♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Dan Merkel: It was just the timing.

I went under the wave and it just pushed me, bam, like that, and a crack.

I think that's the closest I thought I was gonna die.

male: You have to swim, and you have to put yourself in serious situations or unique angles.

Brent Bielmann: You really gotta, like, almost, like, take someone with you into that situation for them to comprehend what you're doing and where you are.

Mike Lacey: It can be -2 and you're putting a wet wetsuit on.

At 6 in the morning, it's pitch black and you're waiting for the sun to rise.

And yeah, it gets pretty extreme.

Kevin Shultz: And I think that's probably the biggest danger, is taking a fin or a surfboard to the face.

Brian Bielmann: You don't want to get too close.

You'll get dragged across the reef if the wave catches you.

Christa Funk: When a wave picks you up and throws you over and you get sent down with a lip-- David Olsthoorn: It's actually quite manageable, but like from the outside looking in, people are like, "That's crazy.

That's mad.

It's a dangerous thing to do."

Jeff Divine: When your brain is telling you you're caught inside, you're toast, that's when it gets scary.

♪♪♪ male announcer: Water photographers capture images seen in magazines and social media worldwide.

Little do people know how these images are produced and the dangers involved in getting the shots.

[gurgling, water splashing] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: Surfing is one of the most exhilarating adventure sports on the planet.

The athleticism on display by world-class surfers continually pushing the boundaries of what seems to be humanly possible on massive waves, it's a visual masterpiece for any photographer.

As the sport began to progress, the creation of surf magazines began to develop.

The need to fill the pages with action-packed images became a necessity.

Soon the surf photographer was born.

It was this innovative group that pioneered shooting from the water, paving the way for the future generations, that changed the way the world would view surfing seen in the magazines around the globe.

Jeff: I arrived in Hawaii in, say, 1971 and I just remember that there was no pioneers anywhere to be seen.

You know, I was scared 'cause I'd be by myself going, "Okay, I have my water housing."

And I'm looking out at this horrible-looking shore break.

There was no mentors then to say, "Okay, pal.

Out here, let me hold your hand," you know.

So in that sense, it was really intimidating.

Dan: Like in Hawaii, there wasn't that many of us, so as far as water photographers, I didn't have a zillion heads in my way.

I mean, there was a few--you know, a few hardcore guys, and everybody kind of not cut everybody off or they would get yelled at.

Brian: When I first started shooting pictures back in 1978, I actually made my first water housing out of plexiglass.

It was a terrible housing, but it worked.

Dan: We had to break down the door with the camera equipment.

It was--it's nothing like you guys have now with the digital, and put a card in and shoot 2,000 photos in one go and shoot 14 frames a second.

Flynn Novak: When I was shooting with guys like Scott Eichner, who would shoot with film, and they're swimming in the water, it was no joke, it was--you had to-- it was just--you had to be so much more patient.

You had to be so much more precise.

You had to be so much more lucky.

Dan: Back in the day, let's say I go on the water.

I have 36 pictures.

You pick those photos.

We had to be very selective in all our shooting because we had to go all the way back to the beach.

I used to consider a three-roll day was a really good day.

Brian: When you swam out, it was a big deal to pick and choose what you shot, and there were so many times where you'd hold back on shooting and you should have shot but you knew you had such a limited amount of film and you didn't want to have to swim right back inside again to change film 'cause it's kind of heavy going in and out of Pipeline.

So you really tried to make it last.

Jim Russi: In film days, we really savored our shots and waited for the ultimate moment and the ultimate wave and everything had to come together; and nothing more important than the last shot that we savored, which was number 36 on a 36 exposure roll, and many, many of my best, most classic famous shots were actually frame 36.

Brian: Especially when you only had one shot left in the camera.

I remember sitting out there for hours waiting for the perfect moment to finish off that last shot.

Jeff: I've had some photographer friends that have gotten water shots when we used to shoot film and they'd be in their little office in Hawaii or in the room and they'd call me in, and I'd walk into the room and they'd be doing a little dance like football players do when they do a touchdown.

I'd go, "What's up?

What do you--what?"

"You know, look at this."

You know, it'd be like one good water shot.

That's how exciting it is.

Alistair Taylor: Yeah, the guys that paved the way in water photography I cannot imagine, and I took it for granted because I was on the other side of the lens.

When I'm doing my water boarding thing, I was just like shooting with those guys.

I had no idea what they were dealing with.

David: So like if I had to use my film camera, I would last probably like, I don't know, 3, 4 minutes.

I just get excited I'd be like, "Whoa, the first wave."

And someone do something cool and then like 36 shots gone.

Yeah, so I wouldn't last.

Mike Harris: So when I think of some of the legends of surf photography like the Dan Merkels, Jeff Divines, and Brian Bielmanns, you know, I get so much inspiration from them.

Their gear was really limited compared to today.

They were shooting film.

I look at those guys as real photographers.

