White Horses

You may have heard of the relatively recent concept of "trigger warnings". In academia particularly, students are forewarned that upcoming content in a particular text might trigger a memory that is upsetting or damaging. The idea of a sensory trigge

The Summer of Love was long dead by the time 1970 rolled around, nailing the coffin shut with the Kent State massacre and the death of Jimi Hendrix. The war in Vietnam was still raging and the death count of young American and Australian troops kept

After 25 years of trips through Indonesia, I thought I had the place pretty well worked out and had become a bit jaded. Then I was commissioned for a shoot in 2017 for a resort company that had acquired land at a wave, and wanted some pictures to gau

My old man introduced me to the sea at a young age. He taught me respect for nature and the tides, bodysurfing, low water fishing and diving. Here he is, post-surf grin, holding his trusty wooden board. These bodyboards were made by Grays, now the fa

One of the biggest attractions for me as a photographer who shoots empties is the simple fact that every single wave is different. You can watch a thousand waves roll in over the same reef ledge and never see one that’s exactly the same. Like people,

Ever since Skeleton Bay first popped up on the radar, I – like ever other goofy-footer in the world – wanted to surf it so bad, but it took years for me to finally get there. Eventually all the elements aligned while I was in South Africa shooting a

It was the late 80s and I was going through my first phase in flash photography. I’d attached an old Toshiba diving strobe to the outside of my Nikonos II camera and was able to get usable pictures, as long as I didn’t shoot in full sunlight because

Going under the knife is pretty daunting. You start thinking crazy shit: am I going to wake up? Will I be able to function the same? I hope the doc’s not going to slip and cut something he’s not supposed to… These thoughts were hard to shake as I pre

This photo was taken during the first heat of the morning at the Teahupoo event in 2014, the year it got really big. I had never caught a wave like that at Teahupoo before, one of those super thick ones. I had seen other people do it but up until tha

The camera I took this photo with came everywhere with me and lived its best life, before the salt eventually corroded all its working parts. It wasn't waterproof but spent many days in the sea. It was so rugged and reliable and I took some of my fav

A few years ago, photographer and childhood friend, Tony Roberts, sent me this photo. He’d found it going through boxes of his photos he’d stored years ago, before leaving Santa Cruz for Costa Rica. The photo took me aback. I stared at it for the goo

I still get a bit of a shiver when I look at this image. It was taken on a charter expedition in Papua New Guinea, where I have the good fortune of working for PNG Surfaris as their resident photographer. We were in a remote area with an odd swell di

As a photographer my life is defined by significant moments. Although it didn’t feel particularly impactful at the time, this image from the early 90s has matured in significance. The subjects have since become powerful industry leaders, like Doug ‘C

The rugged southwest coast of Tasmania. A place of ancient quartzite mountain ranges and heaving cobalt seas. A place that punches giant, ragged holes through the limits of our language. Where time warps and shifts, becomes geological. Where you can

This was at Belharra during the Hercules storm of 2014, when Jamie Mitchell caught this gigantic wave. It’s still the biggest storm I think Europe has seen in a hundred years or so. Luckily for us, the swell actually peaked the night before. I’m pret

Up until this trip I would consider the majority of my surfing experience as comfortable. Growing up on the Sunshine Coast, the seasons never really change and you are spoilt with the option of boardies all year round. The surf trips I’d done weren’t

This photo was taken back in the winter of 2011. A bunch of us had been surfing the beachbreak in the background. Afterwards, we lit a fire at the high tide mark – I was sure the tide was going out – and I wanted to get a long exposure of the beautif

I was witness to the early days of the women’s surfing movement in the 70s and 80s. These were days of heats held when the surf had finally blown out, an occasional coin toss to determine a winner, and sponsors that bailed at the last minute after pr

Looking back, it’s hard to pinpoint a time when the darkness took over. Growing up, whatever was going on in my head, I figured that was just the way everyone else felt or viewed things. Inevitably it caught up with me. I went from thinking that noth

I grew up at a heavily localised wave, a little piece of reef beneath a sea cliff that hosted a slab style wave with a tiny, hotly contested takeoff spot. If you weren't from there, you weren't welcome. It was all about black wetsuits, clear boards,

Eight or so years ago I picked up a photography magazine while waiting for my ritual morning coffee. "Top twenty wildlife images of the year”, said the main callout on the cover. Each photographer was interviewed on the backstory behind their image a

I first met Buttons on the beach at Pipe in the Hawaiian summer of ’94. I was visiting the islands in the middle of the year and seeing a very different Hawaii to what you experience during the winter surf season. Despite this, a rare bout of swell a

Kakuni means crab in Maldivian. We named this wave after the infestation of crabs on the island off which it breaks. The whole island floor seemed to undulate with the critters, to the point that they’d climb up your legs if you stood still for too l

I met a guy in Bali in the early 70s and we became friends. He really had his shit together with his own house, staff, car and an air-conditioned music room where we’d go and get stoned and listen to the latest tunes in the late afternoon with the he

