Vintage Surf Photographers series 2 : Leroy Grannis
Vintage Surf Photographers series 2 : Leroy Grannis
by Sam Bleakley
Pipeline, 1975. Leroy's son, John
explains, “Grannis and Bud Browne were some of the first people to shoot
Pipeline from the water. They were both pretty fearless and I remember sitting
on the beach as a kid and watching them shoot and just being terrified."
Californian photographer Leroy Grannis
was cofounder of Surfing magazine in 1964. Grannis began surfing in 1931, and
was one of the key figures in early Californian waveriding. He shot from the
water at times, but preferred a straight-on angle from the beach; his best work
— much of it in black and white, often shot at Malibu or Hermosa. "There
was a texture about Grannis' shots," said fellow photographer Brad
Barrett, "that for me took them into another realm." Grannis was a
pioneer in surf photography, making him one of the legends of surfing.
"There was a surfing royalty, and my dad was one of the kings," says
his son John. Grannis stopped shooting professionally in the early 1970s.
"I didn't like the way the magazines were going," he later said.
"They were making heroes out of druggies and guys with big mouths, so I
bailed out." Grannis died in 2011, aged 93.
The Aikau family at Sunset Beach in 1967. Myra, Mama,
and Sol Aikau pulled up to watch Eddie compete in one of the first Duke
Classics, a competition that Eddie would win 10 years later in 1977.
California Rusty
Miller takes off on a Waimea wall just an hour after his plane landed in
Hawaii.
Pipeline, 1965.
Eddie Aikau drops into a set at Sunset Beach during the
1967 Duke Classic.
The 1964 US Championships watched from the roof of a
1933 Ford Deluxe, a car famously driven by bank robber John Dillinger.
Pipeline, 1971.
Hermosa beach, 1963 during a Jacobs Surfboards
advertising shoot.
Bernard ‘Midget’ Farrelly, Makaha, 1968.
