This time Jon Steele and Grant Ellis square off and we are the winners!
Jon Steele is a well-known surf photographer with stylish glasses and a keen eye. He has worked as a model. He has also gotten very angry at Surfer photo editor Grant Ellis. In a recent Instagram post he said, “Fuck grant ellis @grantellis1 and his ego fueled photo editor dictatorship! For the past 15 years I have been working to get Texas surfing into the magazine only to have him shoot the article himself and take money and work away from me. Congrats on being the shittiest photo editor ever!Take my name off the photographer mast head!!”
Why the anger? Jon Steele, you see, was born in San Antonio and reared in Corpus Christie. He spent the first half of his life surfing those Texas gulf oil tanker waves and if they were going to be shown to the world, he wanted to be the one to do it.
Surf photographers are very proprietary. If you want an angry email, post surf photos online without permission. Of course it all stands to reason. Their images are their currency. Their knowledge, connections, access are also their currency and Grant Ellis spent Jon Steele’s. Should Jon, though, have taken such a torch to Surfer’s office? Should he have burned a bridge? Probably. I once got fired from a restaurant job. I was a bus boy and moved as quickly as I could but it was, admittedly, slow. Once night the manager took me aside and told me that everyone else was in fifth gear and I was in second. I became so enraged that I went home, put my uniform in a brown paper bag, wrote cuss words inside, had my dad drive me to the restaurant and threw the bag at the door.
It is nice to see the fire from Jon and BeachGrit will be sure to bring you Grant’s response. I don’t know how the Surfer story looks, nor will I, because I am not 73 years old and don’t read Surfer. But fuck you Red Lion Coos Bay!
i was born in chorpus christy and spent 6 month living there. there is no surf. i tell people i haven’t been back since i first left, and they ALWAYS say, you don’t want to go back……
I once landed a cushy job at a roller skating rink, but on my first day had the manager bail me up and repeatedly bash her fat finger into the side off my head (that soft part just above your eye) telling me to use my brain and listen to my trainer. The stoned guy that was meant to be training me couldn’t be bothered, so I’d made some incorrect guesses. I just did nothing and bottled it up. I wonder if that was to blame for all the violent crimes in my late 20s.
Fish, get your sisters dick out of your mouth, fuckface. Steele is the greatest surf photographer in the business. Grant Ellis needs to stick to trolling for trannies and leave the business of Texas surf to those who know it best.
“greatest in the business”. Wow, I’ve heard it all. Maybe the greatest surf photographer in texas but thats like saying he’s the smartest kid on the short bus.
http://www.redlion.com/coos…
??
This guy think he’s the only photog in Texas? Pretty sure he worked at Surfer at one point but got canned after less then a year due to his shitty photos. What a cry baby. I guess that would explain the black fingernail polish though.
Well well Texas surfers finally get some Beachgrit love, and all it took was a middle finger. BTW James Fullbright http://tankersurfcharters.com/ is the one credited with tanker surfing (who knows who did it first) and its ‘Corpus Christi’ you know Latin for the body of christ and not that blonde chick in your biology class.
I will give Texas surfers BeachGrit love all day every day! Tell me more Travis Bible! Tell me about the Lone Star state! Can I come and surf with you?
is chas smith really derek rielly? they talk and write identical.
someone needs to look into this…
You mean identical like issues of Raygun?
Yike! No one is safe.
Woa, typographic burn!
I know. I did the equivalent of the look in the eyes then drop in. I took it that far.
that’s what happens when every sentence ends with an exclamation point! you know, like a teenaged girl writes!
Oh where to start?
With our chocolaty knee high waves, our oppressive summer heat which makes surfing in August akin to paddling out in your bathtub (both in temperature and wave quality), perhaps the sea lice or the massive swaths of sargassum in which they live? Or the big trucks… ah yes so many trucks.
So imagine you are in Mexico and you cross the border at Brownsville, your fist stop will be South
Padre. Generally speaking this is the finest quality wave in the state, with the nicest water as well. You will dodge tourists from Mexico in the lineup, and looking back towards the city you would swear its Miami’s half cousin from its tia feo. During Easter and Spring Break it is a no-go, unless you want the surf trip from hell.
You tire of this place and decide you trek northward. Trough the famed King Ranch you drive, through yet another border check point you pass, and four hours later you are in Corpus Christie (screw Latin, it is now named after Chris Christie’s even more over weight brother… stole that one from Hooten). The people are friendly, the town is quaint, the surf is fun. No point breaks to speak of, but there are a few different setups. The lineup can be crowded, but its surf. On top of that, it is cheap.
You have you fill and hit the road again. Your next stop after a 3 hour drive or so is Matagorda. It’s an odd place, but you get to finally surf a river mouth… well maybe. The water is much browner, sharky, and the surfers more grizzled. The waves are dumpy and heavy for the Gulf. Maybe you caught it good, or perhaps you missed it by hours. You are amused by the sight of cows on the beach, but decide not to tempt fate and eat the fruit from their poo. This is a good choice.
Next up, Surfside, where you drive past Dow and other petro-chemical plants and ponder how safe the water will be for surfing. You’re going to be fine, probably. Here you find a place of raised beach cottages, lots of stoked old guys, massive beach erosion, and an odd surf shop/ breakfast place owned by Bingo. Do not go there, unless you need material for the website. The wave is slow, but more
organized than any spots further northeast.
And on the last stop of this Texas surf odyssey you will find yourself in my stomping grounds,
Galveston. A 32 mile long barrier island about an hour south of Houston. This is where surfing
first took root in the the Lone Star State The waves are usually gutless, but there are many spots to choose from. The people are generally friendly, but be aware SUPs are taking over. I would bet
the surf is ridable maybe 20% of the time, thus my frequent stops at Beachgrit. About 20 minutes inland you can try your hand at the famed tanker surfing, but you need a boat and someone who knows what they’re doing or risk getting run down.
In summary, don’t move to Texas for the surf, but if you find yourself here there are enough waves to
tease your tortured soul into believing you are still a surfer. The people are friendly, not pretentious and don’t take themselves too seriously. The spots are laid back, the tide doesn’t really matter, the taxes low and the food delicious. Aside from Austin, hipsters are uncommon. I would be glad to host you, but be aware Texans are not renowned for the keen sense of fashion: unless of course you are
into the whole Western thing.