Tommy Curren in Black and White Years before Kelly Slater had his black-and-white breakthrough moment. I was barely getting started as a surf photographer, at my first major event with Sam and Matt George. The event was the Malibu Pro, though it was held at County Line that year. The entire weekend was gray and overcast, forcing me to shoot black-and-white film. Before the event started, Sam and Matt and Tommy paddled out at the shorebreak south of the contest for a warm-up session. I was finally close enough to the action that my 300mm lens would get me tight enough. Then Matt pulled into a closeout barrel. When he came up behind the wave he stood for a second, grabbed his head, and passed out cold. I delicately placed my camera in the sand and ran into the water. While dragging Matt toward the beach, I kept watching my camera as each wave rushed closer and closer to it. Every surge stopped inches short of washing away my future as a surf photographer. Meanwhile, paramedics used Tommy’s surfboard — the same board seen throughout these photos — as a stretcher to carry Matt up the cliff. Matt came to, coughing up water, and was okay. Minutes before the first professional heat of his life, Tommy finally hesitantly walked over to the paramedics, hair still wet, and nervously asked: “May I please have my surfboard back?” Rabbit would win, but Tommy would go on to place in the prize money (which he declined in order to keep his amateur status), announcing who he was to the surf world. What makes these images even more surreal to me is that after the contest I went back to Brooks Institute, processed the film, and made the proof sheets and prints knowing none of it would ever be published. I placed everything away in an empty Kodak box. And there they stayed — forgotten about. Nearly 20 years later I rediscovered the entire box in my mother’s attic in an old shipping trunk. A time capsule from the moment Tommy Curren first arrived. The first frame here is Tommy, hair still wet, with his mentor and shaper Al Merrick of Channel Islands Surfboards giving him final advice before that first heat. #shapingsurfhistory #tomcurren