Art Brewer’s 12-day surf photo school! In Sumba!

Have the secrets to surf photography unfurled before your eyes! By real-life icon!

Art Brewer, oowee, he good. Maybe all-time number one. Art owned the seventies, eighties, nineties in the American surf mags before splitting to do more lucrative commercial work, although his surf spirit still soars.

Y’ever see the book Bunker Spreckels: Surfing’s Divine Prince of Decadence on Taschen? That’s all Art’s work. He was Bunker’s personal photographer, y’see. Of course!

The Encyclopedia of Surfing has a lovely entry on Art, reproduced in part here.

“Brewer’s size (he once weighed nearly 300 pounds) and flaring temper, meanwhile, further suggested the idea of grand, even explosive creative talent. At times Brewer played on his aggression. Asked to supply a self-portrait for a 1997 portfolio, ‘this big elephant seal of a man,’ as described by surf journalist Evan Slater, provided a green-tinged face shot negative, jaggedly cut in two, then taped and stapled back together, with the handwritten caption: ‘Surf photography constipates me!'”

But also: “Brewer’s eye for color and framing is unmatched in the surf world, and much of his best work has been done as a portraitist, when he has unfettered control over light, texture, and mood.”

Which all leads into his on-location learn-to-take-surf-photos course on the Indonesia island of Sumba April 28 to May 9.  For $US6200 (excluding international airfares) you’ll shoot surf, water and boat, the sparkling indigenous community there as well as in-depth post-production instruction. Which, let’s face it, most photographers, suck at.

And it’s all wrapped up in a gorgeous, but very eco-aware resort.

As the tour operator Epic Photo Tours writes, “To spend 12 days shooting with Art Brewer will be a game changer. As long as you are a swimmer, you will be safe as we are providing a full support team to help you. If you are already a surf photographer, Art Brewer will take you to a new level.”

Sign up here. 

And see Art at work here.