MP

For the past eleven days the eyes of the surfing world have, again, been focused on Australia's Gold Coast.  Every year the whole WCT circus awakens from it's annual break, raises it's sleepy head and then lurches into another ten month contest schedule, escorted in by black tie awards ceremonies and party after celebrity party, as though contestants don't need any sleep.  It's a very…"Goldie"… start to the year.
Whilst the World Tour rightly works it's way to a climactic conclusion in Hawaii, it also seems appropriate that it kicks off on the Gold Coast; a fitting recognition of the relentless output of world class contest surfers that this so competitive of surfing regions produces.  One of the first to fly that flag was Michael Peterson, who passed away last March.

MP bridged the gap between the shortboard revolution of the late sixties and the competitive era of the late seventies, burning twice as bright for half as long.  He was an iconic and revolutionary surfer as famous for his intuitive barrel riding as he was for his full-rail carves and developed a reputation as a ferocious and calculating competitor before surfing had really figured out how to function as a sport.

"He just seemed to paddle faster than everyone else and do more manoeuvres than everyone else.  Michael was unstoppable in the era when they counted every wave you caught and it was points for manoeuvres"

4 x World Champion, Mark Richards

Behind the natural ability and calculated competition tactics, however, was a morbidly shy individual who struggled to handle the celebrity status that his surfing ability generated.  He was awkward and uncomfortable when surrounded by people on land, only really coming to life when alone in the ocean. Between 1973 and 1975 MP won every professional contest going in Australia and seemed unstoppable, until a dangerous combination of drug abuse and serious mental illness started to unravel his grip on normality.  After winning the 1977 Stubbies event at Burliegh in front of twenty thousand spectators, Peterson accepted the five grand cheque and all-but disappeared.  His subsequent fall from the top of professional surfing was fast and dramatic:  he became a recluse, reportedly alternating between periods of drug abuse and abstinence, before an incident in August of 1983 that became known in the Australian surfing community as "The Chase".  Following a hundred mile car chase involving twenty five police cars that ended on a Brisbane bridge with him claiming that he'd outrun "the aliens", MP was jailed and then institutionalised before later being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.  He stopped surfing and for the next twenty years he was cared for by his mother, far away from the magnifying glass of the surf media.  His instant disappearance from the public eye fed the legend of MP:

"MP's now been infused with this haze of nostalgia, y'know, the brilliant surfer who was a bad guy and all that sort of thing.  And it's convenient to see him from that point of view, but in the early seventies he actually freakin' existed…he was like the Black Wizard of surfing in Australia"

Nick Carroll

Painted on the exterior wall of a restaurant that overlooks Burleigh Point on the Gold Coast there was for a long time, and I hope still is, a stencil of Michael Peterson.  He's leaning back on the wall, looking exhausted and rattled.  It's a portrait of a fragile yet brilliant man who was, sadly, unable to function completely normally when taken out of his comfort zone deep inside the spinning blue tubes of the Gold Coast's sandy points.  MP's ability and style was a flash of inspiration - no matter how brief - for the legions of great surfers that have come out of the Gold Coast since, and his legacy is evident when you watch them surf against the rest of the best on their home turf every March.  

A Glimpse Through the Lens of Mr Mike O'Meally

Every now and then I like to share the work of some of the image-makers whose photographs make me want to go play with cameras.

I've said before how much I dig skate photography (Surfing's Baby Brother post); the ability to play around with props and lights and try over and over again to nail the shot means that skate photographers produce some crazy and creative images.

This set of images is the work of Mr. Mike O'Meally, an Australian bloke with skills. I really like his work, I hope you do too. I'll let the photos do the talking, click here to check his website and read an interview.

Where The Wild Things Are

Choo-choo

I know what you're thinking..."what's with all the pictures of trains?" right? Trains aren't meant to be cool. I reckon otherwise though; I kinda like them as a means of getting around.