I mean, anybody can get out there with a GoPro and get some great shots, and it's made it a lot easier for us.

Maria Fernanda: There's a lot of old-school photographers that I admire.

Jim Russi is one of them.

He gave me some pointers, which is amazing.

You know, he's such a humble guy and has amazing work.

He's been in the business for years.

Mike L.: These guys really had the raw end of the deal, but they've paved the way for us to have it how we have it now.

So yeah, so grateful for all those guys.

And yes, it's pretty amazing to be part of the photography industry, I guess, now and--yeah, so grateful.

Brent Bielmann: I don't know how they do it.

I mean, like sometimes it's hard enough just getting out to the lineup, and then to think you only have like a roll of 32 or 36 shots or whatever it was.

David: You might be swimming for a couple of hours to take 36 shots, and it's just crazy.

So massive respect for them guys.

Brian: And that was the whole difference: the anticipation, the waiting, you know.

It's like nowadays, you just shoot the photo and you look in the back of the camera and you immediately see what it looks like, and that's great for an insecure photographer, which, you know, I myself probably am.

I guess it's nice to see the photos and know you've got it, but there was something magical about having to wait and then seeing the photos the next day as they came out of the lab and you got to look at the light box with all your photos lined up.

Flynn: You didn't see anything until months later, you open the magazine or you look at it on the front cover and you're like, "Whoa, that's me," you know.

Like, you didn't know that photo even existed.

You didn't even know there was a guy shooting.

You didn't know anything.

And now it's like you know immediately 'cause somebody posted it, or you see a land photo and then you see all these photographers in the wave sometimes and you're like, "Oh, yeah, there--that guy's in the right spot.

Maybe this guy, too."

And then you can kind of maybe identify who it is and hit him up separately, like, "Hey, you got that shot?"

But yeah, it's just different.

It's different now.

Jeff: So another thing about waiting for--to see your photos is that--especially when you go out in the waters, you kind of memorize moments 'cause on the land you're getting a lot more material, in the water it's more finite where you're-- it's breaking in one spot.

But when everything comes together and the way it pitches out and the surfer is in the right position and all that, you remember that and you go, "Oh, I got it."

So then the waiting time drives you crazy.

It's--even 24 hours will drive you crazy and-- 'cause I used to memorize.

You kind of in your mind's eye you'd memorize these moments, but you don't know if you really got it till it comes back, and the really interesting thing is some things you never thought of came out really good and other things you thought were going to be really good come out terrible.

Flynn: I think any time you have to wait for--to see something or hear something or get something, you always kind of value it a little bit more.

Brian: I remember we would shoot all of our film and the next day wake up and we'd be hoping that it wasn't any good because then we got to all take our roll of film in and go to the lab and drop it all off and then we'd go to the movies, we'd have lunch.

We'd do all these fun things and we get to look at our photos when we were done, and it was kind of like Halloween.

It was like trick-or-treat, you know.

You'd either be super surprised or you'd be super bummed.

Shaun Tomson: So the first clear memory I have of meeting Dan Merkel is I was at the Haleiwa post office on the North Shore of Oahu and picking up my mail.

He said to me, "You're the best backside surfer at Pipeline this year," and I was so staggered.

It was such an honor to hear that coming from, like, the best surf photographer in the world; to hear him say that, and it really gave me, like, a lot of confidence for my career.

Jim: I was introduced to a man named Dan Merkel, who was a few years older than me and a very well-respected water photographer and a hero of mine, and he was an amazing water photographer.

Just a beast of a guy.

And a lot of guys probably didn't get along with him that well, but I got along with him really well and he took me under his wing and really helped me to develop my water shots, develop--he introduced me to the magazines.

He introduced me to the photo editors at "Surfer" and "Surfing," which was Art Brewer at "Surfer" and Larry Moore at "Surfing" in those days, and like, recommended me to them and really went out of his way to help me.

Swam me out at Pipe, showed me the ropes.

And so I always like to give Dan a lot of credit 'cause he was certainly my mentor.

Dan: The motivation was once I took some water shots, I wanted to get better at it, and then I wanted to get really good at it, and then I wanted to beat out the other guys.

You know, it was a drive.

When I worked at "Surfing" magazine--there was "Surfing" magazine and "Surfer" magazine.

When I was a staff photographer, basically--and it's not hating anybody, it's wanting to outdo the other guys.

Brian: You know, I have so many heroes from growing up as a young kid here on the North Shore and seeing these other surf photographers before I actually started being one myself, and I'd have to say Dan Merkel, he was the most badass of all of them.

I mean, Dan was the first guy to swim out the backdoor and pull into the barrel with these guys.

Shaun: You know, there's sometimes not a lot of room in the tube and you got Dan floating, not on a mat.

He's floating there holding this camera up, and I learned that with Dan I could aim straight towards him.

And Dan had no fear at all, and he would just wait and he wouldn't move because he knew that if I went by him and he moved he'd hit me in the head with his camera.

