The Surfers Journal
Light / Dark
Heavy winds rip through San Clemente’s southern edge, and the land is slick with the season’s first rain. While cloud shadows loom over the scrub hillsides, the ocean’s basin glows electric aquamarine—stark against the capped blue-brown of deeper water. I can’t help but smirk when the view is briefly interrupted by a broken crate of melons spilled along the shoulder of the freeway near the nuclear domes, these slight beats of juxtaposition somehow prepping me to step into the world of photographer Kalani Cummins.
Rolling through a modern Cape Cod–style subdivision in town, I approach Cummins’ condo. The front door is already wide open when he welcomes me into the warmth of his close quarters. The rangy 26-year-old exudes a sparkling, caffeinated optimism driven by the sleepless nights of young fatherhood and an unmistakable youthful verve. He’s dressed comfortably and informally: a faded Radio Surfboards T-shirt, tilted painter’s hat, black chinos, and classic high-top Chucks, animated by a modest sleeve of illustrative-style tattoos.
We pass by the neat chaos of parked toys under the staircase spandrel and head toward his blustery patio where we can talk, his 2-year-old son, Knox, knocking about our legs while his wife, Kaelyn, gently bops their month-old newborn son, Addix, in a baby sling. On one of the walls, I’m met by a framed black-and-white glossy taken by Cummins two years prior: Teahupoo master Matahi Drollet, casually exiting that wave’s maxing, evil pitch, its wondrous lip slicing at razor reef, the Tahitian in complete opposition to the act, arms folded at his chest like he could be admiring the three-quarter rear-fender view of a parked classic Ferrari coupe.
Cummins says that he keeps the photo close as a reminder of the sacrifices it takes to find those exacting, uniquely interim moments, the shot before or after the perceived action and the emotive resonance it exudes. Mix in a deft hand and an eye for on-the-fly lighting correction and angle adjustments, as well as the stones to swim with the flow of intrepid conditions anywhere and everywhere he’s summoned, and you can see why his work is on a rare hot track amid his contemporaries.
To think he could have gone a completely different route. Raised in Aliso Niguel and Dana Point in the deep reaches of the Orange Curtain, Cummins divvied up his time surfing Newport Beach and San Clemente, taking photos, and playing academy-level soccer—often showing up to practices and matches with his hair still wet.
“Right out of high school, I moved to Sweden for a D2 contract to play professional soccer,” Cummins says. “And then I got hurt really bad with a big spinal injury, and I stopped playing. My body healed and I got stronger, and I started surfing more. And I’ve always been into photography. My mom shot photos. I got a camera when I was 14. It was always soccer and photography—those were my passions. Once I got hurt, it was time to do what I also loved. So, I started taking a lot of photos and fully committed, because I knew that I wasn’t going to do anything else.”
He said yes to any trip or shoot that crossed his queue, and built a strong portfolio to persuade the remaining surf-industry heavies. While it helps that he counts RVCA founder Pat Tenore as a surrogate uncle and Snapt films impresario Logan Dulien as a close friend, pseudo-manager, and key mentor, plus half of his familial roots being Hawaiian to the core, Cummins still had to prove himself to earn the work and establish his reputation.
“When I was about 15,” Cummins says, “I would go over to the RVCA house in Hawaii, and [Pat] was like, ‘Dude, if you’re going to shoot here, you’re going to have to swim out.’ And I was kind of scared to swim out at Pipe for the first time. So, I just went in [without a camera] to get a feel for it. See how the reef was. See where to sit. It was a big deal—just gnarly swimming out there. The next season, I swam out with a camera and got some photos for the first time. It gave me a lot of confidence. Once I got in and got my hair wet, I was locked in. It felt like a soccer game again. I was in my zone.”
Since those first forays into big waters, and in addition to shooting all over the California coast, Cummins has notched Mexico, Western Australia, and Tahiti on his passport. He also runs a lucrative wedding-photography business with Kaelyn that has them booking 20 events a year. At any given point, Cummins can be jetting from lush Hawaiian locales to expansive California valleys to capture nuptials, or on assignment for a big brand shoot à la Billabong, Super73, and more.
Winning the Follow the Light photography grant helped solidify the exposure he needed to land the latter work. Launched in 2006 to honor the passing and legacy of surf photography titan Larry “Flame” Moore, the grant’s goal is to give aspiring photographers between the ages of 16 and 25 years old a platform to showcase their work and be discovered. Its short list of hall-of-fame talent counts Chris Burkard, Todd Glaser, Morgan Maassen, and Nick Green as prior recipients. While the typical $5,000 prize is a helpful economic springboard, that kind of money easily could be spent on a single camera lens. The key draw is how the win lays the base for more opportunities. Of the 185 entries in 2022, Cummins nailed the pelt.
