Legendary surf cinematographer Larry Haynes filmed his last-ever wave before collapsing and dying in beach carpark minutes later!

“He caught this beautiful wave and he rode it for a long time and by the end we were cheering and yelling and crying…”

If you knew Larry Haynes, like I knew Larry, you’d know this beautiful man with the extravagant, well-used smile would’ve loved to’ve gone out with his boots on, as they say.

Four days ago, Larry died of a suspected heart attack while crossing the road after a surf at Laniakea on Oahu’s North Shore, and only a couple of weeks after capturing the most dramatic water footage from the epic Eddie Aikau Invitational.

A Californian transplant who moved to the North Shore thirty years ago and who was sixty-one, Larry was without peer.

“To me, Larry is a precious character in the surf world and a living legend,” the photographer Rob Gilley wrote for Surfer. “I have seen him shooting wide-angle in-water film at giant closed-out Off The Wall, Backdoor, Maverick’s, Teahupoo, and Waimea. I once was in Australia with him when he shot wide-angle water movies at the sharky Easter Reef when the faces of sets were 25-foot. Before GoPro existed, Larry used to surf with a 10-pound camera attached to his head—a camera that would break your neck if the lip hit you unexpectedly. The guy is a human bulldog.”

“The man is a staple in our lives,” wrote Kelly Slater. “It’s hard to imagine a surfing world without Larry in it always screaming us into waves and throwing good vibes.”

Brian Bielmann, who downloaded the footage from Larry’s GoPro after his death, told Hawaiian TV,

“He caught this beautiful wave and he rode it for a long time and by the end we were cheering and yelling and crying…He had an incredible life right to the end! He couldn’t fit anymore into his life than he did!”

Legendary Hawaii surf photographer captures his own epic final moments

Just weeks after filming water shots at the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational, iconic surf photographer Larry Haynes unexpectedly passed away after a surfing session on Thursday. https://t.co/TggBAOJ1LX pic.twitter.com/ORgG1ORe68

— Sam Spangler (@SamSpanglerHI) February 14, 2023