I mean, that's how close I got to him, but I had absolute confidence in Dan, in his courage; that no matter what, no matter where--if the lip was going to nail him in the head, Dan would be there still.

And I could just ride past him on the inside or the outside, but there was no movement, no fear, no flailing, no trying to dive to the bottom.

He was just still, and it was almost in some ways like he wasn't even there.

Jeff: You know, some of the guys in the early days like Dan Merkel would--they were more aggressive, so to speak.

I was more conservative.

And they would--he would just go right into the zone often to get--he was the best in the world at the time.

He'd be shooting kind of in what I would call the danger zone.

And 2- or 3-hour session, I'd see him get lodged maybe two or three times and he'd be yelling, laughing, "Aaah!".

Then a surfer would get his raft and kind of push it out to him, or sometimes he'd swim in to get it.

But I'll tell you, there's nothing scarier than having a wall at Sunset Beach and you know you're caught inside.

Jim: Yeah, Dan, besides just swimming me out the Pipeline, he actually wrote a letter.

I remember the first time he came over, looked at my images, and he separated them--they were slides, and he separated them into two different piles and he said, "Send this pile to 'Surfing' and this pile to 'Surfer.'"

And he wrote a letter, a handwritten letter on notebook paper, I remember three-ring binder notebook paper, handwritten letter from Dan Merkel to Art Brewer at "Surfer" and to Larry Moore at "Surfing" recommending that they take a good look at my--serious look at my images, and that I'd be a good guy to--a good resource for them here in Hawaii.

So, again, thank you, Dan.

Jeff: Nobody else was doing what Dan was doing, but it became kind of commonplace so every time it happened you'd go, "Oh, here he goes again, he's going to get it."

'Cause where I was, you'd see these sets approaching and then I'd start adjusting.

You know, I had these big fins on and I would adjust, right.

Look over and go, "Oh, Dan's toast."

Sure enough, bada boom, he's getting launched on its wrath, and he'd be yelling and laughing.

Dan: Actually, JD posted a picture, that's Jeff Divine, of me going up a wave at sunset, and I jumped off the air mat and I'm holding with one hand and jumping into the wave to pull it because the air mat's got volume of air.

You know, to pull that air mat through the wave.

And then if I felt that I was being sucked over, then I let the thing go.

But you have that drive that you want to get the picture.

You want to get a good picture, you know.

You wanted to get it in the magazine.

The notoriety, put your butt on the line.

announcer: Though the family of water photographers stretches around the globe, they're all driven by the same passion of capturing the perfect shot.

David: I think people don't realize how good the waves are in Ireland.

You know, they're really-- they are world-class.

You just gotta be able to stomach the freezing cold.

You know, you gotta be able to handle that your fingers are going to feel like they're falling off after you do the surfin'.

You know, once you can get past that part, the waves are some of the best in the world if not the best in the world.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Mike L.: A lot of the time when people see my images, they don't really think they're from the UK and in Cornwall.

Like, some of them look as good as they could be anywhere in the world.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: Water photographers must be both bold and brazen in defying the dangers of the ocean.

Dan: I mean, every time a photographer goes in the water, they take a chance they could die, the housing could hit you, the wave could draw you to the bottom.

You have to put yourself in positions that you can get hurt.

Jeff: A guy named Jon Mozo died at Pipeline by hitting the bottom so that--one of the biggest dangers is -either getting hit by a surfer as he's--you know, you're swimming and he's coming at you from up there and he comes down and his hand--his fin or his board might clip you.

Therefore you try to wear a helmet.

Mike H.: I was really fearing for my life because I lost my breath.

I got hit by, you know, three or four just massive sets.

I got two cramps in my calves and my feet bent, and I was trying to grab my calves and hold on to my housing and I literally could not get in to the shore.

And so I had to swim out as far as I could to just get my breath and actually get on the lifeguard boat.

And if it wasn't for them, man, I don't know what I would have done.

male: There's always the thought about sharks in, you know, certain parts of the world.

There's places I don't necessarily like to shoot because there's a lot of sharks around.

Mike L.: What people don't realize with England is we have such a variety of waves, and we have loads of reefs and slabs and--yeah, it can be super dangerous being out there on these reef breaks where this massive wall of water is coming towards you.

If you're in the wrong spot, you're just going to get slammed right into that reef.

Brian: But there's also, you know, the situation where you're shooting a wave and a giant set comes and you're swimming outside to get away from the breaking wave and the next thing you know you're caught outside and the currents are sucking you out and you can't get back in.

That's a really scary feeling, too.

Dan: The housing can become a weapon.

But if that housing got loosed out of your hand and hit you in the head, it could knock you out and the--you know, you can die, and photographers have died.

Damian Davila: One time I was like almost--I felt like I was going to drown, and then I went in.

I saw the waves like still pumping and like, "Oh, I really want to get the shot."

So I went back out, set comes again, and I was like, "Oh, no.

