Photographing surfing events – Huntington Beach
So now that you’re read my previous post (part 1) on Surf Photography in Huntington Beach, we’ll continue my journey into how I started photographing surfing events in Huntington Beach. I’ll explain how one year I was a newbie shooting random surfers at the beach. Then a couple of years later sitting in the media booth at the the US Open of Surfing, covering the event for my own surfing photography website.
First, let me say that when I started, I didn’t know anything about surfing…nothing. But, I did know a lot about photography along with many years of advertising experience. I knew how to create content that was appealing to the viewer. Plus, I also knew how to create websites, which I’ll explain later how that came into play.
It was 2011 and earlier in the year I had started to attend some local surf competitions like the Vans Surf Classic and other well known amateur events like the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) event in HB. It’s one thing to photograph surfers, but it’s a completely different photographing a surfing event in Huntington Beach. I used these as warm ups to my first US Open of Surfing, happing in the summer of 2011.
In 2011, the main pro surfing governing organization was the Association of Surfing Professionals, ASP. In 2015 it rebranded to what we now know as the World Surfing League, WSL. By the summer of 2011, the social app Instagram was less than a year old, but was already popular among the fans of the surfing pros. The ASP had a national mainstream sponsor, Nike (parent company of Hurley). And they were promoting it as a major sporting and music event, with free concerts, so I knew this was going to be attended by hundreds of thousands of people.
The week-long US Open of Surfing competition was taking place in Huntington Beach and I made sure to be there days before as they began to build the village on the sand. I photographed the building of the tent village. Then spent six days photographing the event itself, covering the surfing competition as well as the lifestyle village on the sand.
During the day, I would do what I had learned in the previous months. I walked up and down the pier, facing the south side and shoot the surfing event. Then, because I was mobile, not using a 300mm lens, I was able to quickly walk back and down to the village and show to shoot the surfers going out and coming back from their heats. While most of the other photographers had heavy equipment and large tripods, they could only capture the same photos over and over. I on the other hand, was able to get a variety of shots.
Remember what I said earlier about photographing surfing events in Huntington Beach? It’s not just about taking photos, it’s physical and mentally challenging. You need to know when each of the pro surfers are going to be surfing. Plan to be in position in a place where you can photograph them when they are at the beach to warm up and meditate. Then know where the waves are breaking so you can be in position to capture the action as they surf. As I did here, with Tatiana Weston-Webb surfing. Followed by keeping track of the scores so you know who is most likely to win the heat. And finally capturing their return back to shore to take more photos.
Yeah, it’s real work. That’s why you need to love photography in order to do it right. And I love photography. So much so, that months before that event, I had already created my own surfing photography website, OCSurfPix. It was created for the sole purpose for me to share and talk about me photographing surfing events in Huntington Beach. Later I also created my Instagram account dedicated to my surfing photos, @ocsurfpix.
By 2017, my OCSurPix.com website had covered the US Open of Surfing events for several years now. So I requested a media pass from the WSL to cover the next US open of Surfing. And yes, I was granted media passes each year thereafter. Which made it so much easier to get access to areas where I could not shoot. But that also meant that I had to write, post and provide more editorial photos of the event. Which I did and because I love photography, I was was all ok. While the vast majority of photographers were shooting in straight lines at the edge of the shore. They captured the same images as the photographer next to him/her. I was shooting images that varied from all the other photographers.
Yes, photographing surfing events in Huntington Beach is different. But with a little work and dedication, it can be done by almost anyone. Be sure to view all the photos I’ve taken of surfing events in Huntington Beach.
