Mick Fanning: 20 Great Photos

Mick at Green Bush is an amazing thing to witness. His determination in those deep shallow caverns is visible in this shot. It’s also one of the many shots I have him surfing with his eyes closed. We’ve joked about it a few times, although it is uncanny how many images I have of him mid tube or turn with his eyes closed. Maybe he’s just tapped into the force! Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

The most crucial part of any wave, the take off. Mick's experience at his home break has served him well in this department. I don’t see many images of take offs from the water, besides places like Teahupoo and Cloud Break, etc. I kinda dig this image, Mick is focused down the line at where he wants to be and the wave itself looks really fun. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

This day was some of the most amazing forehand tube riding I have ever seen. This wave breaks over an extremely shallow reef and also has the ability of letting the rider get extremely deep within the tube. Mick surfed by himself for about two hours this session getting some of the deepest barrels that I have witnessed on many occasions. From memory I am pretty sure he was tubed on every single wave he took off on, emerging from waves that he had no right to be making. He was that deep. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

Victory! The majority of us will never know what this feels like, in any sport. To win a world title that was wholly on your back, not a team, just you, must be one of the craziest feelings in the world. I know Mick has his trainer, Phil, and all the rest of the crew that he works with all year, and I am not discounting their input or influence in any way, what I am saying is that once Mick’s out in those heats, it’s all on him. The decisions, the pressure, the conditions and the rest. Then to be greeted by two of your closest mates, that just so happen to be peers on the world stage as well, and chaired up the beach in front of, through and sometimes over your fans would all be something that I could only say must feel surreal at the time. But, as I said, very few of us will ever get to experience any of this, so my guess is as good as yours. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

Left: This wave is a special wave. We were taken there by Captain Albert Taylor on this trip, twice. Both times we scored and Mick’s surfing was on another level. It was pretty solid and coming out of deep water and had these backdoor sections and and and… well I could dribble on for ages about this wave, but as you can see it was pretty damn good. Right: I was asked by Surfing World to shoot a portrait of Mick for a feature they where doing on him about be a threat for the world title that year. The brief was for him to be serious. I was on the Gold Coast shooting for Joel Parkinson's book "PARKO + FRIENDS" so I called him up and teed up a time to shoot at his house as the weather was horrendous. I used an old strobe I hadn’t used for quite a while and was really happy with the quality of light it was giving, and I know how much Mick can hate sitting for the camera, so I banged off a handful of shots and let him go. I am happy with the results nonetheless and as it happened the feature title drew heavily on the image style. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

Big carves will never get old. The light on this afternoon was spectacular, as were the waves and surfing. Mick was trading waves with Owen Wright and his great friend Taylor Knox. The waves were well overhead on take off and piping all the way through and it was only occasionally that the wave let anyone near doing a turn. Well this is what happened when it did, Mick obliged by shutting his eyes once again and letting this thing rip. Grab rail cutback at high speed, a thing of beauty. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

I have quite a few speed blurs in the library of Mick, from all sorts of places. I chose this one simply for the color. It was the same afternoon as the previous shot in this group of images as the sun was disappearing beyond the horizon and quite possibly the last wave of his session. It's sessions like these that can lead to a stint in The Gentleman's Club! Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

A reflective Mick sitting at the front of the tin boat, fresh from the session that the last two images came from. It's days like this that we all strive for as surfers, days filled with amazing waves, mates and amazing conditions. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

The waves this day weren’t particularly that good. It was quite a few years back at the contest in Tahiti and I decided to swim for a few heats around the time Mick was surfing. When this thing came through, it bowled round then went square as it spun its glowing blue tube down the line. I have a feeling Mick won this heat, although uncertain. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

We had just come around the corner at Green Bush and Mick was off the boat before we had even really checked it. I decided to shoot a couple from up top of the boat and only just made it up there as this thing came through. It was the only good one in an hour, and Mick came in and we headed off to try our luck elsewhere. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

This is my overall favorite action shot of Mick that I have ever taken. It was a rainy day and Mick decided to take the single fin that Darren Handley had shaped him out Backdoor/OTW. I posted up in the corner of what was then the Rip Curl house and he caught this little runner, got piped and then came out and laid his rail, and by rail I mean RAIL, into this arc. It was my first year shooting digital as well so that gave me what was the new and exciting experience of previewing the shot immediately. I was zooming in and checking the frame, trying to tell if the timing was right and being happy that I thought it was but freaking that it may not be as the preview image was pretty bad and yeah, it was one of those moments. As it turned out it ran as a cover in a sequence of 5 covers in a row that I got of Tracks that year, three of which were shot in Hawaii. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

