Solve the greatest puzzle in surf and win prize!
Have you ever wondered what the most enduring surf shot in the world might be? Is it a Brewer of Bunker Spreckels?
Andy Irons at Teahupoo or Tom Curren at Off The Wall by Tom Servais?
Nothing so obvious, of course.
The one surf photo that has dominated photo agencies, that blazes fire and foam in ad campaigns spruiking medicine and wave-pools and betting agencies and accessories and even on the cover of a book is a mysterious shot of an almost-tubed unnamed surfer by an unnamed photographer.
It is a photograph neither lovely nor noble but it does have one important characteristic.
It’s cheap.
Thirteen bucks will get you, and your company, full commercial use of this image.
As seen here:
Here:
Here:
And in an artist’s impression of an Australian wavepool.
The first time I saw it, I figured it was an ordinary shot of either Phil Macdonald (because of the O and E ad) and, later, revised it to be a very, very bad shot of Dave Rastovich, perhaps an out of the noted Bill Morris. (“Not me,” said Billy.)
A very brief search found it on Getty Images, where you can view the entire series of tube avoidance.
The question posed to the reader is this:
Who is the surfer?
Who is the photographer?
A sleeveless BeachGrit t-shirt (cut so it reveals enough skin for gals to be “sexy” but not so much as to appear “slutty” or “whorish” and for men it shows the curve of the upper pectoral and any protrusion of the latissimus dorsi) sent to your hovel to the first reader who obliterates the mystery.
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Surfer looks like Steve Clements
Dylan Southworth from Mexico, the dude shreds!
Not as much as your voice shreds my ears when you are in the booth.
Nope. Sorta looks like him. But it ain’t. And, yeah, Dylan does surf good!
Pretty sure the photographer is Quincy Dein.
The quincydein.com contact page links to the profile of MakenaStockMedia on pacificstock.com, which features the same image.
Not sure who the surfer is, but there’s a signed model release, so maybe you can download that with the image for your $13 and find out that way?
Some guy at lakeys
To be fair they are not all the same photo.
Surfer is Dylan Southworth from Sayulita, Mexico
Oh wow! Good picking!
It ain’t Dylan. When I asked him, he said: “It does kinda look like me no, no, it’s not me…”
The wave is Lakey and the surfer does seem to be a photo shopped Derek R
For my money I’m going with Rusty Miller’s Hamms beer ad as the most viewed surf photo of all time. This little beauty was literally in every bar in America for about 30 years and still hangs in many of them.
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Seen the original version of that photo? The guy paddling up the face in the red and yellow boardies is Miki Dora. When Hamms started using that shot of Rusty, Dora hit up Hamms for a commission. Da Cat could smell a payday.
The beer company’s solution? Whack a pint of beer on top of the agitator and make him disappear.
Preston and Stu, I didn’t know old dudes are on the net now, ha, joking, I loved the single fin era too.
Sleeveless eh? I like it! So Grit, in an unctuous way! Like Ranch Dressing left out in the sun for days. You ought to release an entire BG smarmy army clothing line. Call it the “Ranch Dressing Series”.
I think auto correct got you and you meant “an ‘uncuntish’ way”!
That’s Toady from Neighbours on the set of Home and Away
You mean a singlet
S’gotta be Unkle Titso. I mean… with his sort of pedigree, who wouldn’t want to plaster his style over the universe.
That loud mouth girl with the stink butt stance and the full trac top? No chance.
Hey! I wouldn’t mess with him! He’s an ENFORCER!!!
He knows who’s a loc dog and who’s not by the way they paddle out and look at him. If he doesn’t know who you are, you can’t be a doinker at his local spot
Turns out I’m a bigger enforcer and I would beat him until he cried, at his local spot, in front of all his friends.
In uncle titso’s eyes, you’re just a giant butt dart that’ll be shot out of a cannon by the loc dog himself
Amen brother.
I can see that you have received unto you the Wurds of The Prophet.
Last night, the great Doinker himself descended from his turd nest and issued what he thought amounted to a giant butt dart.
I’m still confused about the ‘butt-dart’ thing.
When you’re a giant pile of loud mouth shit like uncle Tit-o’s your opinion means nothing.
I get you, but in my opinion, it’s more fun to tease and joke about the big loc dog, rather than day dream about giving him dirty lickins, and it feels better too! But, that’s just my opinion. I would just feel sad if a big dude pounded on the loc dog. I find it more fun to man handle kooks with my words, rather than using them as an unsuspecting sparring partner. Clever, kind, and firm words can result in a kook self-reflecting and changing behavior. Immmediate violence may have the same result but the journey may spew forth broken bones, lawyers, cops, loss of teeth, shame, etc., even death. Anyway, I guess my long point is that there’s usually a more fun, non-violent way to deal with kooks. If a kook attacks (which has never happened to me), well, that’d be fun too!
Peter Mendia but the slide is flipped
It’s unmistakably Miki Dora. As if you even need to ask. Duh.
What would you pay BG? $50? $25? A social media shoutout?
Oh it really does depend. But thirteen dollars does seem a fair price, and which I’d be happy to pay.