in hundreds of years. Excited kids appeared on the shoreline, while some ran back to the village to call others to come see these strangers. We didn’t know if we were going to be welcome, as we had heard that the government warned all villages…

Brad Gerlach: While I was walking along the beach to paddle out, this cool little dude with a tiny surfboard caught my eye. I saw that his leash was barely strapped to his ankle so I offered my help. “Hey bud, your leash is going to fall off, want me to fix that for ya?” I figured it would be faster and more secure if I just did it. During the process I peppered him with questions: How old are you? How big is your board? How long have you been surfing? Man, you are going to be so good if you stick with it! John Florence: I was so young when this photograph was taken. I didn’t have any thoughts of being a pro surfer; I just wanted to…

Camera: Canon 5D mkIV Settings: f4.5 @1/320 sec Lens: Canon 70-200mm f2.8 The concept of the perfect wave evolves with age. Early grommet years were all about gaining skill, strength, fitness and confidence in small waves that were fun and easy to ride, and where it was easy to paddle back out to the lineup. By my late teens I was bigger, stronger, and fitter; and ready for bigger, more hollow waves. In my twenties and early thirties I started to travel, to dare and test myself in even more powerful waves that might injure if a mistake was made, and also experience some of the famous breaks I had seen featured in magazines and movies in my younger years. Late forties and fifties saw me scaling back on what I was prepared…

Camera: Sony a7R IV Settings: f8 @1/800 sec Lens: Sony 200-400mm f5.6-6.3 Surf photography is a fickle game. You’re always hunting for the perfect combination of swell, wind, tide and light. It doesn’t help that where I live at Mt Maunganui beach in New Zealand, it’s flat 90 per cent of the time. But you can either wait for the waves to come to you, or try go to the waves instead. Fortunately, being an island, I can get to spots that receive swell from any direction within a four hour drive. West Coast, East Coast, north swell, south swell…it’s all achievable in a day trip. So I spend a lot of time behind the wheel, chasing swells. On this solo strike mission, I had initially opted to shoot from the water and…

Camera: Nikon D4 Settings: f5 @1/1600 sec Lens: Nikon 500mm f4 When it comes to frontside rail carves, no one does them better than John Florence in my opinion. For years I’ve witnessed him hone his technique at Rockpile on the North Shore, just steps from his front door. The roll-in drop, followed by a predictably wide, open face provides the perfect canvas for him to generate speed and rip into the wave. Here he applies the same technique to an open shoulder at Trestles: rail buried in the face, one fin free while the other two drive through the turn, his front foot rolled over to allow his body weight to stay centred over the front of the board. You can see how this intuitive application of speed and centrifugal force keeps…

I don’t have a jet ski. That’s why I contacted local charger and shaper, Ben Rufus, a couple of days before this swell to see if I could swindle a free ride on his ski to shoot some slabs. Things didn’t quite work out though and I went down the coast with my family instead. We were on our way back home when the swell hit, so I asked my wife if she’d mind if we stopped along the way so that I could check the surf. “I wont be long,” I said, as I trudged off down a track I knew, laboriously carrying my camera bag. I found a decent vantage point and scoped the ocean. Conditions were raw, windy and predatory. It looked nothing short of forbidding. But…

Griffin and Seth’s tour campaigns seem to mirror one another closely – similar age, same sponsor, coaching overlaps, etcetera. The general public usually only gets to watch these guys when they are in serious competition mode during the WSL webcasts, but in reality, most of these guys go out and have loads of fun just free surfing. There was some playful jostling for this wave and both surfers knew it wasn’t a great one but decided to make the best of it, each taking a unique approach. Camera: Nikon D5 Settings: f5.6 @1/1250 sec Lens: Nikon 200-500mm f5.6…

