Like a tilted Vegas slot machine, odds are
stacked high against the modern surf photographer. The problem is that a
surf photographer has to deal with the ocean – the biggest and most
unpredictable mass of matter on the planet. It’s this uncertainty that
makes surfing seductive, but it also makes it damn hard to plan
anything. Because unlike any other arena, the ocean guarantees you
nothing. You could conceive the idea for a perfect shot, stand behind a
lens for hours and never even get the opportunity to shoot it. Sure
differs from a tennis court, but we’re finding there are ways around it.
A few weeks back, Red Bull teamed up with our friends at Stab for a
concept shoot. Concept shoots are borderline unheard-of in surfing. But
we had the imagination. We had the crew. And, hopefully, we would have
the wave. So it was off to Western Australia with Taj Burrow and Mark
Mathews. The plan was to whip Mark and Taj into the same massive wave at
The Right
– Taj in front of Mark – and have Mark shoot a photo of Taj from the
belly of the beast. It would create a truly first-of-its-kind image, a
perspective from the rarest of vantages. It was strange, curious, and
bold. The best part is that it actually worked.