I think I'm gonna call it a day."

Because two times in a row-- I think the third one could have been a disaster.

Brent: Reef is extremely shallow at times and on top of that there's a lot of caves or more like shelves, and you can potentially get pushed underneath one of those and not know where you are.

And push off the bottom, hit your head.

A lot of people get knocked out that way.

Christa: So when I was coming in today, it's not-- like, it's not a crazy big day out there or anything, but a smaller wave that I had wanted to push me in towards the beach, actually, the whitewash shoved me down and it pushed me into a hole, and then I just got rattled around in this hole and then finally, like--and it was, like, hit my hip, hit my shoulder, and then it just kept--I heard it scratching, like hitting my head and, like, on my helmet.

And so all these scratches right here are just from that one little adventure in the hole.

It just goes to show you, though, like, on any size day, the ocean, it's--it can just be dangerous and you just have to have a healthy amount of respect for it in any situation and at any size.

Maria: I think swimming out in big waves, you have to be prepared; and not just physically, but also mentally.

So I just sit for a while, you know, watch the waves for a little bit, try to assess the risks.

And you have to be very aware about what do you feel, you know.

Sometimes your body is in perfect shape, but your mind isn't in it, you know.

So you have to be very honest with yourself and try to listen to yourself too, what you're feeling.

Jeff: It gets a little bit scary if you feel like you've lost control and Mother Nature's taken over control of you, like you're a little nothing in the ocean.

That's when it gets kind of scary is when you've lost what your educated ocean brain has been telling you to avoid and then all of a sudden you start realizing, "Uh-oh, this is going on, this is going on, this is going on."

Dan: Describing getting picked off, it's when you see a set coming and you know you're not going to get far enough out into deeper water or to the side of the way.

It means, "I'm going to get caught.

Myself or other water photographers, we're going to be in the impact zone.

We're not in the part of the curl where it goes over us; we're in front of that."

And being in front of that whitewater is the most dangerous part because that's where it hits and then will drive down to the bottom and it can explode back up, and then that explosion is terrifying.

Alistair: A lot of drownings, I suspect, are not drownings from drowning itself per se.

It's more like the panic, and of course a lot of bad things happen when you panic.

Like your heart rate goes way up, and your oxygen utilization goes off the charts and you're just burning through oxygen at a much faster rate.

So for people that aren't experienced with going out in big surf, that may be difficult to relate to because a lot of people could comfortably sit on their sofa at home watching TV and say, "Oh, I'm going to see how long I can hold my breath.

A minute, 2 minutes, whatever.

It's not that hard."

And they're like, "Well, a wave is only going to hold you under for like 10 or 20 seconds, right?

That's nothing."

But in reality, like, your heart rate's, you know, significantly elevated and you're sort of like hyperventilating a little bit.

Ten seconds under water getting thrashed around just feels like an eternity sometimes.

Brian: The way to not panic, first of all, is to feel like you're physically in good enough shape so when you have situations occur you don't panic.

Christa: You'll be able to hold your breath longer if you're relaxed while you're getting thrashed and tossed around and held under the water versus if you're panicking, you're not going to be able to hold your breath for very long, and you increase your chances of drowning and having a worse injury as a result so much more if you panic than if you just stay calm.

David: There's no surf photographer who's gonna say, "Oh, I've been in this terrible conditions, but I've never panicked."

Like, everyone panics, they get--you get to that point where like, "Okay, I'm holding my breath, I'm holding my breath."

And then it lasts that like maybe 10 seconds longer than you think it should, and you kind of go--like your body starts going, "Uh-oh," like, "why aren't I popping up yet?"

Andre Botha: You really have to want it.

Otherwise you're going to be out there and kind of get in situations that are dangerous.

I think it's pretty important that we look out for each other because it's dangerous.

Man, the oceans, it's no joke.

Some people take it for granted, but it's a dangerous place.

♪♪♪ Andre: On that day I was catching a lot of waves.

I got like five or six waves and the waves were slowly decreasing in size and then more surfers were coming out one or two, one or two.

And then at the point when I-- when it happened, there were probably about ten guys in the lineup, and I'd just caught a wave and I was paddling back out and just watching a surfer on the wave and he kind of fell funny on a big wave.

So I just keep watching and--which I usually do, you know, just to make sure the guy is all right.

And all the other years of my experience, the guy--the board's there and then you see him pop up usually.

And I was just watching and his board was like this, with his leash holding under and he wasn't coming up.

And it actually took me a while to register because usually they pop up, but then something just told me, "Okay, it's too long now."

So I just quickly rushed over and fortunately I was able to get him up.

He still had his leg leash on his board.

Pulled him up, and when I got him his face was blue and he looked like he was dead to me, to be honest.

That's why I tried to get a breath of CPR in him and the waves were all turbulent and rushing and I--we got hit by a wave after I grabbed him in the beginning and he ended up getting knocked out of my arms.