This image was taken during the waiting period of the Quiksilver Pro. I had driven my Jet Ski up from Sydney and posted up for a few weeks. The waves were ok this day so I swam early and didn’t really get any amazing hook ups. The weather was in and out as well so I decided to launch the ski and try Snapper for the first time. When I shoot on the ski I drive myself, so I was a bit hesitant with the crowd at first, although I soon found my groove and parked it just off the rock and just far enough out not to annoy the crowd. It was a pretty slow session, and then this mutant rolled in. It wasn’t the biggest wave at the start, although it was well below sea level on the take off. Mick, as per normal, swung and dropped late, just scraped under the lip and then it went haywire, throwing out three times wider than high and grinding off down the line. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

had been talking to Mick for a while about getting him down for a swell at Cape Solander, or Ours as it has been dubbed. When this swell was forming I was prepping for a job that I was co directing and shooting in the Malaysian wave pool with him and was leaving in the evening of the day it was due to hit. I spoke to him about it and he was keen to head down so we made plans and I picked him up from the first flight south. We drove out to the Cape and arched for an hour, an hour too long in my books. The swell wasn’t quite right for the reef and there where all sorts of calls flying around. I had a word with Mick and asked him if he’d be keen to drive further south for the day rather than surf average waves at the Cape and he was. We pulled up in the car park of this wave and saw one of the local lads on a crazy pipe and all of a sudden the froth was on. We were out of the car and into the line up in record time, and Mick surfed until the waves weren’t cooperating anymore. Mick was keen to try get some more waves at that stage, although my flight for Malaysia was leaving in 5 hours and I was 2 1/2 hours from home. Needless to say it was hectic getting to the airport, although I made it and Mick joined us two days later to shoot the first ever matrix style project of its kind. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

This image was taken at Mick's second World Title after-party. The house was filling up quickly and everyone was starting to get a glow on. Occy is hilarious at the best of times, and although I can’t remember what was said, I can be certain that the hilarity of the moment was not lost on Mick. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

I am pretty sure this was Mick’s first wave against Bede Durbidge in the final of the Snapper Event. Behind the rock had been going crazy all afternoon and Mick was on fire. He had an earlier heat or semi, with Josh Kerr that was simply amazing, and his run was never going to be cut short. The ledge he needed to get over on this thing as you can see had a step in it and it was all he could do to stomp on his back foot until he could get his rail in at the bottom and drive into the throaty little beast. Mick's ability to succeed under pressure is second to none and it’s situations like these that really make that visible. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

I was in France shooting stills for Rip Curls wetsuit campaign and I had this old Polaroid camera with me. I hadn’t used in in a few years, and it was one of the models that has no accurate shutter or aperture settings, just faker and lighter. It's all educated guesses. It was a last minute decision to take it, so I organized a few hours in Paris to catch the train in and pick up some film. I shot this image one morning that Mick wanted to surf alone up the beach, well away from anyone else on what was an eight foot beachy with crazy left bank. The tides are massive over that way and it had run a fair way out, exposing the rocks that get all churned up when the tide is high and breaking real close to shore I grabbed the Pola and snapped this image of the solitary world champ. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

These three images were taken during the filming of FLOAT for Rip Curl. Clockwise from left: Mick post last session. The amount of images I have of Mick pulling rude heads is amusing. He’s always goofing around when the camera is pointed at him on trips. This was the end of a trip that Mick had been really sick on. His surfing was amazing but the poor lad was crock as a dog for a number of days. We scored amazing waves though thanks to Captain Albert Taylor and Mick left the boat in good health. She’s a roll old boat, the Quest One. We had all had quite a bit of experience aboard this big tin boat as it was the Indies Trader II beforehand. Some open ocean moments had been pretty hectic in previous years, and had put many grown men flat on the floor, incapacitated with motion sickness. In this instance everything had been pretty calm and then all of a sudden we started rocking. I was outside watching the world go by when all of a sudden this swell caught us on the right angle and everything started flying around. I squeezed this frame off as I struggled to look through the finder, so it wasn’t the most technically correct image, although I like it as it shows one of the little moments that take place that make up the whole of a boat trip. The Gentlemen’s Club. After great days of waves, we usually all gather in the Gentleman’s Club to swap stories and talk shit and generally have a great afternoon. Watching the sun set with good mates on the front of the boat on a surf trip never gets old, and I hop it never does. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

I love this image of Mick from a reef up in the Mentawai Islands. It’s one of those moments in surfing that that feels so good. The weightless transition that can go all to horribly wrong, although all the beatings are worth it for when it goes right. Add the contrasting light conditions and a then soon to be world champ you get this, Mick Fanning, on the edge of the world. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

Mick had just won the Quik Pro in Hossegor and everyone was out celebrating. Joel was still leading the title race, although he had an injury that was proving to be much worse than at first suspected. The two are great mates, and most probably always will be, although the tension that they go through during title battles must be a strange thing to have to deal with. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley

It’s really hard to get images in the water in the wind and rain. The water droplets blur the image as does excessive wind. I think thats why I like this image. Mick paddled past after catching a wave in this torrential storm and said something about how crazy the conditions were and I pulled the housing out and snapped away as he passed. I think it may have ben the only image that worked from that session but it was an interesting swim to say the least. Photo: Andrew "Shorty" Buckley