Time for a confession.
As long time readers will know, a lot of my photography happens around or on the water. I’ve shot from longboats, I’ve photographed kayaks (and from kayaks), I’ve shot dinghy regattas and I’ve photographed while standing on the bottom of a swimming pool. What I’ve never photographed is surfing.
That shouldn’t be something to guiltily confess – many people live full and active lives never having photographed surfing. What makes it a little odd from my standpoint is that there’s a long and proud history of surf photography. Names like Art Brewer keep cropping up, or Russel Ord, or all of the good folks involved in the Nikonos Project. And it’s got everything that keeps photography fun for me – technical challenge, fast moving conditions, a lot of things that make the task difficult and the payoff more rewarding.
Which is why when my social media feed informed me that Aberystwyth University’s Surf Club (est. 1973) was holding a Saturday competition I packed the longest lens I could find, put on a lot of layers (not enough layers – not nearly enough) and headed for the beach. Borth, the coastal village a couple of miles North of Aberystwyth (which with a population of roughly fifteen thousand is what passes for a city in these parts) was to be the venue.
Standing on the beach, feeling the wind searing out of the Northwest. Unusual for this part of the world, where it comes out of the Southwest nine days out of ten, and it rapidly got to the point where the guys in wetsuits in the water looked far warmer that the folks standing on the beach. Anyway, into the water they went. I stuck the 400mm lens on the front of my Nikon and assumed a position as close to the waters edge as felt decorous. Even someone like me, whose surf experience is limited to catching the occasional wave in a kayak at the harbour mouth and some childhood bodyboarding, could tell that the water was messy.
Challenges. Everything’s in motion, much of it is a long way away, most of it is hidden behind waves for most of the time. Nothing you wouldn’t have guessed. The waves didn’t lend themselves to long rides – there weren’t many times that a rider was upright on the board for more than a few seconds. If I ever need a lot of pictures of a wall of boiling water with a leg sticking out of it, maybe with a board frozen in mid air, then I’ll have plenty to choose from. There were a few that worked. Stirred in among the surfers were the kayakers, bodyboarders, skimboarders and etc. On the shoreline facing the action I took the wind in the teeth until, when it came time to walk back up the beach, I walked with the gait of someone whose leg muscles have cramped from standing tensed for too long.
On balance some of the best images of the day were of people emerging from the waves, but taking those was the easy bit. The ones I return to as trophies are the ones of the fleeting second of someone up on the wave, leaning into a turn, spray flying up from the leading edge of the board. The frustration was in the distance – even through a 400ml lens, the sheer amount of salt infused air between me and the subject began to create its own issues.
Some time ago I put together a zine of my kayaking pictures. In the introduction I said that the thing about shooting subjects on water was that in order to truly realise a viewpoint, you had to get in there with it. While that’s not an issue free approach, it’s one that just might be worth exploring…..
All Words and Images Copyright Alex John Gilbey 2026
Photos By Alex 