The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick

Born in 1950 in San Diego, California, Jeff Divine is one of surfing’s preeminent photographers and photo editors. Divine began photographing anything and everything around his hometown of La Jolla, California, as a teenager. Surfer magazine first published his photos in 1968, and by the early 1970s his work was all over the surf sphere. He shot everything—water and action, portraiture, lifestyle, landscapes, travel. He was the photo editor for Surfer from 1981 to 1998, then occupied the same position at The Surfer’s Journal until 2016. He’s published several books, among them Masters of Surf Photography: Jeff Divine, Surfing Photographs From the Seventies Taken by Jeff Divine, and Surfing Photographs From the Eighties Taken by Jeff Divine. His work has been featured in many gallery and museum exhibitions.

In this episode of Soundings, Divine talks with Jamie Brisick swimming at Sunset Beach, the legacy of Ron Stoner, the beauty of the North Shore, art and artifact, Windansea, photographing Andy Irons, color palettes, the evolution of lens technology, and the transition from film to digital. 

Lee-Ann Curren is a freesurfer, musician, and artist. She grew up and lives in Biarritz, in the southwest of France. Her father is three-time world champion Tom Curren. Her mother is Marie-Pascale, a top-ranked European surfer in the 1980s. Her grandfather is the late Pat Curren, one of the pioneers of Waimea Bay and shaper of big-wave elephant guns. Her aunt Marie-Paul is the 1967 French national champ, and her aunt Marie-Christine is a six-time French national champ. Though she’s won a couple of French national championships herself, Lee-Ann is primarily known as a freesurfer who has woven traveling, music-making, and art into that moniker.

In this episode of Soundings, host Jamie Brisick meets with Lee-Ann in the Basque Country to talk about her family’s influence, touring with her band, finding her place, maintaining artistic purity, criticality, and the poetics of movement in sound and water.  

Thomas Victor Carroll is a surfing godhead from Newport Beach, Australia, known for his radicality, focus, and power. He competed on the world tour from 1979 to 1993, winning the world title in 1983 and 1984, and taking home a total of 26 event victories, including the Pipeline Masters in 1987, 1990, and 1991. In 1988, he made history by signing surfing’s first million-dollar contract. He won the 1984 Surfer Poll and was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in 1990. In the aughts, he teamed up with Ross Clarke-Jones to chase big waves around Australia. In his 2013 autobiography, TC: Tom Carroll, written with his brother, surf journalist Nick Carroll, Tom was very forthcoming about his drug use. Now 62, he’s been sober for many years. A calmer, quieter presence, Carroll meditates daily, but still surfs voraciously. In this episode, Carroll talks with Jamie Brisick about the evolution of performance at Pipeline, his first Pipe Masters win, competing in the face of tragedy, helmets, battling addiction, the complexities of a hunger for attention, and his favorite surfers to watch. 

Ed Templeton is a professional skateboarder, contemporary artist, and photographer. A teen skate prodigy from Orange County, California, Ed turned pro in 1990, just before graduating high school. He did a lot of touring for skate demos, along the way picking up a camera and documenting the scene around him. He painted and drew, and later incorporated his artwork and graphics for Toy Machine, the skateboard company he founded in 1994, which he continues to own and manage. Templeton’s visual artwork first gained recognition in the late 1990s as part of the Beautiful Losers collective loosely gathered around Aaron Rose’s Alleged Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He and his wife Deanna—also a photographer—are the subjects of the 2000 Mike Mills film, Deformer. Templeton’s subject matter focuses on the ethos of suburban and street life, which sometimes includes beach culture, surfers, and surfing. He has published over thirty books and zines of his photographs and artwork, including one of his most famous titles, “Teenage Smokers.” His work has been shown in galleries and museums around the world, most recently at the Long Beach Museum of Art, in an exhibition titled: Wires Crossed: The Culture of Skateboarding, 1995-2012. In this episode of Soundings, Templeton and Jamie Brisick talk about crafting a sustainable career as a skateboarder, capitalism, skateboarding’s DIY ethos, documenting skate culture, becoming a painter, identity, individualism, and Mark Gonzalez. 

Leah Dawson grew up in Florida, and moved to Oahu to attend University of Hawaii, where she earned a BA in Creative Media in 2008. Soon after, she started work as a production assistant for the Vans Triple Crown, launching her into a career behind the camera. As a surfer, Dawson’s approach is grounded in freedom of expression and dance, on all manner of crafts, with nods to the surfers who have informed her wave-riding odyssey—Rell Sunn, Margo Oberg, Jericho Poppler, and Lynne Boyer, to name but a few. She is the cofounder of Salty Sensations, in which she and her partners, Kassia Meador and Makala Smith, host surf retreats at select spots worldwide. She’s also a co-founder of Changing Tides Foundation, a women-led organization that celebrates diversity and inclusivity. In this episode of Soundings, Dawson talks with Jamie Brisick about the importance of believing in something, attaining longevity as a surfer, the Blue Crush generation, the freedom of the glide, lineup dynamics, the power of uplifting others, and the most memorable moments she’s captured through the viewfinder.