Happy Face

Australian surf photographer John Respondek works hard, plays harder, and just might be the most delighted photographer in the world…except when someone sets up next to him.
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There’s a common misconception about surf photography which posits that the longer you’ve been in the game, the more likely you are to yell at children, hate dogs, and engage in other misanthropic behavior. This isn’t the natural predilection of the personalities who shoot surf, of course, but rather the inevitable decline of their passion for the craft (and, as a flow on, for life in general). Understandable after years of crappy pay, shots ripped off and shared across social media, technological advances creating swarms of flash-in-the-pan pretenders who barely know which end of the camera to look into, trips poached, girlfriends stolen while away on assignment, and brains cooked by the sun while everyone else is surfing. 

It’s all gross generalization. The true masters of the craft are well beyond such trivialities. Take a look at 20 year Australian surf photography veteran John Respondek, for example.

Dion Agius grew up in Tasmania until he moved to the Gold Coast when he was a teenager. We did a trip there together, which is where this was shot. We didn’t get too many waves, but there are endless good, untapped setups. 
Craig Anderson, Western Australia. We were working on a twin-fin concept shoot. Craig is by far the best in the business at getting those “feeling” moments in surfing. He makes the quiet beats in between the money shots as successful as any big air or heavy tube photo.
For a few years, my main focus was to get tight action shots that would get used in ads, so that I could make good money. Lately, I’ve been trying to get more into the artful side of surf photography. I like that you can’t tell exactly what’s going on here. It’s almost like contemporary dance. But, you still know it’s surfing.

“Oh, he gets grumpy,” explains long-time collaborator Taj Burrow of his best mate. “He’s had periods of being fed up about this and that and, at one point, he gave it away and started his own art gallery in Bondi. But eventually we got in his ear and got him back into it. And he came in so hot I reckon he’s in the best place he’s ever been with his career.”

The two met on a surf trip to the Mentawai Islands in 2001, and forged a firm bond built on fast living and even faster surfing. Few partnerships have yielded more extraordinary action imagery, and it was Respondek who captured the pre-drone helicopter angles of Taj in Western Australia, Indonesia, and Fiji. 

“I love working with him because we both like the same things in terms of angles and composition,” says Taj. “He rarely misses anything and he gets dizzy when he’s got a project on the boil. About the only thing that really bends him out of shape is when another photographer sets up on the same beach. He’ll just pack up his gear and storm off like an angry little staffy [terrier].”

“I used to see him around Bondi a fair bit when I first started hanging out in the city,” adds Craig Anderson, who in the past few years has been hitting slabs in the Aussie desert with Respondek on a regular basis. “To be honest, it took a while to crack him. He’s always stoked, and I think the reason behind that is he’s on his own program. He organizes trips with his best friends and basically builds these opportunities for himself to have the best time possible while he’s working. He goes where he wants to go, hangs with the boys, and never misses the shot. And when you come in from a day’s surfing, he’ll be sitting there with his Pelican case open and the thing will be full of ice and beers. He loves life’s pleasures, which makes him the sickest traveling companion. Except that he hates the desert. He’s not really one for roughing it.”

Dion’s the surfer who best understands photos and filming aesthetics. He could stop surfing tomorrow and be a photographer or motion shooter if he wanted. He’s relentless when it comes to visuals, and he always works closely with us to get the angle.
I did a trip to South Sumatra in early 2017 with Dion and Chippa Wilson. We stayed at a land camp, and spent our days trucking around the area. South Sumatra has that old Indo vibe. There are cows and goats on the beach, and little huts everywhere. I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before it’s crowded, but I’m glad we got to surf it before it gets that way. We found this left ramp that was just made for the type of surfing they do.
Most people don’t think of him as a charger, but Dion’s a beast. He does whatever he has to do in order to get the work done. This wave breaks really close into the beach, which means it doesn’t feel too sharky when we’re out there. It’s also probably the best beachbreak I’ve ever seen. 

Respondek, now 38, was brought up in the surf rich town of Angourie on the far north coast of New South Wales, but he got his start in photography 700 miles south in the Mt. Kosciuszko ski fields. “I was one of those guys who’d shoot all day and then sell the photos to the skiers and snowboarders in the afternoon. Eventually, I sent a few to some mags and that’s where I was first published—a postage stamp in some old snowboarding mag.”

Growing up with talented surfers, it wasn’t long before he made the inevitable leap to shooting his mates in the water, including Jeremy Walters, Navrin Fox, Ado Wiseman, and future founder of Stab Magazine, Sam McIntosh. 

“Sam has had a huge influence on my career because some of the concepts he comes up with are exactly the kinds of things I love shooting,” says Respondek from his home in Bondi. “I love projects, having an idea, setting the goal, and seeing it through. That style of work is so much more rewarding and special for me than just turning up on any given day and pulling the trigger.”

I run with a really tight crew, and we’ve all become really close. That helps make all the shoots and trips so much more satisfying than if it were just “work,” with people I don’t really know. We have this saying that we’re all “surf pals.” And we always seem to do more interesting things than just getting a shot and packing it up. Whether it’s pulling silhouettes of the moon with Ozzie Wright, exploring temples in Jerusalem with Craig, or just getting everyone on one wave together, we try to have a hell time.
Mitch Coleborn in the early morning light. The Australian government built this structure to try to harness the power of waves and make energy. When they were done with it, they just left it, and so we went down to get some shots with it as a background. My style of photography is so action heavy, and the guys that I work with are so progressive, that I really try to blend some cinematic elements into my work. 

His latest project entails curating two decades worth of images of his favorite subjects (Taj, Craig Anderson, Dion Agius) to produce high quality, limited edition, single-surfer books with an emphasis on high performance and minimal design. “I have so many images of those guys, seen and unseen, and it feels so good to take control and have the images I’ve really loved represented in a way that I’ve always thought they deserve. The Dion book was really well received, and the Taj book has just landed from the printers and I’m pretty stoked on it.”

Like Taj and Ando surmised, Respondek says he’s never been in a better place, disproving once and for all the notion that a surf photography career is a sure fire way to end up a bitter old curmudgeon sucking on a wheelbarrow full of lemons. “You just have to shoot on your own terms,” he says. “It took me a long time to figure that out, and I’ve never been happier.”

Craig backdooring a South Coast slab that’s so much trickier to surf than it looks. Ando can’t take a bad photo. He always looks good in single moments. His energy, and how that goes into his body positioning, comes across in every single frame.
With guys like Dane Reynolds, my job is mainly to find cinematic setups and good lighting. He does the rest.
Chippa is well known for doing crazy, technical airs, but he got pretty tubed on this trip. He’s a natural board rider. He has a real unique way of approaching waves. I’ve seen him paddle out on a bodyboard, stand up, and do six turns into the beach. There’s nothing he can’t do on a board. 
Taj had never surfed this outer reef before this day. He was down there with his partner and his daughter, and was just trying to sneak a couple hours in the water. He usually doesn’t surf for very long anyways. I’d say his average surf is about 45 minutes to an hour. But, he always ends up on the best wave and with the best shot. 

[Feature image: Taj Burrow in 2010, at a spot just over the hill from his house. I’ve been shooting with him for more than 15 years. It was massive to work with someone as high profile as Taj so early on in my career. Surfing wise, he’s as photogenic as they come.]

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