Debate: Is there a link between the explosion of surf-cams and surf photographers and crowds?

Embrace change and enjoy the dance or switch off from the grid and move to that shack somewhere southwest of Ceduna?

July has been kind to the Australian east coast. First, an abnormally sustained ENE fetch peppered the Queensland/New South Wales stretch. Nothing massive, unless you were behind the rock at Snapper, but still a week of four-to-six-foot groomed lines.

North swells, you gotta love them.

Then, a series of solid pulses from the south filed in with their usual polar intensity. Combined, they’ve lit up every good spot in one way or another over the last three weeks with hardly a break between.

Plenty of waves to be had. The assault continues as your correspondent types.

But in the post-Dickensian industrial caldera that is my hometown, there have been rumbles of discontent online as a result. It’s a particularly new age problem; a first world surfing worry. And it delights with the sort of semi-detached voyeurism one feels watching two cousins kissing at a Christmas party.

Sorta my problem, but still fun to watch!

Situation: there’s a Facebook group called Local Surf Photos. It members around 4,600 people. About a dozen or so amateur photographers regularly upload their action shots. Old crew who no longer get in the water. Delightful tuck shop nannas who have picked up photography as a hobby in retirement. Average Joes who point and shoot the lineup on their smart phones and upload in real time.

On a day when the waves are on you can have 100+ photos uploaded from a fifteen-kilometre stretch of coast before the sun’s gone down. Some spots well known, others less so.

If you’re so inclined, and know which break to surf at what time, you can even be assured of having two or three good pics of yourself posted, often by the time you get home for breakfast or to the office.

If surfing’s a selfie sport, as Dave Parmenter says, this is surely its golden era.

But, as the size of the group and number of photographers has grown, so has the backlash.

Oversaturation, say the grumpy locals.

Some older, some younger. Spots shouldnt be named, they say.

Or there should be a day’s wait before uploading, at least.

On the other side of the fence are a predominantly younger generation. Many newer to the sport.

You can’t control the line up, they retort.

Localism is dead. These are public spaces. There’s no such thing as secret spots any more!

Expletive-laden, punctuation-devoid rants ensue.

Fighting on the internet is fun to watch, yes. But, like, poor grammar ‘n that aside, it’s modern life writ large: The democratisation of the internet versus its desecration of longstanding cultural norms.

It’s so easy to check the surf now.

Most spots have two, sometimes even three cams pointed at them 24/7 (hint: suss out your local surf club website). The more industrious and digitally literate of us can even do things like check recent Instagram stories from content-rich spots like Snapper, Pass, Crescent, Bondi etc to get a look at what the waves are doing behind the kawaii pouts.

We also know crowds are getting worse.

I used to look to a tree, or a flagpole, or the clouds to guess what the waves were doing. Now I just check my feed. And there’s nothing like a shot of your local doing its best Ulu’s impersonation from an hour ago to get the juices flowing. I change plans. Come up with excuses. The car’s sick and I gotta drop the baby at the mechanics. I rush back in for a forty-five-minute power session when otherwise I would have been sitting at work in semi-ignorance.

Fact. Is there a causal relationship with the explosion of surfcams and surf photographers and the number of people in the water? It’s hard to say. But there’s no doubt more lenses pointed to the horizon equals more attention on the surf.

I’m part of the problem. I pay for Swellnet Pro. I love a FB notification on where’s pumping while I’m punching keys at work. Spot a few friends getting bombs. Sometimes even my own mug.

I used to look to a tree, or a flagpole, or the clouds to guess what the waves were doing. Now I just check my feed. And there’s nothing like a shot of your local doing its best Ulu’s impersonation from an hour ago to get the juices flowing. I change plans. Come up with excuses. The car’s sick and I gotta drop the baby at the mechanics. I rush back in for a forty-five-minute power session when otherwise I would have been sitting at work in semi-ignorance.

But, I’m still a misanthrope at heart.

I scowl at unknown faces in the lineup. I cling to my low rung on the surfing ship and anybody below me trying to get on I kick square in the face. Burn the life jackets, too.

I don’t want no more surfers taking me waves.

And I know the karmic price we will ultimately pay for this life of #content #saturation we’re currently wading through will be high.

So how do I reconcile that with the perks of the digital world I so fully enjoy?

Do I embrace change and enjoy the dance?

Or switch off from the grid and move the family down to that shack somewhere southwest of Ceduna?

Yeah, fuck it. I’ll just continue the hypocrisy, extolling the virtues of a tribalist neo-luddite while feeding the beast I say I’m rallying against.

At least I’m not the only one doing it.

PS: Don’t come surf Newcastle or I’ll shit on your windscreen wipers.