{"id":1651,"date":"2012-06-27T18:49:24","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T22:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=1651"},"modified":"2012-08-07T14:20:54","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T18:20:54","slug":"surfs-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=1651","title":{"rendered":"Surf’s Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a time when surfing consumed a huge part of my life. I checked the waves every morning to dictate the course of each day, so it became a natural progression for me to photograph the ramblings in my surfing world. When the waves got really good, I was often torn between being a surfer or a photographer. Sometimes one action would be sacrificed for the other. Either way it was fun and exhilarating.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I used to shoot a lot of black and white in the early days, and bought film in 100 foot rolls and hand rolled them into individual cassettes. In 1973, I swam out at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse<\/strong><\/em> and shot Frankie Lagana, one of the Buxton boys. My waterproof Nikonos was a great little camera for that intimate perspective.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>Mike Wingenroth had a lot to do with my decision in moving to Rodanthe. He and his wife Mary Jo moved there earlier and put me and Louie up for a while. Mike is shown here in Summer of 1974, for an early morning surf north of town, with Bear<\/strong><\/em> at his side. It was a time when taking an unleashed dog on the beach was not a big deal.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>My room mate Louie Batzler was, and still is a brick mason. We worked locally building foundations and walls. Being self employed had the advantage of leaving a job when the waves got good. Louie was the boss, so when he said “more mud”, I mixed a batch of mortar. When he said “surf’s up”, I went surfing. Louie was riding a “Hot Dog” surfboard when I made this shot at The<\/em> Shoals<\/em><\/strong>, north of the Rodanthe pier in 1975.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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A lot of great surfers have ridden the beautiful waves at the lighthouse’s first jetty. From my water perspective, Greg Loehr was one of the best. He arrived among a contingent of surfers from Florida in the early 70’s. This 1975 photograph was used by Natural Art Surf Shop<\/strong><\/em> to screen t-shirts, and more recently on the sign outside their store in Buxton.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Bryant Clark was another good friend of mine, and a component of the Delaware crew. Bryant and his brother Brent, along with Rich Parolski had a company called “Hot Dog Surfboards<\/strong><\/em>“. Brent was the shaper, and Rich was the glasser. Bryant did all the glossing and artistic finishing to their boards. Here he is on a nice overhead wave in 1974, riding a fish design at the outside bar at New Inlet<\/strong><\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Robin Gerald and I were nearly inseparable surfing partners. We lived near one another, and some people even thought we were brothers. In an extended sense, we were. Here Robin slides into a glassy wall at the old S-curve in 1978.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Kiel Jennette was still in high school in 1977. He was the adopted son of the last Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Keeper’s son, Rany Jennette. Kiel had a great smooth style of surfing, and was a pleasure to watch. This was taken during a beautiful 3 day swell at the lighthouse. I often wondered if he was skipping school for these waves. Years later, Kiel became quite an accomplished trim carpenter. Unfortunately his life was cut short in an altercation with a noisy neighbor. Kiel confronted him, and as he turned away, the neighbor shot him in the back.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Jimbo Brothers was one of the Nags Head surfers to frequent the Rodanthe breaks. In this early 80’s photo he ducks into a pretty curl north of the<\/span> pier.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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One afternoon in 1984, I walked out on the Rodanthe Pier<\/strong><\/em>, and was lucky to see a surfer from Florida in the lineup. Tall and lanky, Mike Tabeling had a very powerful style.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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!989 was a good year for tropical cyclones. My cousin Johnny Halminski is from California. He visited me that Summer, and got a good dose from an offshore depression while paddling out at the Rodanthe Pier<\/strong><\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For a while I thought that I’d pursue the life of a surfing photographer, work for a publication and even move to Hawaii. As I got more immersed in life on Hatteras, I could see that my career exclusively as a surfing photographer was not to be. I gravitated toward a variety of other local subjects. By the 1990’s shooting the surfing action became more of a side line to supplement my other work.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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There was a time when surfing consumed a huge part of my life. I checked the waves every morning to dictate the course of each day, so it became a natural progression for me to photograph the ramblings in my surfing world. When the waves got really good, I was often torn between being a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,4,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outer-banks","category-people","category-surfing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1665,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions\/1665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}