I was 18 years old the first time I saw this photo. We were down the south coast of NSW filming for the Epokhe movie Beauty Pockets. I had only just met the Epokhe lads and was probably a bit quiet and shy and definitely nervous to be filming with Ka

This was taken in the final weeks of a three-month trip Ishka and I spent zig-zagging around New Zealand. We’d rolled over 10 000 kays by this point and were at the bottom of the South Island, around Jackson Bay. Along with the versatility two wheels

In the mid 70s I created a fictitious utopian surf spot to use as a vehicle to publish stories and photos in Australian, and then American magazines. New Zealand as a surf destination was unknown to international surf media at the time. The Americans

Cori Schumacher was the first interview I’d ever done and I was shitting myself. I clearly recall the sudden case of dry throat I couldn’t swallow away as the Skype dial tone beeped through my earphones, and I waited for Cori to answer. I’d been pest

This photo was taken as I kicked like crazy while holding my camera up above my head to get the shot. All the Zambian kids were horrified that I would risk such a precious thing. The little fibreglass boat is the best way to cross the Luakela River a

In the late 70s, I moved three sandstone headlands and seven kilometres up Barrenjoey Road from Mona Vale to North Avalon. I arrived with a Rodney Hocker seven foot single-fin and my vintage nine foot Hayden, and we all quickly got acquainted with Of

Days like this get counted down like the numbers before an old black and white movie. 10, 9, 8… Ten days out the storm first formed. A low pressure system near Fiji that was projected to intensify and move south, and at its height flush the entire Ea

What shot means the most to me? Such a huge question when I start thinking of all the effort over the years: the long, cold walks before sunrise, and the sketchy dawn and dusk swims in very sharky places. And that’s not to mention things like swimmin

It was the Hawaii season of 2003 and I was at the Off the Wall house having coffee with Andy and the boys. I had my camera on me with 3200 ISO high-speed black and white film – it was really dark inside – when all of a sudden Kelly walked in the door

This was taken during my Round 5 heat against Dion Atkinson in Tahiti, 2014. It was the hugest, most perfect Chopes I had ever surfed. So blue, so clean! I had already had two of the heaviest hold-downs of my life during this heat. My energy was spen

The Philippines has 7 107 islands in total and is second only to Indonesia in potential dream setups. But unlike Indonesia with its constant exposure to southern hemisphere swells, the Philippines relies on erratic typhoons to light up any surf along

My favourite photos of Lisa Andersen are from the trips she did with the Quiksilver boys. I just loved the way she could hang with them and you could tell she was easily accepted into the gang. That was kinda in my mind when I got the call up to join

A few days before I took this shot, I was halfway down the coast working at a bodyboarding event. I try not to look at the charts when I'm busy on a job but there were plenty of whispers around the comp site of a crazy swell due to hit the day after

This photo of a perfect Skeleton Bay lineup was taken from the bottom of the bay where you get the best perspective of the wave. In the distance, in amongst all that sand and water, you can see a slightly hunched figure wrapped in four millimetres of

Late 2011, Indian Ocean, around 400 nautical miles northwest of Broome. It was cyclone season and I never knew it could get so hot. I was part of the mech crew on the Crest Odyssea II, or CO2 for short. My jobs ranged from welding broken aluminium pa

This was 1977 – I had just won the world title and MR had just unveiled his new twin-fin design in Hawaii. Mark and I were very competitive. We both wanted to be considered the best guy in the world, be it free surfing or in contests, and Off the Wal

This photo was taken on my first trip to the Telo islands. I’d sailed overnight from Padang aboard the Nomad, one of Matt Cruden’s surf charter boats, laden with building materials bound for a tiny island in the archipelago north of the Mentawais. Of

I was in Bali in 1974 when I overheard a conversation about a beach full of Puka shells. Puka is a Hawaiian word meaning “hole”, and refers to the naturally occurring hole in the middle of these bead-like shells. Threaded together they created a neck

Steve Wall, Russ Bierke and Brett Burcher were all going down for this swell to film for a big wave project we’re doing. Steve told me to at least come check it out – no expectations, just come see it and get a feel for it. And I was like, “Yeah, sou

In December 1982, with a flawless west swell inflating the Offshore Pipeline Masters, Martin Potter, just 17, rode the wave of the season, of the decade, of his life, in a surf-off with Michael Ho after they’d tied for second place in their semi-fina

We had a decrepit bungalow in the backyard of our Anglesea house when I was growing up. My big sister Kath had plastered one the of bungalow walls with pics cut out of surf mags and that wall mesmerised me. One shot in particular was an empty, crysta

This issue’s cover shot was somewhat inevitable, with the sheer volume of sublime images Phil Thurston produces from this piece of NSW reef. Phil’s account upfront in the mag explains why he calls waves like this “The One”, and we reckon the photo is