Here’s a lifetime’s worth of photos from the Dogman’s vault along with the inside story behind each one. According to the Dogman, “Once you get me started, it’s way too hard to get me to stop!”
This picture was snapped by my good friend and surf bud Mike Malwaukie at Monuments in Cabo. It was February, 1999, and we were on holiday with our wives. I scouted this break purely by instinct, just cruising the coast checking for likely surf spots.
When I found this deep-water, near-shore left I was stoked. I surfed the place by myself one dawn, then dragged Mike with me the next day. Mike was taken aback by the shallow rocks here and there in the surf zone. I told him, “Mike, just go around the rocks, and kick out before that last big one that is poking through the surface.” Well, Mike was cautious, so I tried another tactic. I told him, “Esta bien, Here’s my camera. I’m going out there to snag some lefts. You sit here and snap the pictures.”
I did, Mike did, and here is the result. I like this shot so much that I put it on my DogMan business card. Only later did I learn this place is actually a famous break called Monuments.
I took this picture on Maui, February, 2003. It’s a shot of my favorite Maui artist and waterman, Mark Jamgochian, better known as Bird. He and I have known each other casually for many years, I wrote an interview column featuring some of his original art.
I always stop to visit and buy some of his recent artistic creations at the Kahului Swap Meet each Saturday when I am on the Valley Isle. Bird is a free spirit who loves the ocean and creates soulful, whimsical art. One day, we surfed together at a local spot on the north shore; Bird told me, “I am now in the posing phase of my surf career.”
Sure enough, after demonstrating this and other poses on the shore, Bird proceeded to ride the waves while achieving and holding this and other fantastic stances. The DogMan column for this day was called “Posing, but not a Poser.”
This is a shot of the DogMan surfing a left point break on the Pacific mainland coast of Mexico in July, 2006. The picture was taken by Edgar, our local surf guide and boat driver, who took us to a spot that loosely translates to “Poison.”
I swam ashore with all my camera gear on my back in a water proof pack, and rigged the tripod, telephoto lens, and camera to be point-and-shoot. All the guys in the boat contributed muchos pesos to Edgar so he would stay ashore and snap the pix.
I rode my Mango Gordo fish that day, and caught this and many other waves. Edgar got the timing perfect on this shot, with me doing a reentry and leading the way with my outstretched arm and clenched fist. The name of this break refers to the numerous urchins that line the shallow cobblestone bottom. Even though I look like a kook with all the rubber, gloves, and boots, I stayed free and clear of the urchins. Others in the crew were not so lucky, and spent the balance of the afternoon digging the spines out of the soles of their feet and the palms of their hands.
This picture was snapped from a cliff, overlooking a surf break north of town that surf friends of mine dubbed “Kook’s Kove.” It was December, 2002, and the waves were macking. The surfer was staring at the massive power of the ocean, mentally preparing for a paddle through double overhead waves to the lineup. The sideways light of early morning lit the scene with a warm glow.
From December 2002, this picture shows a break in DogLand that went mental, offering the world’s longest rights on that particular day. I like the long angle showing the Death Rock in the foreground, the surfer in the distance as a tiny dot, dwarfed by the 12 foot face of the wave propelling him at warp speed down the line and into glory.
This is Kid Florida. I surf this particular break in DogLand with KF’s uncle on a regular basis. Thanksgiving Day, 2006, Bruce’s family from Florida was in town for the holiday, including his nephew. Kid Florida absolutely ripped the place to shreds that day, dominating the pictures I took after my own session. I love the look of total exhilaration in the pose and expression.
Here’s a picture I took with my watercam while on Maui in February, 2002. I was surfing a “locals only” spot on the north shore. This shot is proof that there are snakes on Maui. I like this break, in part because I scouted it myself with no surf maps, no local insider knowledge or anything. I just cruised the coast looking for likely places to find wave that peel, and guess what? I found this little gem! I promised myself and the locals who surf there to never ever reveal any details about it.
