Inside the Curl with George Greenough and Clark Little

Photos (c) Clark Little: http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/

In 1971, Bob Easton and I were finishing up production of Domebook 2 at his house in Santa Barbara. Bob's next-door neighbor was a surfer named George Greenough, and one night George came over to show us his surfing movie. George had rigged up a waterproof wide-angle movie camera with a motorcycle battery, and had been shooting waves from a kneeboard. George was getting into the tube and recording waves from the inside. I'd never seen anything like it before.

Bob pointed out that regular surfers stood up — conquering the waves — but that George was on his knees, respectful, tucked into the curl, like a martial artist becoming one with the wave. The camera showed the curl, the view of the beach and palm trees at the end, and it would get smaller and smaller, like closing down the f-stop on a camera lens, until George wiped out and there was an explosion of bubbles and light and turbulence.

No one knew George at the time. As the years passed, George went on to become a legendary waterman, with his breakthrough stunning wave images. In 1973, Bob and I got George to bring a new film to my home town, Crystal Voyager. It was directed by David Elfick and combined George's photography with Pink Floyd's Echoes. It was other-worldly in its beauty. I can still see a shot from low down, of a 10' wave at sunrise in Australia, with sunlight streaming through the wave in dappled gold.

Yesterday, Jan Janzen, one of the featured builders in our book, Builders of the Pacific Coast, sent me photos by Hawaiian surf photographer Clark Little, who has obviously taken George's pioneering inside-the-curl view to a new level, showing the seldom-seen beauty of the ocean and its waves. Isn't it incredible, this is just something that is there, that has always existed in nature, and these intrepid watermen have shown us this dazzling beauty?