At some stupidly small hour this morning whilst most people were either fast asleep or being turfed out of nightclubs, my friend Kyle and I got back from a trip to Morocco. We went from Truro, Cornwall (well I did, Kyle started out in Wales) and got the train all the way to Marrakech with our surfboards. From there it was just a bus ride to the coast and we could get some waves. A medium haul surf trip entirely on a rail: Start-stop-start again, clackety clack, tickets, platform numbers and departure boards, four capital cities, Europe and Africa, pack un-pack, headphones, being kicked off platforms, midnight cafes and crazy taxi drivers, dining cars, eleven trains three of which were underground, a ferry, "you can't bring a surfboard on this train", books and looking out the window, seeing towns as the graffitied backs of warehouses and industrial units, "you want hashish?",lots of coffee in paper cups, wildflower meadows, funny looks and a jacket for a pillow.
We got a few good waves and climbed a mountain.

I have more rolls of film to develop than I can carry in my hands so once they're all done and I've absorbed and reflected on the whole damn deal I'll post a few up and put some words to it.

Why?
Because sometimes it's important to make the journey as important as the destination, put your feet on the stepping stones and nopt just jump right over them. Take a little bit of time.

Images:
The top one is the California Zephyr, which I caught from San Francisco to New York with my old man a few years back so that we could see what America looked like.
I drove my car onto the back of the Indian Pacific and let it carry me across the Nullabor desert right across Australia rather than sit on my own driving on a straight road for three days when my road-trip co-piolt couldn't make it.
The trains in Sri-Lanka are cool, old and clunky with little picture postcard train stations straight out of 1950's Britain. To get my surfboards on I had to pay for a first class ticket which was about a pound more.

Who can? Pelican can.

They look like pterodactyls, those crazy flying dinosaurs (yes I did check that I spelt pterodactyl correctly) and they ride waves better than most of us. Pelicans are incredible birds; their fossils have been found dating from as far back as 40 million years ago so they've had plenty of time to adapt to the twin arts of flying and fishing, and inbetween those they've become pretty good at riding waves. There are several reasons why you may have seen them speeding so elegantly along the wall of a clean, unbroken wave while other seabirds are flapping awkwardly out of the way. With a skeleton that contributes to only 10% of their total body weight and a higher than average number of secondary "flight" feathers they are well adapted to either glide to altitudes upwards of a kilometer or skim the surface of a wave. I'd always wondered how they managed to glide mere millimeters above the face of a wave without clipping a wing and splashing in. I was told that they have what can only be described as "fingers" at their wingtips, allowing them to make minute micro-adjustments to their trim, much as we surfers make tiny adjustments to our weight distribution and foot positioning whilst in motion.

Why do they ride waves? I've no idea, but I'd guess that it's purely for the enjoyment of it much as we do, as I can see no practical reason. Perhaps the updraught coming up the face of the wave provides them with more speed, perhaps they just plain dig the view as they race down the line.

If the link betwen the way surfers, animals and birds ride waves preens your feathers then check out "Way of the Bird", a beautiful illustrated childrens book that uses Andy Davis' iconic artwork to tell the story over the background of Andrew Kidmans wavescape photographs. A fantastic concept and an incredible book, whether it's aimed at grommets or not.

Top: Australian Pelican, Kiama, NSW.

Bottom: Crazy pelican symmetry and all the colours blue, Dunsborough, WA.

Surfing or Photography? The ultimate dilemma.

"So you love to surf. And you love taking photographs. Why don't you just take photos of surfing then?"

It's a phrase I've heard quite a lot. But there's more to it than that. Sitting on the beach shooting your mates enjoying the waves is one of the most frustrating things for a surfer, and normally the territory of the injured guy doing his friends a favour. I've sat out a few times with my camera, but normally I leave my camera gear on the beach or the boat and rattle off a few shots when I come in for sunscreen, water or another run up the point. That's probably why you'll see surprisingly few surf action shots here or on the website; more an overview of all the other things that come with drifting around looking for waves to ride. I'll do my best to post a shot of somebody ripping at regular intervals though.

Top: Unknown surfer, red board re-entry at Boomerangs, central NSW Australia.

Bottom: DVD, dropping his wallet at Burliegh Heads, QLD Australia.