But then I got him again and eventually the side current kind of moves down to where the waves are smaller.

Eventually we got down there, and I was kind of thinking the whole time, "Where are the lifeguards, where are the lifeguards," and then-- felt like a while, but it was probably quicker.

But then eventually the lifeguards got there, and I was pretty exhausted by that time so I just let them do their thing.

But that's basically what happened; and yeah, I was lucky I was just there at the right time at the right moment to be able to help.

announcer: Many people may see the ocean as a dangerous and unforgiving place, but for others, it is a place to find peace, solace, and tranquility.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Mike H.: What it takes to be a water photographer, I think passion is the number one thing.

male: You have to be able to not only physically swim for hours on end; mentally you have to be patient, you have to be steadfast in what--and committed to what you want to do and what you want to see.

Jeff: The mental part of water photography has to do with feeling comfortable in your skin and feeling comfortable in your skin in the ocean.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Christa: Respect for the ocean and what it can do and knowing your abilities and your limits, and also respect for the people that you're working around and working with too.

Jeff: Also, you need to have where you're motivated and you fall in love with it, and so you go out there a lot, 'cause it takes a lot to get a good one, and it doesn't bother you that you've just wasted 2 or 3 hours.

So I think you kind of have to be single, in shape, no career, and stoked and addicted to doing it, and excited.

And I mean, it's really an awesome thing to do.

Brian: To be a good water photographer you have to have a vision of wanting to have your photo look the way you want it to look, and for the most part you better be in good shape.

I'd say that's-- probably the biggest thing is being in good shape.

announcer: People are often in awe of what it takes to get the perfect photograph seen in the surf magazines from around the world.

[camera shutter clicking] Jeff: When the general public looks at your photos that you've shot from the water, you know, because of your background and knowledge it probably was fun for you, but to them it's like, "Whoa."

I always love the story of when the first inside-the-tube-looking-out photos came out, which were in a George Greenough movie called "Innermost Limits of Pure Fun."

And a friend of mine was up in San Francisco and he went to a showing of it.

People were passing joints and all--this is in-- whenever it was, early '70s.

My friend looked around-- he was going to college, and he looked behind him and all the big "philosophical" professors at his college were all behind him.

There's five, like, famous thinkers, and he goes, "Professor, you know, what are you guys doing here?"

And they said, "Well, we heard this is something that no humans have seen before," which was true.

Inside the tube looking out.

But you couldn't explain to Grandma how it was inside a wave.

So all the big thinkers came to see this thing that was first presented to the public.

Brent: I think when people that haven't been around the ocean a lot, when they see the photos that I take in the water, the common questions that I get is, "Wow, you know, are you on a board, or are you on a boat?"

It sounds so silly to me because you're inside the wave with the guy and they just can't comprehend how you got the photo, and I'm like, "No," like, I have swim fins and I'm swimming, and I have a camera that I put in this lunch box of a contraption that gets kind of heavy and, you know, you stick it up there and you're basically like-- you're letting the wave kind of like pitch over you and hoping you swim through the back of it."

David: I think the reaction for people outside of the surf world is almost a bit better because they're kind of like, "Whoa," like, "how did you swim in that?"

How--like, they don't understand, like, it could be a fisheye shot in the middle of a barrel.

They're like, "Are you in a boat?"

I'm like, "No, you can't, like, get out in a boat."

I think especially in Ireland 'cause people know how cold it is and how, you know, kind of like horrible, I guess, the weather can be here in Ireland--so I think a lot of the people who don't want to surf and don't use the ocean in Ireland are like, "Oh, you're crazy."

Like, just getting out there in freezing cold weather and swimming in these big waves is just a bit mad.

Mike H.: The reason why I love shooting from the water rather than the land is simply because it gives you so many different options and perspectives.

You can really only get a few perspectives from land, but in the water just depending on the lens you have, whether it's the 200 lens and you can shoot far or--I love the fisheye, especially at places like the wedge or when it's super hollow.

And to just put myself right in the action, it's the next best thing for me to surf.

Jeff: I would say that one water shot is equal to about 20 land shots, pretty much.

That's how much--how unique they are and how the angle is so different than--when you shoot a telephoto from the land, it's more of a flat perspective from the water.

It's got dimension to it.

Brian: The advantages to shooting in the water are just getting, you know, a unique angle that the typical viewer on the beach isn't going to see, and it's crazy because in the water there's so much to being in the right place at the right time and somebody from 5 feet to the right or left of you could miss the shot and you'll be in the perfect spot to get it.

Alistair: In body boarding, like, I always had this thing for going out in bigger surf, heavier surf.

That was just something I enjoyed, and I would see things that were just crazy and the sort of things that's really hard to communicate to the layperson that doesn't go in the ocean.

And in Hawaii the--people are fascinated with big waves, right?

But the footage that you see or the stuff that people see from the beach is one perspective and even a lot of the photographs are either shot from land or shot from the safety of a channel or a jet ski.