Jeff Divine: This was taken on the morning of the Offshore Pipeline Masters contest in 1980. The swell was perfect, strong and from the west with giant peaks. It would stand up on the reef at eight to ten-foot Hawaiian size and then wind down to three foot in the channel. It was the perfect day to paddle outside on my custom, lengthened boogie board. The swell direction all but eliminated the treacherous sand bar zone at Ehukai, a gauntlet of pounding shorebreak you usually have to navigate as the riptide pulls you parallel to the beach. I made it outside easily and lined up with the Lopez house. I had one roll of film; 36 shots to record this extraordinary time and place. Each set marched in perfectly shaped,…

Camera: Sony a7 RIII Settings: f9 @1/800 sec Lens: Sony 70-200mm This is Josh Mulcoy, frantically trying to find his wetsuit before paddling out to this extremely fickle Canadian beach break. Thanks to its remote location and extreme tidal changes, I’ll go out on a limb and say that this is the most fickle beach break I’ve ever visited. But when it gets good, it’s truly world class and rivals any beach break on the planet. And because of those massive tides and the way the beach can change from sand to rock in an instant, you need the most capable 4x4 to reach the waves. When we rented this vehicle, we signed a waiver saying that we wouldn’t drive on the beach. Well, we knew we were lying and we did drive…

Before this summer I had never even heard of Erin Brooks. After this summer she has made herself known to the world. I had gone down to Waco with low expectations. My goal was to catch up with friends, surf a little myself and, right down on the priority list, perhaps get a few photos. Erin just happened to be there at the same time. Being an inflexible, aging man who surfs at an intermediate level, surf progression is far from a goal of mine. Sure, it sounds nice in theory but to even get incrementally better might take a year of dedication in the ocean. But surfing in the pool, I could feel the progress in my brittle bones after just a couple of hours. Watching these kids that…

George Greenough • Hugh McLeod • Australian Serials • John Young • Royce Leu • Gerry Lopez • Toby Johnson • Christian Reid • Marlton Family • Kurt Avouris • Esra Aoukal • Nick Greally • Rex Gillard • Shannon Platt • Julia White • Gary Saunders • Adrian Peirce • Mick Rudder • Adrian Peirce • Simon Connolly • Adam Taylor • Faye Gray • David Shannon • Yanik Tissera • Steve Cottee • Julia Heasman • Ben Crowe • Paul Newman • Steve Hops • Maike Kaufmann • Elly Baker • Elisa Hammond • Jack Berry • Alex Brooks • Alex Brooks • Andrew Barr • Richard Kumnick • Carolyn Paten • Warwick Hallett • Brandon Howerton • Morgan Stedman • Tim Jennings • Georgia Lang • Kent…

issue thirty-five The end of the first wave we ever ride marks the start of our lives as surfing storytellers. Along with other bedrock fundamentals – duckdiving, getting to our feet, applying a half decent wax job, etc – reflecting, recounting, or embellishing our experiences in the ocean is as much a part of the deal as anything else. You only have to surf with a bunch of grommets to see this reflection in its most animate form: from high-pitched, breathless recounts of waves just ridden out in the lineup, to post-surf bakery debriefings with forensic analysis of that sick reo, intense deliberations about a dubious barrel claim, and graphic accounts of getting smashed by that double-up. The ocean, the waves: the endless variations of our encounters with and around…

Camera: Canon R5 Settings: f3.5 @1/800 sec Lens: Canon 300mm f2.8 A river mouth with a large catchment area in my region can exist for years with no surfable wave if the bottom is badly shaped. Locals don’t even bother checking it, other than to cast lures for fish. The surrounding countryside is perfectly flat, with highly fertile alluvial soil, ideally suited to vineyards, grazing, horticulture and commercial vegetable growing. Last winter we experienced several heavy rainfall events in the inland ranges, which resulted in the river flushing out large amounts of silt to form an arrowhead-shaped bank, stretching out more than a kilometre off the beach. Subsequent swells featured world-class waves for days on end. On the first swell, there was maybe a handful of surfers on it. On subsequent swells, surfers…

