Tom Blake bought a barely-used top-handle Graflex Speed Graphic camera from Duke Kahanamoku in 1929. Blake had either owned or borrowed cameras prior to this, but the Graflex was a big step up, equipment-wise. The Speed Graphic model was famously used by Arthur Fellig—better known as Weegee—the first great American freelance photographer, a cigar-chewing urban auteur known for his vouyeristic flas...
Tom Blake was not the first person to take photos of surfing, or even the first to shoot from the water. Surfer and gallery owner A.R. Gurrey Jr. began photographing surfers in the 1900s, and his work was published as early as 1911. But Blake went further than Gurrey both in terms of equipment—in 1929 he built a 10-pound, 24-inch-tall watertight wooden box for his Graflex Speed Graphic camera—and ...
"The Last Camper," Chris Mauro's feature on Anthony "Doc" van den Heuvel, ran in the November 2003 issue of SURFER Magazine. This version has been slighted edited. * * * The moonrise over Jeffreys Bay throws a spotlight across the water as twilight fades. A steady flow of waves crash and peel down the point just below me, a stone’s throw away from where I sit in the bush. Overhead, clouds sa...
SURFER editor Patrick McNulty wrote this editorial for the March 1967 issue. The photo it refers to ran in an article titled "Crocodiles, Zulus, and Surf Suid Afrika," by Ron Perrott, from the May 1966 issue. This version has been slightly edited. * * * Strangely, the picture that has produced the most reader response over the years had nothing to do with surfing. It was a shot that ran as p...
Agatha Christie, the British-born "Queen of Crime," whose collective works have outsold everyone but Shakespeare and God's own Bible-writing ghostwriters, was part of a 10-month worldwide Grand Tour, along with her husband Archie, in 1922, to promote the upcoming British Empire Exhbition. Christie was 31 and had published her first two mysteries, but was not yet the international crime-writing gia...
The Oom, Miles Masterson's biography on South African surfing pioneer John Whitmore ("Oom" means either "uncle" or, as in Whitmore's case, respected elder), was published in June 2025. The excerpt below picks up Whitmore story just as the a 27-year-old Cape Town VW salesman and surfing newcomer, married with two young daughters, began making EPS-foam surfboards out of a neighbor's garage for the s...
"Goofyfooter's Paradise," by John Whitmore, ran in the October 1965 issue of South African Surfer. This version has been slightly edited. * * * As a present-day surfer, have you ever experienced that awful hemmed-in feeling? You know—good waves, pleasant company out there with you, but no place to go ? A hundred boards baulking your right turns and a similar number on the left, leaving you i...
Laurie Johnson's feature was the top story on the Los Angeles Times sports section on June 20, 1911. "Bronk," below, means "surfboard." This version of the article has been slightly edited. * * * The Venice girls are taking to surf-board riding. Heretofore only the summer boys have attempted to quell these Neptunian "bronks," but now the dauntless young suffragettes of Kinneytown seem boun...
"The Rocketmen," by Curt Mastalka, ran in the September 1973 issue of SURFER Magazine. The featured surfers are: Rory Russell, Jeff Hakman, Ricky Cassidy, Edward McQuilkin, and James Jones. The article is about Mastalka's new helmet-mounted 16mm movie camera, designed to capture the surfer's-eye view. The results were featured in Mastalka's film Red Hot Blue, which debuted a few weeks after "Rocke...
Phil Mayer's review of Hawaii's Own, Curt Mastalka's debut surf movie, ran in the August 17 edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. * * * The surf was up—and on time—last night at the Waikiki Shell. The evening before, the premiere of a new surfing film, “Hawaii’s Own," shot in Hawaii by Californian Curt Mastalka, was delayed until 10 p.m. by trouble with the motion picture projector. Tue...