I snapped this picture in January, 2005 on a quest to map the surf in Santa Cruz county on a macking swell, dawn to dusk, border to border. I got this pic at the county line before dawn. My camera’s flash was not working on the sign, which merely reflected the burst of light back into the lens. As I was wondering how to get the shot, an 18-wheeler roared from behind me on Highway 1, heading south. The headlights lit the sign, creating the photo opportunity I needed. Turns out the trails on the picture that the truck left are a cool bonus.
This shot was taken at Natural Bridges in January, 2005. The scene on the beach was like Beach Blanket Bingo. Temperatures were in the mid-seventies, babes were wearing skimpy suits and suntanning, the smell of sunscreen and coconut oil was in the air. And by the way, the wave action was all-time.
Moss Landing, January, 2005. This is a late afternoon backlit shot of a tow in team surfing monster killer hollow Moss. A guy on the beach accosted me as he saw me snapping the action. Somehow he was utterly offended that anyone would destroy the sanctity of the beach with PWC’s. He wouldn’t be convinced that I didn’t know the people surfing, had nothing to do with their session, and only appeared on a whim to snap some photos.
I took this photo in November of 2002, and it was subsequently published in Surfer Magazine. They did a feature on localism, and this was one of the featured pictures. No, that’s not my truck! I hope it’s not yours!
This picture is from Rincon, December, 2006. It was a small and mellow day, dominated by longboarders doing soulful poses on the waves. The very next day the ocean went stupid, with gigantic double overhead plus waves wrapping into all the point breaks. The beaches were completely unsurfable. But on the day before the soul surfers held court at Rincon.
This is from Thanksgiving, 2004. Charlie Heitman is pictured smashing the lip of this sweet north coast wave. Charlie’s wife bought this picture from me to give to him for a Christmas present that same year. If you ever see Charlie in the lineup, you’ll know it’s him. He’s one of the most easy going and friendly surfers I know, yet he absolutely commands the ocean, the waves, and probably even the dolphins and the seals!
December, 2006. Somewhere in DogLand. The low angle of the sun in the late afternoon backlit this photo, illuminating through the wave and showing the surfer in silhouette. Many people have requested this shot from me, and one artist from the valley wanted to use it as inspiration for a painting.
December 2002, an Oxnard beach break. I was alone in the lineup before dawn, toting my water camera. I rode one or two waves shrouded in darkness, then snapped this profile of a lip about to pitch before the dawn glow in the southern sky. Within 30 minutes of taking this picture, close to 30 other surfers were with me in the water.
December, 2004. This is a shot of an Oxnard beach break doing it’s imitation of out-of-control Pipeline. Instead of coral, this behemoth broke over a shallow sandbar. Curiously, there were no surfers willing to take on this wave. DogMan didn’t paddle out for this one, but I did Photoshop a little tiny Dogman doing the Pigdog into the barrel of this Frankenwave. This is about as close as I’ll ever get to surfing Pipe!
December, 2006, an Oxnard beach break. This unidentified kamakazi surfer challenged a death barrel. He didn’t make it. But I got the shot and he gets the glory. Too bad I don’t know this guy’s name, and too bad the light wasn’t better for the camera.
Ventura, December 2006. This shot captures the mood of that morning perfectly. Put yourself in the place of the surfer poised to paddle into the maelstrom. I tried this myself, and was dragged more than 1/2 mile down the coast before I could make it past the break line. By that time I was too tired and water logged to even try to catch a wave.
Ventura, December, 2006. This is the reward for those brave enough, strong enough, and lucky enough to paddle to the lineup. The waves were solid 15 feet on the face, or more, and would crank down the line, wrapping around the point for hundreds of yards. Evan Slater was surfing that day, and hanging in the parking lot while I was shooting. I just missed making contact with him, only saw the tailpipes of his vehicle as he drove away.
In May, 2002, a couple surf buds hiked with me into a remote surf break that is many many hours north of the Golden Gate. The hike was more than 10 kilometers through and over beach sand, pebbles, cobblestones, boulders, and grassy trails to a camp site in front of the surf spot.
We carried everything on our backs, tents, food, sleeping bags, first aid, cameras, surfboards and wetsuits. My pack was almost seventy pounds on the way in; the hike was brutal and adventurous.