Camera: Canon 1DX mkII Settings: f5.6 @1/2000 sec Lens: Canon 70-200mm f2.8 Notes: Inside Aquatech housing with port for long lens I’ve always been fascinated by storms and moody atmospheres in the ocean. These moments really express the power of nature and I try stay on the lookout for them whenever I’m shooting, which is how this photo came to be. It was taken during a routine morning session at Teahupoo. The waves were firing, but the weather was overcast and the light wasn’t great. You could feel the predicted storm approaching at high speed by the way the ocean was moving and starting to get rough. It wasn’t long before everybody left the lineup – we all knew that it was going to be hell out there as soon as the storm hit,…

Camera: Canon 1D mkII Settings: f5 @1/1600 sec Lens: Canon 500mm f4 In over 20 years of living along the North Shore and even longer shooting the waves there, this is the only time that I have ever seen all reefs of the Pipeline break at the exact same time. It’s exceptionally rare to see this, and the reason comes down to wave dynamics. When the furthest reef out to sea at Pipleine starts breaking, known as Third Reef, you know the surf is large – probably in the10 to 15-foot range. It usually takes another 45 seconds at least before you see the same swell light up Second Reef, and then First Reef. With this in mind, you would need a set of around 10 waves or more to see all the…

Sea Level is an ongoing series of abstract reflections on the ocean surface. This series has been evolving for nearly a decade and was the logical outcome from me spending so much time immersed in oceans around the planet. It all started from happy accidents where the focus might grab on the foreground and create a more pronounced out-of-focus background. It wasn’t the shot I was trying to achieve, but some sort of ethereal beauty became apparent, and so I pursued it further and started deliberately working on trying to achieve this look. Using different cameras, focal length lenses and aperture to control the depth of field (the amount of area in focus), I shot at absolute sea level using a water housing. I would sometimes shoot a thousand images…

Camera: Canon EOS 1 Settings: f5.6 @1/1000 sec Lens: Canon 15mm fisheye One of the most striking things about this picture, apart from the flawless technique of the surfer and the perfect glassy conditions, is the total lack of crowd. This was shot around 2005 when Bottle was making his charge for WCT qualification, and like old surfers everywhere, I’d like to say things were better and less crowded back in the “old days”. That wasn’t the case, though. I have lineup shots from that season where you’d need an hour to count the heads in the water. The difference is, this shot was taken on a dropping swell and early in the morning after the Surfer Poll Awards, when the entire who’s who of the surf world would get together for a…

Camera: Nikon D4S Settings: f6.3 @1/500 sec Lens: Nikon 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 Back in 2014, a very attractive weather scenario heading directly for Teahupoo drew my attention. After making a few enquiries, I found out this swell would be closed to the public for the filming of the Point Break remake. To invest in an international airfare and not be able to shoot would be a disaster. But then I found out my friend Philip Boston was the director of photography for the action scenes. I had worked with Phillip on Billabong Odyssey some years earlier, so made an urgent call and got an invite to come and shoot. Conditions for this particular swell were as good I’ve ever witnessed at Teahupoo – pure glass and an eight to 12-foot swell with few 15-foot…

Camera: Canon 1D mkIV Settings: f7.1 @1/1600 sec Lens:Canon 50mm f2.8 When the wind comes up at North Point, the ramps are inviting but also very challenging. It had been a hard session up until this point with some heavy landings, but Kael Walsh is not one to hold back. So when this little chip shot of a wave popped up with Kael in position, I knew something gnarly was going to happen. It wasn’t a big wave but it had a nice user-friendly section, which is rare for North Point, and Kael ended up doing this. Moments later we sat baffled in the channel, still processing what had just gone down. It is the first backflip I’ve seen landed out there and I’m not sure who was more stoked – Kael…

This spot has had many names in the past. The older crew who used to watch it and apparently body surfed it in the ’70s called it “Piker’s Hole”. The bodyboarders from the ’90s and early 2000s called it “Cape Solander” and used to flip the footage to disguise the location. The Bra Boys then took hold of the spot and claimed it as “Ours”, but us Cronulla folk just call it “Cape” these days. This was taken during the first east coast low of the year. When the swell is in the six to 10-foot range like this, there are loads of photographers shooting from the rocks, so I chose to shoot from the water with a fisheye lens to establish a point of difference. Pictured here is Max…