Dan: Nowadays, anyone can take a photo from the beach.

The cameras are auto-focused--the lenses.

You just point it and hit the trigger and you're going to get something.

Brian: It's really all about unique angles and knowing the wave, whereas on the beach it was all about, "Hey, can I move in, can I get a spot next to you?

Because you're in the exact perfect spot that we all want to be in."

There was something unique about the water photography compared to from the beach.

Alistair: And I think that's an entirely different perspective that you see when you're out there surfing and you're really, really in the mix, like, in the lineup and the impact zone.

And that's what I thought would be cool to try to capture, and I thought, you know, wide angle lenses are the best way to kind of capture that and also to put myself in positions where like, you know, that view that you get when you're paddling over, like, a 30-foot wave and looking down to the pit, it's just like a pretty unique view.

That would be really cool to show the world what that looks like.

Spike Chambers: Yeah, when you get in the water and start shooting, people start, like, recognizing you as the photographer.

"He's, like, in the water, shooting."

It's a good feeling.

And when you get to show 'em as they're coming past or something, where they're like, "What?"

you're like, "Sure."

And they're like, yeah, like, have a look.

And they're all, like, amping on it, so it's good.

It's a good feeling for sure.

Brent: Initially did decide that I wanted to shoot from water instead of land was because I had a better opportunity of getting my work seen and published over shooting on land with, you know, 20 other of the top photographers.

I would get the same shots as them, maybe even a little better, but I couldn't compete because they have the connections and they're with these publications and already getting paid.

So if I could get one unique shot out of the whole day that no one else had, a unique angle shooting fisheye, that was way more valuable for me than having a whole cart full of photos that everybody else already had.

Jeff: My other theory about shooting from the water is you always get something, even on a lesser day.

You always get something.

That's what's makes it so much better than from the land 'cause you always get something.

Alistair: And you also have to go out on some pretty consequential surf because on the small days there's also a lot of guys shooting in the water, and the only way to stand out is to try to do something different.

So that's kind of been my motivation to try that.

announcer: Most water photographers have a favorite among their photos, and there's usually a great story to go along with it.

Brian: As far as a watershed goes, I'd have to say my very favorite shot--it's not even an action shot, but it's a photo of Andy Irons.

And Andy was paddling out after just catching a really good wave of Pipeline and this wave started breaking in the background, and Andy turned to me and looked and said, "Living the dream, Bielmann, living the dream."

And turned back to look at the wave right as I shot that photograph, and that photo is by far, hands down, my favorite surf shot from the water of Pipeline especially.

Jeff: One of my most famous photos I'd have to say is this Hawaiian Buttons Kaluhiokalani, and Buttons was a character, like, on land he'd be doing dances and he made everybody laugh.

In surfing it's like one man on one wave, and when it's crowded, it gets really intense.

Guys start getting mad and-- or girls, and everybody starts hassling everybody.

So Buttons had dropped in on a local guy who was screaming and yelling at him.

"I'm going to break your neck, I'm going to--" You know, like--and Buttons, who is perfect for defusing because of how he is, just at that 1/500 of a second when he goes, "Peace, bro," click, I got the photo and he's looking back at the guy, who had a Mohawk.

announcer: Once a male-dominated industry, a new generation of female photographers is closing the gap in surf photography.

Flynn: There's people out there who don't use their gender as an excuse and they just do what they want to do no matter what it is, and they love doing it.

That's the one thing that really stands out.

As you can tell, Christa loves what she does.

Andre: So the water photographer I know from Puerto is Maria.

She was out there today and was pretty solid.

So it's pretty cool to see a female out there, you know, pushing the limits.

Brent: Yeah, Christa is gnarly.

It's amazing to watch her shoot.

I don't, I guess, put as much effort lately into social media as I should, but I've been seeing her stuff and like, "I never got a shot like that all day."

Not trying to say that I'm any better, I'm not, but like-- I'm like, "Dang, I'm a little jealous."

Alistair: Maria Fernanda, I see her stuff on Instagram all the time, and I've seen her images from, like, pretty big Puerto Escondido, which I imagine is also, like, a very challenging spot to shoot in the water.

I know she goes out at Waimea, you know, Pipeline on some pretty sizable days.

And I've seen one or two other girls.

I don't know who they are, but, you know, they're out there representing.

Maria: I love it that there's more girls trying to push their limits, you know, and trying to push themselves to actually start swimming out and capturing those waves, and I think it's good for us as women to just help each other and building each other up.

Brent: It's really cool to see ladies pushing the boundaries with surf photography.

Jim: Being a surf photographer, especially a traveling surf photographer, we travel all over the world and you would never know who you're going to run into, and I've--one of the beauties of traveling in--that I've enjoyed all my life is the characters that I've met on the road, and I've met quite a few.

And that reminds me of a time when I was in Bali in 1980 and, again, there was very few Americans there.

