ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Dubbed by The New York Times as ‘The Godfather of Surf Photography’, LeRoy Grannis has for me, been an amazing inspiration in both photography, surfing and life.

In an era before digital cameras, Photoshop, global assignments and sponsorship, Grannis (or Granny to those that knew him) captured more than just an emerging sport. He captured a pastime and a lifestyle – a total surf-culture.

Post-war he worked for a telephone company and at the time was signed-off work with an ulcer. It was at this point, inspired by a fellow-photographer friend, the suggestion was made that he should pursue his already flourishing hobby for taking photographs.

He quickly became one of the sport’s most important documentarians with work appearing in the prominent surfing-culture magazines of the time; Surfer, Reef and Surfing Illustrated. Other photographers were shooting from the water, but they were forced to return to land to reload. Grannis developed a rubber-lined box that enabled him to change film in the lineup.

Enough of me talking, here’s some of his work:

It wasn’t just the big-wave, sensational images that Grannis was able to capture so well, for me it was the culture, the people, the light and the sense of surfing at a time more innocent than that of today.

Grannis may not have been the first to depict the California lifestyle with his photos but his contributions to surfing photography during a magical time in surf-history will forever remain in many people’s hearts as the beginning of surf-lifestyle. It is of no surprise that most of the great images from the ’60s golden age of surfing, regardless of the magazine, bear the inscription ‘Photo: Grannis’.

Farewell LeRoy, enjoy the endless summer.