I got my first water housing over a decade ago. It was a primitive beast I picked up second-hand and, due to the fact it was designed for a different camera, only the shutter button lined up once the camera was placed inside. With no control over the camera settings, it was difficult to get creative. But sometimes the camera would get creative for me. One evening the waves were so good I stayed out till after sunset. My camera self-adjusted to the fading light and I managed to get a fluke slow shutter photo. I loved the aesthetic and this happy accident really ignited a spark. After that, I would only shoot around dawn and dusk if there was any hint of a wave. I was dedicated to honing…

Camera: DJI Mavic Pro Settings: f5 @1/1250 sec Lens: 28mm f2.2 fixed lens Pipeline is probably the easiest place in the world to get an average photo, and one of the hardest in the world to get a good photo. Season after season, shoulder to shoulder with other shooters, swimming from the channel or hiking up to the Pill Box, trekking the same paths that have been well worn since the ’60s. Where else can you go? The sky, perhaps? Nope, that has been covered, and covered very well by the best lensman for multiple generations via helicopter and drones and probably hot air balloons at some point. There are no unique angles of this wave left. That’s why when shooting Pipeline nowadays, I rather focus on trying to tell a more complete…

Camera: Sony a7R IV Settings: f8 @1/500 sec Lens: Sony 200-600 f5.6-6.3 Sea Lions run this part of the south coast in New Zealand. They’ll often be brawling amongst themselves on the beach or chasing surfers out of the lineup. Every single time I shoot from the water here, I’m terrified of having a run-in with 200kg worth of smelly, angry, sea lion. Apparently they get really bad toothaches from tooth decay, which, understandably, would make anyone pissed off at the world. You expect to encounter them when you’re in their domain but last year, one unlucky visitor got more than he bargained for. He was camping at a free camping spot near to where this photo was taken, and was woken up late at night to the sound of heavy breathing outside…

This was on one of those unruly Pipe days that starts off unridable in the morning but eventually, after a few hours of sitting around waiting for it to clean up, a few guys will inevitably paddle out and give it a try. Michel Bourez is always one of the first to test the conditions on days like this. He is one of the most sweet and gentle human beings you’ll find on land, but as the swell increases, so too does his level of seriousness and commitment. This session had lots of Third Reef wash-throughs, catching anyone hunting for a First Feef bomb out of position. There were lots of broken boards, sketchy swim-ins and near misses, like this closeout lip lunging towards Michel. Camera: Nikon D4 Settings: f5.6 @1/1600 sec…

Camera: Canon 5D Mk III Settings: f7.1 @1/800 sec Lens: Canon 70-200 f4 As a Gold Coast based surf photographer, trying to stand out in a heavily saturated industry is a difficult thing. Shooting from the water has become my niche, with a smaller percentage of photographers willing to risk life and limb bobbing in the impact zone during a swell to get the shot. Landscape imagery, or any shots from the land for that matter, have never been a strong point of mine, but this is one of my favourite photos. I’d just got a hall pass from the job site and had done the Snapper to Kirra slog a handful of times, wielding my camera with limited success. The day was getting on, I was tired, my lips were chapped and…

Camera: Canon 7D mkII Settings: f4 @1/2000 sec Lens: Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 Notes: Shot using a Pedra Do Mar water housing made by Itamar Nunes Long before I moved to Mauritius, I had read about the Le Morne Brabant peninsula, named after a Dutch East Indian Company ship. During the 19th century, the Le Morne mountain became a refuge for people who had been freed or escaped slavery, and has since become a symbol for the abolition of slavery around these parts. Today, the mountain is one of many impressive backdrops I get to enjoy while shooting crisp barrels and passionate surfers on my adopted home island. It watches over us while we ride the barrier reefs of Mauritius that lie far offshore. It has also witnessed the growth of many promising local surfers,…