For two and a half days we camped, surfed and enjoyed the stoke. On the last morning we burned everything we could in the camp fire to make our packs lighter, surf wax, surf combs, paperback books, beach towels, uneaten food, extra clothing. I still itch to return to this spot. We call it Rio Occulto.
One of Santa Cruz’s finest underground surf photographers recently returned from a trip to the islands with “the goods.” Below is a sampling of Howard “Boots” McGhee’s classic shots from perfect Pipeline, mid February, 2008.
“Insane to shoot it…wish I knew the guys in the pics,” Boots said. “I used a 300 and a 600 @ pipe. Hooked up w/the old owner of Camera Club, Mark Berkowitz. He set me up shooting next to him and let me use both lenses. Now I have to have one, a 500 or 600.”
Look for more of Boots’ work in the upcoming April issue of The Surfer’s Journal. He’ll have a spread–a rumored eight pages!–in collaboration with legendary surf travel pioneer and surf scribe Kevin Naughton focusing on a tricked out “Baja mobile.” Looking forward to both the story by Naughton and the photos by Boots.
Luxury accomodations in Central Baja. Photo: Boots McGhee
Just looking at these shots gives me butterflies in my stomach. I’m reminded of waking up at 5:30 a.m. filled with adrenaline and anticipation and riding my bike down Ke Iki road in the dark to go surf Pipe before the crowd swelled out of control.
Pipe was pretty much perfect for almost two weeks straight during my stay this February. I surfed it twice this trip. Both times I paddled out before the sun had risen above the mountains and got a few memorable rides before the heavies came out. The IBA World Bodyboard Championships were happening around this time, so during all hours of the day there was a constant army of spongers attached to the peak like flies on a steaming pile of dog doo.
Pipe is the only spot I’ve ever surfed where you can paddle out literally a half hour before the first morning light is even poking up above the mountains and there are already a handful of rabid surfers–mostly spongers–out on the bowl trying to get that one perfect barrell before the gridlock sets in. As the light fills in the crowd doubles about every ten minutes until there are thirty to forty people packed together and trailing onto the shoulder and it’s not even 7:00 a.m.
One morning after I locked up my bike and was stretching on the beach in the dark, I saw a shooting star fall out of the sky right above a feathering Pipe lip in the swampy darkness. No matter how crowded, hyped, and commercial the North Shore gets, it will always be a magical place.
I surfed it much smaller than the waves in these photos. It was 6-8 foot faces with the occassional ten footer every twenty minutes or so. Still plenty of a rush though because it’s such a fast wave, the ever-present shallow reef, and the intensity of the crowd. I distinctly recall the sick feeling in my stomach when I tried paddling for one wave that slipped underneath the crowd and failed to get into it only to turn around to see a big set getting ready to unload right on my head. Never paddled so fast in my life.
Later on, sitting on the beach with my board just watching the show, I watched as one of the best Pipe surfers in the world, Tamayo Perry, paddled out. On his very first wave, Tamayo dropped in backside at Backdoor and got tripped up at the bottom and went over the falls. He popped up with his board in two pieces and had to swim back in. Once on shore he collected the two pieces of his board and ran back to the Ehukai parking lot for a spare stick.
Then, just minutes later, I saw 1982 Pipe Master Michael Ho straighten out on his first wave of the morning and immediately come into shore to examine what turned out to be a huge reef gash torn into the bottom of his board. Interesting to see how Pipe can humble even the best.
When she was selected as a finalist for the 2007 Follow the Light Foundation Award this fall, Nikki Brooks felt validated.
The Capitola native was one of only five photographers chosen from an international field by the Foundation, established in memory of Larry “Flame” Moore, longtime photo editor for Surfing Magazine, to recognize and support the industry’s best up-and-coming surf photographers.
“I was super excited,” said Brooks, 30, who has been doing surf photography for about eight years and working to make a career out of it for the past five. “It was another statement that you’re doing the right thing, keep it up.”
