Liquid legends ride again
Old style …
longboard surfer and world champion Midget Farrelly at Palm Beach in the
'60s.
THEY were 12 years that changed the image of surfing forever. Twelve years when Australians took over that world, and when the sport was transformed from a carefree recreation to an international multimillion-dollar lifestyle industry.
John Witzig, a young Sydney architectural student, was there at the beginning of the revolution, becoming one of Australia's first surf journalists and photographers. Now a book of his surfing photographs from 1964 to 1976 has been published, coinciding with the launch tomorrow of his latest exhibition of surfing photographs at the Dickerson Gallery.
As Witzig, 63, cheerfully acknowledges, he got lucky when some of his old mates got famous - men such as Midget Farrelly, Australia's first surfing world champion, and his nemesis, Nat Young, once called "the alpha male of Australian surfing".
But Witzig's photographs don't just pay homage to the heady athleticism of guys on boards. They document a slice of Australian social history, the beginnings of a culture that would become a significant part of the national character.
One of the last surfing photographs Witzig ever took was of the American surfer Buzzy Kerbox on a big break at Haleiwa, Oahu. Kerbox would go on to become a Ralph Lauren model and a big-wave specialist, but in 1976 he was a rising talent - one of the new generation of American surfers fighting back against the Australian ascendancy.
"I love the energy of this photograph, the fact that he seems so alive," says Witzig. "I swear I would have been under a metre away from him. You had to be quite courageous. You swam with flippers and got as close as you could to the surfer without being killed." Now it's all telescopic lens and autofocus.
Witzig contrasts the Kerbox image with one he took of Midget Farrelly at Palm Beach about 1964. He loves the balletic quality of Farrelly's stance. "It really shows the elegance of his surfing, his natural grace. Just look at his hands. His position is perfect, just beautiful, and entirely natural."
Sadly, Witzig and Farrelly fell out when Witzig used the photograph to illustrate a story he wrote for Surfing World in 1966, in which he said the new guns who were pioneering the short board - Young, Bob McTavish and the American kneeboarder George Greenough - would surpass Farrelly. "Midget hasn't spoken to me since," Witzig says. "I've made various tries to get on terms with him, but I've just given up." There's a pause. "I believe history has proven that I was not inaccurate."
Witzig found the Farrelly negative recently in "an old archive box I hadn't opened for about 15 years. I was thrilled. He was so important to Australian surfing."
His limited-edition prints sell for up to $1500. Witzig says he is amazed so many "young guys in their 20s and 30s" are buying them. "I wouldn't have thought they would mean much to people who weren't around at the time."
Frustratingly, Witzig - who lives in Maclean on the North Coast and is still mates with Young - hasn't been able to surf for years. "I've had two hip replacements, one knee replacement … the diagnosis on the other is that it's stuffed."
John Witzig, Surfing Photographs from the 1960s and '70s is at the Dickerson Gallery, Woollahra, from tomorrow until August 19.