Mostly Australians and Europeans and, of course, the local Indonesians.

So one night I was in the restaurant at Kuta Beach in Bali with my friend Rory Russell, "Lightning Bolt" team.

And we had just come out of the dining room and we were in the bar and we heard a commotion in the dining room and all of our lifeguard friends from the daytime, they were waiters at that restaurant at night, and we saw them running into the room and asked them what they're doing.

And they said, "Oh, this guy's being very rude.

We're going to beat him up."

I said, "Oh, let's go see."

So we go in there and I see this guy standing on a chair at his table by himself, and he was throwing these rupiah bills into the air and singing some crazy song.

I thought, "Oh my gosh, this guy is going to die."

And my friend Rory Russell goes, "That is Bill Murray."

I looked and I said, "No way, that is Bill Murray."

And this was right after he'd filming "Caddyshack" and it was on "Saturday Night Live."

And anyway, we grabbed him.

Tony had to come with us, and we took him into the bar and we said, "What are you doing here?"

And there was an actors' strike, so he was upset.

So he said he'd put one finger on New York and one finger on the other side of the globe, and here I am.

That was in Bali, Indonesia in 1980.

So anyway, he said what were we doing there, and we said, "Well, we're going to go to Java."

He said, "Well, I want to go."

So we brought him with us.

Quite a journey to get there.

We'd stop along the way, and as we're walking up the beach, the local guys, they were carrying our duffel bags, our surfboards, and all these things, and I saw two of them were carrying cases of champagne on their head.

And one was carrying a case of Stolichnaya vodka, and I said, "What?

Who brought that?"

I looked at Bill, and he smirked and said, "Oh, I brought some refreshments."

Anyway, that just started off 10 days in the treehouse of insanity listening to Bill Murray tell stories, listen to Rory Russell tell stories, and just mayhem.

announcer: With the saturation of content on both social media and the internet, print media has become nearly obsolete, affecting the livelihood of surf photographers.

Jeff: Modern media now online like Instagram and social media and banner ads and all those type of things that go on online are really interesting because the print media has fizzled.

So this is really interesting.

Print media made the surf photographers heroes in the day.

They made us surf stars.

They did portfolios.

They followed us, our editorial around the world, and that name--when you had a photo credit in there a lot, it made you a surf hero, legend, et cetera.

So in the day, the most famous surf photographers had all their photos were in print.

Nowadays, what's so interesting is the most famous surf photographers in the world are the ones with the biggest Instagram followings.

So it's shifted to online because of Instagram, your followers, whereas before it was what was sold to the public.

Now it's just given to the public.

Brent: I think with social media these days, that's kind of created a lot of white noise for people.

They don't really---they kind of just flick through and like, a photo that might have put you in a really dangerous situation and it might have, you know, taken a lot of money to get to that location and you might have had to swim out and gotten, you know, really pounded; and they just kind of look at it for 2 seconds and flick to the next one.

Andre: I would say it's very hard for photographers to make money now.

Back when--in the beginning when I was first coming up as a pro, there were magazines paying photographers retainers, monthly salaries; cover all their expenses, their flights, their accommodations when they travel.

And still they're making extra money with ads in the mags.

So I mean, they could make a living, you know.

Brian: Each country used to have probably two to three magazines.

Each magazine probably had four to six photographers, sometimes ten photographers.

And I looked around the other day and I couldn't believe it.

It was like literally there's almost no magazines left anymore.

And being on the North Shore, and every winter you'd see all these friends that you hadn't seen for ages, all these other photographers would show up from around the world, and they're just not here anymore.

It's the strangest thing.

Jeff: I feel that the online media, social media, it's the evolution of man, kind of, so you adapt to that, and surf photography has changed a lot because when you go shoot, you--especially for bigger clients, you got to shoot video or have a friend do it to go with your job.

And then you have to do water, land.

You know, it's evolving.

It's just morphed into something else.

And if you can't figure out how to do that dance, then you can't dance, you know.

Don't go on the dance floor.

announcer: Water photographers aren't always rewarded financially.

However, it's the passion that keeps them coming back.

♪♪♪ Mike H.: I think the most gratifying thing as a water photographer is just getting that image.

I mean, it's really in the hunt, but then when you receive the comments from your images--it's pretty amazing when people are asking, you know, "How did you get that shot?

And what position were you in?

And how could you get in that place?"

And it's pretty gratifying to bring that kind of image to where people are just wondering, "How in the world did you do that?"

Brian: When I get out into the water to shoot surf photos, I'm there to get a great photograph.

But when I come in after a session, I just feel wonderful and I just feel like this is what life's all about.

This is the rewards of life.

Maria: I think God places some gifts and qualities in each one of us, and it's almost our duty to actually give that back to the world, you know.

Like, if we don't take advantage of that and we don't use our gifts, we're wasting them.

So I think it's a responsibility for each one of us to actually work on them.