This image was the end result of a long winter and countless trips scouring the coast while chasing slabs with Laura Enever, Steve Wall and co. At this point we were questioning our motives after suffering numerous skunkings, hospital trips and various blowouts that made our film project Undone almost feel tedious. This wave is by no means an easy place to surf, despite how it appears in this frame. It’s a powerful slab that detonates on a shallow ledge that is, in all honesty, a glorified closeout. I was scared shitless shooting it from the water. It didn’t help knowing that this was the same wave that nearly killed Mark Mathews a few years back. Steve razzed me up though and got us out there on his ski. I…

After a very last minute call, Jack Freestone, Mitch Crews and I met in Melbourne with the intention of chasing a big swell to King Island. Problem was, all domestic flights to Melbourne had been cancelled due to inclement weather. The wind was howling and rain was pelting down, but I somehow wangled our way onto a charter flight that departed from a small nearby airport. In hindsight, it seems fairly obvious that if all domestic flights get cancelled, it’s not a good idea to fly. Rather go home, make a cuppa and take the experts’ word for it… We got to the airport and waited while our bags and bodies were weighed and the plane was prepped. By that stage it was looking pretty dark and stormy outside, so…

Camera: Canon 5d Mk IV Settings: f4 @1/1600 sec Lens: Sigma Art 50mm f1.4 I’m a sucker for an all-time lineup shot. There’s something about being able to mind surf the hell out of an empty wave way beyond your surfing capabilities that really gets me frothing. This spot requires a bit of a hike in, so my partner, Georgia, and I got our walking shoes on. By the time we got to the point, I had already taken a few lineup shots that I was pretty stoked on, so Georgia grabbed my camera to see what she could get. As we were walking along the hillside, I started to notice a stacked set of lines on the horizon. The first couple of waves started breaking at the top of the point and…

Camera: Canon 1DX mkII Settings: f8 @1/1250 sec Lens: Canon 14mm f2.8 Notes: Inside Aquatech housing with 8-inch dome and 30mm extension While working on my book Surface, I shot thousands of underwater photos and witnessed some amazing situations. This was right before the CT event at Teahupoo, just as all the pros started arriving for the contest. Conditions were amazing that day. Not big, but a good size, with the clearest water and not a cloud in the sky. I dove underwater as Ace Buchan dropped into this one, looking to get barrelled. Unfortunately the wave didn’t cooperate and he punched through the back to escape, which put me in the perfect place to get this shot. It’s one of the first few frames of the sequence and I love how you can…

Camera: Sony a7II Settings: f6.7 @1/1250 sec Lens: Tamron 10mm fiisheye Notes: Rig used inside a Dave Kelly water housing I’ve been to three different wave pools and I am totally sold on the idea of manmade surf. Coming from the Gold Coast, I’m constantly driving away from perfect surf because of overcrowding. If the manmade version means that I can have my waves pre-allocated and know I can catch them without having to ignore some poor bugger on my inside (while at the same time screaming at the person paddling down the line), then I’m all for it. The alternative is travel to remote places. That’s obviously the preference, but it’s not always feasible. A trip across town to catch guaranteed waves sounds pretty appealing – even if I have to pay for…

Camera: Canon 1D mkII Settings: f4 @1/125 sec Lens: Canon 24-70mm f2.8 I’ve been to Taiwan a few times now. The first time was before it was widely known as a surfing destination. The quality and consistency of the surf was a real surprise. I used to think it was just a slightly more westernized version of China, but it really has its own unique culture and the local people seem more like Pacific Islanders than Chinese. Which could be why they’ve really taken to surfing, I guess. Even though surfing is a relatively new phenomenon in Taiwan, the locals have really embraced it. They draw their influence from the surfing “lifestyle” they see online and from visiting surfers from western countries, as well as the many Japanese visitors. Depending on where you…

