When surf photography first became a big hit during the 1960s it was expensive and time consuming, whilst also limiting the effects of what you could capture. These days the game of photography is anybody's with camera-phones, DSLRs and Photoshop so readily available. But according to Bulli's Chris Duczynski, it's only pushed the bar higher for quality. DESIREE SAVAGE spoke to him about life behind the lens.
Chris Duczynski's last surf film Seastills chronicled a day in the life of famous surf photographer Ray Collins. It was shown at film festivals around the world and that’s the same fate Duczynski is hoping for with his latest creation Green Cathedral.
Having worked as a commercial media maker for decades, every year the 60 year old likes to work on a personal project, "a labour of love".
Green Cathedral has been available to “whoever wants to watch” for a number of months online through social media platforms, but will officially be launched in Thirroul next February accompanied by an exhibition of works by the six featured Illawarra photographers.
Collins was included in the documentary alongside Steve Conti, Mark Newsham, Dave Milnes, Mick McCormack and Nat Palmer. Between them they've had over 100 surfing magazine front covers and are well known and respected in the industry.
The idea to bring them together on film was sparked by an exhibition at Wollongong Art Gallery a few years ago with the same title.
Each of them talk about their life behind the lens and the great lengths they’ve gone to, to snap that perfect wave - including battling torrential sets off a Hawaiian reef.
The film looks at 50 years of surfing photography, highlighting how digital technology has made taking pictures so much more efficient and cost effective. Gone are the days of snapping a roll of 36 photos then sending them off to the lab, hoping for the best.
"There's greater opportunity to get the correct photo," said Duczynski. “You can get a 15 year old with a GoPro in the water taking fantastic photos, it’s great how it’s progressed.”
However, he doesn’t believe digital accessibility has caused a decline for the surf photography profession but instead raised the bar on quality and made the industry far more competitive.
Everyone has some sort of camera device these days either on their phone or a fancy DSLR with Photoshop software - but that still doesn't mean you’re a professional according to Duczynski.
"You still need those elements of photography like being able to compose a photo, you need to pick a subject and you need to come up with something that will make you stand out from all the others to make it," he said.
“Nearly everyone has got something they can take an image with. Whereas, when I started there was black and white and there was colour, and you had to have quite an expensive camera.”
Pacific Longboarder magazine reviewed the movie saying it was for anyone who wanted to know about "equipment, passion and the commitment required to make it as a surf photographer".
Back in the 1960s and 1970s taking pictures was such a complex feat it also meant photos of water without a surfer or a brand was just not done - it was a waste and it would not get you coverage.
"There's some great photos around now. People are taking photographs of just empty waves that look like mountains or hills, you could never do that with film because it would cost you hundreds and hundreds of dollars to take hundreds and hundreds of photos just for one good one," said Duczynski.
Ironically the man so passionate about surf photography only learnt to ride a board 10 years ago, after swapping snow for sand and moved to the coal coast from Cooma in southern NSW.
"I got sick of standing there looking at everyone,"
he said. “So I stood in the whitewater for
three months and put up with everyone
giving me s*** and learnt how to surf.”
He now loves taking his 9 ft long-board to McCauleys and has even taken it away with the family surfing to Hawaii, Lombok and other exotic locations.
Duczynski began with black and white film in the 1980s, his first job covering the Easter Bike Races and subsequent riots in Bathurst. He was stoked three of his works made the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald when bikers attacked the local police.
There's a chance you’ve seen his film work before, as Duczynski honed that craft working for our national airline QANTAS as a cameraman and producer over 16 years. He travelled around the world doing a lot of their promotional inflight videos - destination pieces, interviews and the like - which he admits was great fun.
"Probably the highlight was doing a flight on John Travolta's private plane with him as captain and his cabin crew looking after us. We rang home to tell the family what we were doing and JT got on the phone and said hello - they wouldn't believe it was him," he said.
Other notable credits with the company included the opportunity to meet Nelson Mandela and The Pope, filming Michelangelo's actual drawing desk in Rome, having a cup of tea and lesson in tea-making with Sam Twining of Twinings Tea, eating fried seahorse and starfish at the night market in Beijing and filming the NT outback for two days in a helicopter.
After leaving the flying kangaroo, he launched his own corporate promotions company Malibu Media in 2005. This opened the door to indulge in plenty more personal projects and explore his own backyard. So came short films, documentaries and surf photography. Then nearly two years ago the Bulli local discovered drones and it changed his world completely.
"You can cover a subject in a number of different ways from up above. You can use a drone as a crane or a jib, so you could do little up and down moves or across moves, and it just opens up the possibilities of what you could do," he said.
Whilst discovering a new way of life for his film-making, he realised his drone also took stills.
“You can send it up and trigger it, or you can set it on a burst mode which is once every two or five seconds, and hover over the area you want and hope for the best.
''I've got a monitor so you can watch in the monitor what’s happening, but it really is pretty random what you get,” he said. “Every now and then I look through the [memory] card and there’s one that I can Photoshop and work on and bring out that abstract look.”
He also discovered other people liked his pictures. For something that's new territory to Duczynski, he’s now been featured in National Geographic, various surf magazines and by the ABC.
It’s the abstract lines, the greens blues and turquoises, and unusual patterns an aerial shot gives of the ocean that he loves so much.
"I’m not after people on waves doing turns and things, I’m more after the abstract pattern just after the wave breaks," he said. “Part of the joy as well is you don’t know what you’ve got until you get back. Like most times 95 per cent of what you get is pretty ordinary, but every now and then you get that one special shot [like a lottery].”
