-
Peter Hughes, body dip 1965 - Every beach had a shooting star. Peter Hughes’ star shone brightly from 1958 until increasingly becoming a mystery sighting towards the late sixties. He later surfaced on the Sunshine Coast. Photographed during a Seabeach v Peninsula Contest early 1965. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Noosa Heads, First Point 1967 - Taken from the car park at first point on a trip to Noosa Heads in late autumn or early winter. My white 1960 VW, standard is on the LHS of the image and framed in the back window are the legs and board of a surfer on the shore break. Andy McAlpine is behind the timber tripod filming Children of the Sun. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
The Smoker 1969 - Geoff Sedevic, and Richard Harvey standing with his Ron Wade, Crusader model surfboard. Rosedale Beach, NSW south coast, 1969. This photo was first published in John Witzig’s SURF International magazine Vol 2 No 2 (60 cents) in 1969 and was my first ever portrait, part of a feature written by me called. Number Sixteen Honeysuckle Street, Avoca Beach. Geoff Sedevic and Richard Harvey standing with his Ron Wade Crusader model surfboard. Rosedale Beach, NSW south coast, 1969. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Bungan Wave, circa 1974 -Taken walking up the old goat track at the southern end of the beach. Published in Surfing World June 1978. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
One of two photos of my hard-core brother Ian published in the December 1975 issue of Surfing World. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
The second of the Rock Pools photos in the December 1975 issue of Surfing World. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Mona Vale Wave 1977 - I photographed this playful offshore wave early one morning in autumn 1977. I used a 50mm lens, a lens that I found very boring(I was pushing my boundaries), because I normally have a preference for long telephoto or wide angle lens. I don’t know if the surfer in the black wetsuit dates the image or it appears as a timeless classic wave. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
North Avalon Wave, circa 1989 - Originally published in Surfing World, issue Number 207 1989 and reprinted in Surfing World in 2011. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Contents of a Kingswood - Bawley Point, NSW south coast. January 1992 - Three Boards, two Girls and a Kingswood (wagon). Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Manly Skater, 1994 - I had a client who wanted me to photograph a range of Sydney postcards and that included trying to get an iconic image from Manly, which was not as easy as it sounds. I stood in the this spot for thirty minutes waiting to see who or what might interact with the shadows from the lamp and the Norfolk Island Pine. The patience paid off but the postcard range didn’t. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Tom Carroll, 2006. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Mona Vale evening light, 2008. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Newport Pipe, 2009. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Bungan Beach, 2010. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Mona Vale Basin, 2011. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Mona Vale beach, 2011. Taken for a book on women surfing called ‘Taking the Drop’. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
Geoff Channon - Stylist 1964 Mona Vale- Geoff got his first board when he turned fourteen in the summer of 1960-61. From my memory it was a no name, nine-foot pink and white malt with a giant piece of sticking plaster on the deck, which later proved to be hiding a big hole. My favorite board was the Dale with six stickers, lilac rails and a cedar stringer and a laminated pod. My shortest board in the early seventies was a 5’8” McCoy twin fin. Photo: Bruce Usher
-
John Haymes Avalon, 2012 - Haymes has lived between Avalon, Australia and Bali for several decades and is a collector of sorts. I wrote a profile on John in Australian Long Boarding in 2002. Photo: Bruce Usher
Bruce Usher. Photo: Robert Morehead.
I grew up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. In the summer of 1959/60 I started surfing and my father built a dark room under the house, then showed me how to process and print black and white film. I graduated from a Box Brownie to borrowing my father’s 35mm Miranda SLR with no metering and a Tamron Twin Tele lens.
February 1964, I bought a Komura 400 mm telephoto lens with my first few months’ pay. Six months later I had five black and white photos and 250 words published in the August 1964 issue of Surfing World. Subsequent feature articles and photos were published in Surfing World until the end of the decade. Photographically, I was beginning to look beyond surfing and took a few portraits, although only several stand out. I used the occasional colour negative film and dabbled with an old twin lens Mamiya and later started taking more abstract black and white images.
1971, along with Russell and Phil Sheppard started 16mm filming for: Our Day in The Sun, narrated by Midget Farrelly. That was cut into a 25 Minute short that premiered at a Surf Film Festival at Sydney. Early 1972, Russell, Phil and I commenced work on the feature length film: A Winter’s Tale, shot in New Zealand, South Africa, Hawaii and Australia that premiered in February 1974. October 1974, again contributed to Surfing World Magazine for several years, but this time Bruce Channon who I had written about a decade earlier was the editor. Towards the end of the seventies I was using a Leicaflex, hand held with a 180mm lens to shoot black and white surfing action and was establishing myself as a commercial photographer.
Bruce Channon started editing Australian Long Boarding in 2002 and I again continued my relationship with him. Contributing photography occasionally but predominately writing profiles of surfing community characters.
From 2012, the new quarterly magazine, White Horses has become home to my words and photography. I have been a commercial photographer since the mid-seventies and writing for two photography magazines.
-Bruce Usher, 2013