When I take on something extreme, the first thing I do is break down the “what if’s”. Swimming at The Right and shooting fisheye fits into this category, and the list usually goes something like this: Hold-downs: will need to work on my breath holds Injured: have a dedicated rescue driver (with first-aid skills) Going over the falls: Andy Cap! My “Andy Cap” helmet is a custom-made helmet designed specifically for the shape/size of my head. It fits perfectly and is an essential protective layer for out-of-control camera housings, kisses with the reef, wayward surfboards etcetera. The idea behind the custom paint job was to mimic nature. Human eye contact is said to deter predators (no, not the ski drivers in the channel) – or at least that’s the theory.…

Camera: Canon 5D mkIV Settings: f5.6 @1/1000 sec Lens: Canon EF 500mm f4 IS mkII with Canon 1.4X mkIII tele-coverter There is no suitable high ground to get a good lineup shot near this river mouth, so I resort to lugging a 10kg vintage Miller wooden legged tripod and a big lens up a steep hill several kilometres inland. The hill is part of an expansive Frisian bull paddock. During this shoot, I climbed on the highest mound of the hill, and the alpha bull in the herd took exception to me occupying that strategic spot. He started bellowing at me from down in the valley, and gradually moved up the hill pausing to bellow and paw the ground with one front leg. He stopped on a lower mound briefly, looking up at…

When I think of my home in West Cornwall, I see and feel granite. Big flakes of the stuff, managing to simultaneously crumble away into the sea and stand firm to the frequently changing moods of the North Atlantic. Seams of quartz, feldspar and mica woven through boulders, rising and forming ridgelines along the west-facing coast like sleeping dragons lying dormant in the cliffs. Down on the beaches you can look out across the surf, safe in the knowledge that the myriad problems that define this strange, Brexit-shaped island are all firmly behind you. This granite promontory is among the first to receive the sea and weather; reeling and occasionally revelling in the spoils of the ocean. It is no wonder that the Romans named the Penwith peninsula Bolerium or…

Ah, the Cortes Bank: a break atop a barely submerged seamount some 100 miles out to sea. A wave so fickle, with such unfathomable logistics required to reach it, that it’s been likened to surfing’s Everest – though it might better be described as surfing’s K2. I thought I’d never see it firsthand after missing my first invitation to shoot it back in 2012. Greg Long had sent me a text message asking if I wanted to join them the next day. He’d even arranged a plane for me to get the aerial perspective (drones weren’t a thing yet back then). But by some quirk of technology, the last minute invitation temporarily disappeared into a cross-network, 12-hour abyss and didn’t arrive on my phone until the morning after he’d sent…

Camera: Mavic Pro 2 Settings: f6.3 @1/500 sec Lens: Hasselblad 28mm f2.8 This was my first trip with the Olin sisters, Mathea and Sanoa. We had just got out of quarantine here in British Columbia and decided to keep our distance from the crowd by looking for some new waves to surf near Nootka Island. This particular spot is pretty far off the radar – about a three-and-a-half hour boat ride away from the surf hub of Tofino. Legendary Canadian surf pioneer Pete Devries was our guide, though he hadn’t surfed this region in about 20 years. The sisters had no problem adapting to their new environment and it was great to see the younger generation really pushing it out in the lineup amongst these remote, challenging waves. The sisters are 17 and…

When we first drove down this road in Scotland, I knew I had to run back and shoot the famous wave at Thurso from this angle. I shot for over an hour, desperately trying to line up a surfer doing a clean carve or slipping into a barrel between the farmhouses. But despite Thurso’s mechanical credentials, its quite a hard wave to shoot from this angle and continuously changes with the tide. I was so focussed on getting an action shot of the surfers I was travelling with that, by the time they came in, I thought I had just blown an entire session with nothing to show for it. I completely overlooked this empty lineup at first. All I remember thinking as I flicked past it on my camera’s…

