Browsing through his photos of powerful, barreling waves, each shot taken as he floated above jagged reefs, you would think Colin McGillivray is fearless.
But courage isn’t as important as respect for the ocean.
"Even the best swimmer in the world, if he doesn’t understand the waves or the ocean, he might find himself in a bad situation very quickly," McGillivray says.
The 30-year-old surf photographer won’t swim out if the waves are too big or if the current is too strong. And after getting scraped on his head with a surfboard skeg while shooting at Kewalo’s, he now wears a helmet. Always. Even in minuscule surf.
"There comes a point, when you’re out there, that you have to understand what your limits are," says McGillivray, a full-time systems analyst at Diagnostic Laboratory Services who photographs in his spare time.
"You have to check, ‘How’s my breath? Am I tired? Are my legs cramping? Did I eat a decent breakfast?’" he says. "You have to understand your body. You can’t just go from never being in the water to jumping right in and trying to take pictures."
Fitness is essential in the physically demanding realm of surf photography.
Not only do surf photographers have to swim out to breaking waves — usually with only one free arm because the other is holding a 10-pound camera in a cumbersome underwater housing — but they have to avoid surfers hurtling at them on pointed boards. And all this happens right where the wave is crashing.
"You definitely have to be physically ready to be in the water, to be ready for anything," McGillivray says.
With winter approaching, the job is even more daunting. Oahu’s North Shore is renowned for having some of the most intense winter surf in the world.
Just last winter McGillivray was out at Pipeline on a day when the waves sometimes reached 15 feet. As the tide rose and surf began to break on the outer reef, McGillivray knew it was getting too big too quickly and headed in.
"When I first started shooting, I was scared to go out to the North Shore," McGillivray says. "Pipeline is the wave, one of the best and heaviest waves in the world."
It doesn’t help that there are more surf photographers in the lineup — not just on the North Shore, but everywhere.
PROFILE
COLIN McGILLIVRAY
» Age: 30
» Hometown: Kaneohe
» Occupation: Systems analyst at Diagnostic Laboratory Services and surf photographer
» Fitness routine: Runs and swims several times a week, bodyboards and shoots in the ocean on weekends
» Guilty pleasure: White rice — he can’t give that up — and anything Japanese. "Tonkatsu, sushi, tempura, sashimi, udon, ramen — that’s my favorite cuisine," he says.
» Healthy foods: He and his fiancee cook mostly vegetarian meals — stir-fry veggies or tofu salads — during the week and indulge on weekends. "If I go out with my friends to Side Street Inn, I’m going to eat kim chee fried rice and pork chops," he says.
» What he loves about surf photography: "I just like the ability to capture a moment that’s never going to be seen again. You can see thousands and thousands of waves, but if you really think about it, you capture one image in a fraction of a second, and that image will never happen again, ever. I think that’s just so amazing. That’s what drives me."
» Fitting in fitness: McGillivray took up running, which is something his fiancee does. And while he shoots in the water, she runs on the beach. |
McGillivray, who bought his first underwater housing in 2006, is relatively new to the surf photography scene. But even he remembers a time when he wouldn’t find more than five shooters in the water at Sandy Beach at sunrise, one of the best spots on Oahu for capturing shorebreak action. Today, McGillivray can often find upward of 20 photographers in the water.
"The landscape has really boomed, especially since GoPro came on the scene," says McGillivray, who uses a Canon 50D and mounts a GoPro to his helmet. "There are more affordable digital cameras out there now, and more people are able to do it. I think it’s great to share the stoke with everybody. It’s the ‘in’ thing. Everybody wants to do it and that’s a good thing. It forces me to elevate myself even more, to think of new things, to be better than I was, to always keep learning."
McGillivray, who bodyboarded for about seven years before feeling comfortable — and strong enough — to swim out with his camera and photograph waves, physically prepares for winter sessions. He runs for a couple of miles and swims laps several times a week to build his endurance, something you need when you’re trying to fight strong currents and avoid getting pummeled by unforgiving surf.
He’ll even go out to shoot small swells before the true winter season because even small waves on the North Shore can jostle you.
"There are always those ‘Welcome to the North Shore’ moments," he says.
McGillivray hasn’t experienced any near-death situations — he avoids those by making smart decisions before swimming out — but he’s had a few hairy experiences in the water.
Once, while shooting at Off the Wall he got thrashed.
"A set would hit me on the head, and when I popped up I would suck in foam," he says. "I was coughing, then another set came and I had to dive back under. It was pretty sketchy but we laughed about it later."
Luckily, size doesn’t matter in surf photography. In fact, some of the best photos are taken in waves measured in inches.
"I’m not a huge-wave shooter," he says. "I prefer clean and perfect conditions. Some people want to go out in the biggest and gnarliest surf, and that’s great. But after years of getting pounded and understanding what waves make better pictures, you realize it doesn’t have to be 8 to 10 feet macking to be good. You can have a 4-foot wave in bright sunshine with a clean sandbar and it will make my day."
Find McGillivray’s surf and underwater photography at www.colinmphotography.com.