“It was very clear that his eye for color composition, where he sat in the lineup, where he was willing to put himself—he’s fearless, he’ll put himself into some gnarly situations—that’s what set him apart,” says longtime action-sports executive and eco-sustainability stalwart Don Meek, who’s a judge on the selection panel for the Follow the Light committee. “There was a photo of Mason Ho at Wedge that he submitted where I was like, ‘Whoa!’ Look, surf photographers can be an odd, challenging group. But there’s this ineffable thing about him in his ability to connect with people, what a quality human he is, and his incredibly engaging way of being in the world that I think really helps him get those shots. And the thing I appreciate about him most is that he’s not pissed off how [the industry] changed so radically.”
We cannot overlook how the business of surfing has been completely remapped these past 15-odd years. While it still holds true that Midwest kids pine for palm trees in their wood-paneled basements, they’re no longer basing identity on a surf shirt their mother purchased at the mall.
Multimillion-dollar ad budgets have been reduced to a whisper in the wind. Making viable coin as an apex freelance surf photographer, the kind that allows you to buy the big house on the hill and put your kids through school? Gone.
But the denominator remains unchanged: Surfing is more popular than ever, with no signs of slowing down. Even a quick scan at your A or B break proves it. In that vein, Cummins represents the new-age hustle and mindset it takes in the business of surfing, where one must lean into the rock, smile, and refashion the trek uphill anew, Sisyphus style, knowing the work builds on all that came before him.
Cummins seems as stoked shooting a wedding as he is tripping down Mexico way to work with Mikey February. And whether it’s 30 degrees or 85, he’s in the water 99 percent of the time. For Cummins, the action is the juice. His healthy optimism and positivity are palpable for anyone who lights into his orbit. Even the preternaturally unfazed Mason Ho credits Cummins as an agent of the upbeat.
“I was getting ready to literally drag all of my luggage onto the beach, and it sucked—way worse than I thought it would be,” Ho says, describing the first time he met Cummins, after an airport-ride mishap where he was booted to the curb at firing Wedge, fresh from a Hawaii-to-
California red-eye. “And Kalani pops up right there, out of nowhere. And he’s all, ‘You’re going to drag all that stuff onto the beach? Nahhhh.’ So, he has me put all my stuff into his van nearby. Totally saves us. Then he grabs his camera and wants to go out and get some water photos of me. I’m like, ‘You can store all my shit and shoot photos? There’s no way.’ And then, right when we jump into the water, everything turns on. And later he’s got a photo of me on the glassiest, sickest wave ever. And he’s all, ‘That’s only the left, too! Look what we got on the right!’”
“It’s the best barreling wave we have here,” Cummins says of Cylinders, located a slight klick north of Wedge and inhabited by a tight-knit pack of fearless exhibitionists, such as Sage Burke, Addy Giddings, Ty Burgess, and Bobby Okvist, whom Cummins counts as friends as much as subjects. “It’s where I first started really shooting photos. I still love shooting there. It can be this huge tube that breaks on just a few feet of sand. I got a photo there a few weeks ago, and it’s probably one of the best photos I’ve gotten from California in my whole career. It was midday and cooking. Five guys out. Just crazy. One of the best days I’ve ever seen. Two o’clock. Looks like West Oz. That’s what I’m looking for. It’s the wow factor.”
On the patio at Cummins’ condo, the crude winds of the day snap me back from this dreamy detail when they almost send my notes flying off the table and his elder son’s tiny, propped-up shortboard crashing to the pavers. I see that we’re both shivering. We go inside to warm up and tour the rest of the Cummins home. Later, he shows me his van rig, its interior modified with creature comforts for a more forgiving mode of adventure-anywhere transit—only now carrying car seats and other accoutrements for his budding family.
In the garage, near a healthy quiver that features a full range of sleds, is a framed Manchester United soccer jersey signed by a roster of star players. Despite his landing in the mermaid pools of professional surf photography, I think of how difficult and confusing it initially must have been for Cummins to experience a forced exit on the path to pro soccer—how so much has to roll in your favor to experience that life-changing possibility.
“I remember coming home [from that injury] at first and thinking, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to shoot photos full-time.’ I mean, how do you even start that?” Cummins recalls. “Because you can’t just start making money [with it]. You got to build a portfolio, build your connections, and, like, start getting in that way. It’s crazy how it all works out.”
[Feature image: Mason Ho is a master of under-the-lip takeoffs, and he had these critical drops wired fresh off the plane. Strangely, the wind went dead flat and Wedge glassed off at 10 a.m. this day. That’s when it normally gets blown out. I haven’t seen it this clean since then.]
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