Camera: Nikon D300 Settings: f7.1 @1/1000 sec Lens: Nikon 10.5mm fisheye This image was my very first cover photo. I’d been shooting a Creative Destruction episode with Wade Goodall in France, and we lucked out with one of the best days you can get over there. The waves were so good and breaking so close to shore that most of the crew weren’t wearing leg ropes. It was literally a case of take off, get tubed (or worked) and paddle back out in a heartbeat between sets. Ben pulled into this thing and it ended up closing out, but he knew where I was and went for it. He’s a madman, surfing Nazaré and all sorts of big waves, so this was child’s play for him. I, however, got sucked over the falls…

I shot this in 2011, a good couple of years before Wavegarden or Kelly’s pool popped up, and it’s still the closest I’ve come to experiencing an artificial wave. I was shooting a Creative Destruction episode for Wade Goodall with Laurie Towner and Dean Brady. Wade had a concept where he wanted to make a floating rail for him to grind, so he ordered this oversized SUP with a big one-foot fibreglass hump running along it covered in hard foam. We took it out in the Clarence River and used a friend’s fishing trawler to drive up and down a sand island to create little waves. The trawler had to be weighed down by filling up the hold with water to give it more drag and make bigger waves. It…

I have known Mt Woodgee’s surfboard artist Willy Nicholls for a number of years and over the course of many conversations and a couple of beers, I’ve managed to get an idea of his life story. Willy grew up in the New Zealand coastal area of Mt Maunganui and was introduced to the surf industry in his early teens as a ding repair boy for Jim Carney. A few years later he relocated to join his brother in Australia to pursue his passion for surf art. Iinitially it was pretty hard to find work but upon meeting Nick Anagnostou, the owner of Mt Woodgee, his world changed overnight. Mt Woodgee became like a spiritual home for Willy. He loved the way it operated, the ethics behind it and how underground…

Camera: Canon 1DX MkIII Settings: f5.6 @1/1250 sec Lens: Canon 70-200mm f2.8 Not too far from where I live on the NSW South Coast, there’s a somewhat forgotten lake. After an absurd amount of rain, which battered and poured down for several days, I noticed a couple of cheeky grommets digging a small opening that led from the lake into the ocean. Within minutes the water had forced an opening 50 metres wide, making a wild rapid of brown water, silt, moss and other lake-type bits and pieces. Since the swell was about eight to ten-foot and insanely onshore, it started to churn the lake-muck into a disgusting yet beautiful looking cream. The strong southerly blew all the foam into a northern corner and it must’ve been ten-foot deep in some points. I’m…

In Queensland and Northern New South Wales, there’s a small window just after sunrise when the sun really lights up the waves. Thanks to the angle of the light, it looks like the translucent walls are being lit from within. This distinctive look was made famous by some brilliant surf movies of the ’70s and countless surf magazines over the years. You could almost add it to a Dulux paint colour chart and call it “East Coast Pointbreak”, or something like that. Torren Martyn probably isn’t thinking about how nice the light is on this wave. He paddled out before dawn this day just to beat the weekend crowd. Photos and clips of his stylish and effortless surfing are one reason why longish, channelled twin-fins are so popular at the…

The Box is scary, plain and simple. It’s far out to sea and you’re exposed to whatever’s lurking below, with currents pulling you in every direction and waves lurching up unexpectedly and detonating on a shallow slab of reef filled with random coral heads. There’s generally little room for error out there. But when it all comes together, it produces some of the wildest rides and most picturesque images around. With all the associated risks and stress that go with surfing the place, there tends to be a select few that can put that all aside and simply have a ball. Whether it was planned or too late for one of them to pull back, I’m still not sure, but watching Jack Robinson and Nathan Florence share this barrel was…

Liner Notes We start this issue’s liner notes with a few unsolicited words sent to us by regular contributor and all-round legend, Pete Geall. “We are united by the collective narratives of surf, however distant from our lived lives. By sharing and documenting our experiences, we create a wonderfully diverse map of the surf experience. From big waves to small, cold water to the tropics and back. We can all relate”. Surf photographers are key players in the ongoing process of sharing these stories. We all know their pictures speak a thousand words, but what we forget is that they too have stories, and so we extend our sincere thanks to the talented crew whose work you see on these pages, giving of their time, their talent and their stories.…