Alistair: When you get a photo that's kind of like what-- super amazing and you get to share it with people and they get a little rush out of it, that's cool.

I don't know, it's a little bit of an artistic expression.

Brent: I think my favorite thing about shooting from the water honestly is just, like, seeing my group of friends that shoot photos that honestly I probably wouldn't hang out with anywhere else.

But when you're out in the lineup, you haven't seen these guys for maybe a couple of months or something and it's kind of like, I guess, going to the bar with some buddies and watching the football game except for us, we're just watching perfect waves at Pipeline.

I'd say that's kind of-- for me, that's what I like about it the most.

Christa: I think it's incredible that photography freezes time.

And so you take that little time-traveling section and that moment and you get to share it with people, and that's just--that's a great feeling.

David: That moment when you nail a shot is probably--is what makes all the crappy stuff kind of worth it, you know.

Like, I mean--like sometimes, you know, you see it's cloudy all day and there's this little gap in the horizon and it's the right time for the right wave and the wind's right and, you know, the sun pops out and all these elements align, the wind is pointing the right way, the sweat is going the right way, the surfer is on point, you know, and they're about to drop in and you know, "Okay, the light's perfect, the wind's perfect, the wave's sick."

Like, the surfer has been surfing good all day and you're like, "Please, like, don't fall.

Just like--you know, just get-- like, just pull in, get in."

And then there's that moment where you're swimming and you're like, "Hey, am I aligned right?"

And I always find, especially some spots in Ireland, you know, you're being sucked out to sea kind of almost and you're fighting, fighting that when the wave is coming in.

So you're like swimming against it, and then there's that moment where you swim against it, swim against it and you just kind of release and let yourself go through the wave, and that moment is just magic.

Jeff: When the sets calm down, the waves are calm, you can lay down and just look at the environment and it's just beautiful.

You look at things as you go under.

And then at the same time, when you know you're actually getting the shots, like, not just one but a bunch of them, by the time you go into the boat or into land, you're just elated.

It's kind of like-- it's hard to describe.

It's like got all that body chemistry going.

It's surging through you, which is excitement and calmness and you feel physically fit.

It's like a really--like all athletes--kind of athletic type of thing.

All athletes get that feeling, that's what it is.

That's what drives you forward because you have the physical part of it that feels great and the emotional part which is awesome.

Christa: If I have this passion and this gift to be able to swim in big waves and capture those amazing images, then that's what I should be doing.

You know, sharing that with the world and with the people that probably are never going to be able to swim out and watch what I'm enjoying front row.

Andre: All the respect, anyone who gets out there in these heavy conditions and puts it on the line, not even for a lot of money, just for that feeling and that enjoyment of, you know, pushing your own limits, and I got to give them all the respect.

Jim: This has been an incredible ride for me.

I spent 40 years of my life chasing waves around the world.

Even though it's a tough situation these days business wise for surf photographers, if that's your dream, you got to chase it.

Brian: You know, I'd have to say, like, the guys out of Pipe, especially like Zack Doyle and my nephew Brent, they are just phenomenal swimmers and just creating absolutely incredible images.

And it's funny because, you know, I opened a lot of doors for Brent, I must say, but I certainly wasn't able to teach him how to be such a badass waterman because he's a far better water photographer than I ever was.

Brent: Just seeing the waves gives me like this excitement of like adrenaline, where I'm like, "Oh, man, I want to be out there."

Like, I want to feel the power of the waves like on the reef.

I want to feel that shake in the ocean and hear the sound and the excitement when it's really good and people, like, throwing their arms up or yelling when someone gets a good wave.

Mike L.: The feeling I get from being out in the waves at times can be a real meditative kind of feeling.

Like being away from all your emails and just the day-to-day hecticness, it just completely goes as soon as you're out there in the waves.

Kevin: I've got a tremendous amount of respect for all the water photographers out there.

They work really hard.

So to see all their work pay off, and I've seen some amazing water photos, I'm pretty thankful to be a part of it, be the subject of some of those photos sometimes.

Damian: For me, when I'm finished shooting on a big day, coming in and arriving to my house, it's like really satisfying and really accomplishing that I made it safe and sound.

Mike L.: When the conditions arrive, then yeah, you just got to go 'cause you could potentially get the best shot you've ever got.

So that is the motivation, what keeps you going through these cold conditions.

Shaun: So I think the most favorite photo that Dan Merkel ever took of me was a cutback shot and I was wearing a yellow vest, and it was my first cover in "Surfing" magazine, which was one of the top surfing magazines at the time.

And I remember seeing that shot with my father in his bedroom and was the first time I'd ever been on the cover of an international magazine, and that picture still has so much emotional connectivity to me.

Dan: Have fun with it.

Don't worry about so much if you're making any money.

Enjoy what you're doing and just keep at it 'cause you're going to keep getting better shots, improve.

Just enjoy the sport, and don't get hurt.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ CC by Aberdeen Captioning www.aberdeen.io 1-800-688-6621