But at the awards banquet in San Clemente, Brooks got a pesky little reminder that an acclaimed woman surf photographer is still a foreign concept for many in the male-dominated surf industry. While Brooks and her 11-month-old daughter, Waverley, were mingling on the floor at the Surfing Heritage Museum, an industry bigwig — who shall remain nameless — approached Brooks and, apparently failing to read her name tag that identified her as a finalist, initiated a conversation that would best be described as awkward. (more…)
Camera equipment: Roloflex medium format, Digital Nikon D-200
Film or digital? Both
Influences: Larry Sultan, Will Henry
I was born in Marin County, CA and grew up with the water flowing in and out under my house. I’m currently finishing my last year at the San Francisco Art Institute BFA program. My life revolves around the water and so does my work. All my work is derived from what the ocean teaches me. Whether it’s traditional surf photos or something more experimental, I try to find the ocean within everything. Enjoy…
I was living in Santa Cruz when I took this photo. On this day I was racing back down to SC from Marin, trying to get to work on time at Pacific Wave, when I saw that this little stretch of coast was firing. I was driving back and forth between Marin and Santa Cruz a lot at the time and this was a setup that I had been thinking about for a while. I knew that if a set rolled through at just the right spot I could use the break in the terrace to frame the wave perfectly. Sure enough, that’s exactly what ended up happening on this day. I was late for work, but I got the shot.
This photograph is part of a series that I’m in the process of making into a book. All the photos in the series were taken from the water with a housing and all are in black and white. The shots go from very action-oriented barrel shots to serene, minimalist photos focusing on just the horizon. With the book I wanted to give the viewer the experience of what it’s like to be out in the water and basically engulfed by the ocean. I wanted to capture the instinct of why we surf and the beauty we’re after. I still don’t have a title for the book. I’m trying to get it published. This photo was taken on one of those days where every single wave is barreling. This one was an insider, one of those churning little foam balls. It looks like a bubble bath.
This is Jake Castillo, a local Marin guy. He’s definitely one of the better surfers in the water around Marin. He rides for Proof Lab, the local surf shop up here. He rips little playful waves like this and also surfs with the crew out at big Ocean Beach. This is just more of your traditional action surf shot. I think this shot was actually used in a newspaper ad for Proof Lab.
This was a new perspective on a sight we see all the time. Instead of looking at the falling curtain from inside the tube I wanted to get a different angle, looking from above as the lip curls over. It’s the same thing surfers are always after, but just from an alternative perspective. As you can see from the lip and the groomed wave face, this was a beautiful, clean, offshore wind day.
From the same series as shot #2. This is my friend Andrew preparing to duckdive. We all know that feeling of your back foot slipping under the water, the last part of you to dive under the wave. I just tried to capture that feeling of excitement right before you go under a wave. The fact that he’s bootieless gives you even more of that tactile sensation of the water slipping around your toes.
A big old frontside slash by my friend Cristian. It was a gorgeous offshore morning, one of those days that I knew I had to shoot. The offshore spray was like rainbowing off the tops of the waves. Deciding when to surf and when to shoot is just a matter of designating time beforehand. Sometimes I might really just want to go surf, but if I’ve already planned to shoot, I’ll start getting the shots and, in a way, I’m accomplishing the same sort of feeling. This was the one perfect shot out of the sequence. At this point most of his fins are out of the water and he’s lost control. The board is sliding out of the wave, but at the same time he’s still in control, sliding on the wave and maintaining his flow.
Dawn patrol in Marin. This was actually shot in color, but the super early morning light was reflecting so strong off the water that the wave looks ominous and appears black and white. This wave usually sucks dry right on the reef. Usually it’s too fast, and no one was out surfing it when I was shooting. It was really a bitch of a paddle on this day, lots of water moving around. I didn’t manipulate anything on this photo, I don’t like to do any digital manipulation. I just knew with the direction of the lighting and with the right exposure it would give that effect of the spray.
Classic Cronkite closeout. This was taken on the same day as that crazy left (above). It was wintertime and out of control but I wanted to create something where normally you just see a shitty, unproductive closeout. I saw this as a linear pattern in nature, where the closeout is mimicking the straight line of the horizon, and the cloud is almost a reflection of the wave below. What I like most about it is how different it is than traditional wave photography and what we normally consider perfect or beautiful.
