Profiles

From the Archive: Photo Review Dec/Jan 2004:

From Mozambique to the remote and icy shores of Norway, Ted Grambeau has created his own brand of surfing photography.

From the late 1970s into the early 1990s Ted Grambeau lived the life thousands of aspiring surf photographers think they'd like to have. He travelled around the world shooting the best surfers in the best conditions at the best surfing breaks.


Wiamea shorebreak on the north shore of Ohau. During the winter months, the largest swells on the planet pound the north shore.

The really infuriating thing is that he's still doing it. Only now, instead of being on the road for 9 or 10 months a year as he was when he first got into the game, he picks a stretch of promising looking coastline somewhere in the world, makes a few phone calls to organise the budget and the surfers, and is there and back within a few weeks.

Grambeau's surf photography career started with a football injury when he was 18 and still living in Victoria. ‘We used to go surfing on weekends,' he explains, ‘and when I was injured I couldn't surf. So I decided I'd get a camera for the few months I was sitting it out and just shoot the guys surfing.'

Taking pictures soon turned into a passion. ‘I ended up joining a camera club and found I actually enjoyed the photography. Through the injury I got an interest in taking the surf photos, but then I went on to a camera class to learn how to process and produce some black and whites of a funny little place called Port Franklin down in Gippsland.

‘It was quite ironic because everyone was doing their landscapes and portraits and I'd keep turning up with these surf photos.'

Bemused his fellow camera clubbers may have been, but Grambeau kept at it and picture taking became steadily more important to him. The insight came to him after he'd embarked on what had been a career of a more conventional sort. ‘I ended up studying in Victoria at La Trobe University doing Economics. But I started to question: "what am I doing, doing economics? I hate it".

‘Fortunately I reassessed everything and asked myself, "what in life do I love doing?" One of the things that popped up was photography. I thought "well, if I'm going to do something the rest of my life, I'm really going to want to enjoy it rather than get motivated by money". So I dropped out of economics and went back and applied for photography at RMIT.'

‘It was quite an intensive course,' he says. ‘I remember one guest lecturer saying, "you're sort of marrying photography. If you're serious about it, you're not going to be leaving work at home." It totally engulfs you and consumes you. It's a passion that just sort of takes over your life effectively.'

Describing the demands of the course as being "like joining a monastery", Grambeau says that the drop-out rate was very high and yet his class alone produced not only himself but highly regarded Victorian photographer George Apostolidis.

After finishing at RMIT, he joined Brian Brandt and Associates. He says Brandt ‘was the guru of advertising in Melbourne at the time and spawned some of the best photographers. I had a short stint in his studio,which was fantastic. But I still had the urge to travel and at the time my father was sick with cancer and I ended up going back down to the country. I dropped out of the studio... but just to see the level of professionalism. It was like no other job I'd ever had.'

Back in the country again, he started saving money so he could travel overseas. ‘I started taking surf photos and sending them to magazines - and actually getting money back. I wasn't making a lot of money out of it, but compared to most travellers I was getting some back and it was building up and it was getting better and better. I could actually travel more and more which was one of my passions in life.'

If Grambeau can be said to have a trademark, it is tack-sharp, perfectly exposed images of action subjects captured at exactly the right moment. Asked if he thinks of himself as having a style, he says, ‘I don't see myself as having a style but I have a lot of influences. I was fortunate in that midway through that travelling career I went to New York. I thought: "I want to go see the best guys in the world." And I went door-knocking. I was totally naive, didn't know anything, didn't have anything planned. I just ended up knocking on doors . . . of course no one was home . . . But eventually over a period of time I started to get part-time work - as well as doing dishwashing and furniture removal - it started to build up a little bit more.'


Joel Tudor, The Pass, Byron Bay.

By the time he was washing dishes and moving furniture in New York, he had a decade of successful surf photography under his belt. He knew what he wanted and he kept knocking on doors. ‘I ended up getting work with a gentleman named Burt Glinn who was the chairman of Magnum at the time. I was so naive that I didn't know what Magnum was. Probably the most prestigious name in the world of photojournalism.

‘It really was a re-learning experience in one sense because all my studies in college were about how to set up lighting, take a photo. But working with Burt and the older Magnum photographers who actually do quite a bit of commercial work, but still use the photojournalist style, was amazing. They would disregard almost everything in the book technically, and just go for that decisive moment, as Cartier-Bresson would say. It was a phenomenal learning experience. In a sense it was a new freedom because you had the ability with these techniques to realise what was most important in a photo.'

The nine months he spent in New York changed many things including the way he approached surfing photography. ‘In the surf magazines, guys come back with all these tight, well-lit action photos.' he says, ‘But after a while they're all the same. People want to know where you were,what you were doing (when not surfing). I think my style, if there is such a thing, developed into an adventure style of surf exploration. I was no longer interested in going to the contests, but I would like to go to the new extremes and find new waves. In the last five years the surf industry has begun to realise that not everyone is dreaming of being a world champion.What surfers love in life is to go off and find an empty wave with their mates and just go for a surf in a perfect tropical location - or wherever.'

And the ‘wherever' now extends to locales far removed from clichéd palm-fringed surf paradises much beloved by surfing magazines. ‘Friends have been to Antarctica on a surf trip. Now obviously you're not going there because there's going to be perfect surf, but because you're going to the edge, the boundary.'

Going to the edge has seen Grambeau scouting the surf prospects in third-world locales such as Mozambique or west Africa and picking his way along frigid shorelines in Scotland, Norway and the arctic island of Svalbard.


English surfer Spencer Hargreaves in Northern Norway.

As the images on these pages attest, Grambeau shoots surfing both from the land and the water. He's not interested in competing with the younger guys who put themselves in the most dangerous positions possible as they pursue the ultimate ‘impact zone' shots. But his superb technical skills and highly developed eye ensure that his work is often more memorable.

Water shooting is a low percentage game. The photographer can't move around very quickly and popping in a new roll of film means a swim back to the boat or beach. If you're going to succeed, you have to know exactly what you're about. ‘It's pretty much unique. It'd be like being able to run on to the field during the Superbowl or the AFL Grand Final. You can run around with the camera, whereas any other sporting event you're not allowed to be in amongst the players.'

On the technical side, Grambeau, like most surf photographers, is still using film. ‘I'm not into digital yet, but I accept that it's obvious it's going to be there within the next few years.' He's been keeping an eye on the technology and says that he may buy his first digital camera in the next few months. Misgivings about the cost and delicate nature of the equipment aside, he says, ‘It's quite exciting. It would be fantastic seeing your images straight away. Particularly if I'm doing a swimwear shoot and you're coming back with like one or two hundred rolls and you're thinking "I hope that shutter was still working...".'

In recent years Grambeau has picked up more and more fashion work. Once again, he's turned his expertise into an advantage in a niche area of the business. ‘I did a shoot for an English  swim wear company recently. It involved over- and underwater shots and things like that. They were just thrilled. Obviously I have an advantage over a fashion guy in those circumstances.'


"Cyclops", mystery West Australia wave discovered on a billabong odyssey.

At the time of this interview, he was reviewing the final proofs for a new book of his work. The fourth volume in a series called The Masters of Surf Photography, it is published by The Surfers Journal in the US. Going through the process of creating a book has allowed Grambeau to see his own images in a somewhat wholistic way. ‘You don't see yourself having a style until you see your body of work [in a publication]' he says, adding,  ‘I like to think I'm evolving or developing. I'd like to expose myself as much to as many influences as I can. I'm happy to go and work with any photographer, old or young, that has something to offer. There are great  fashion guys who are half my age and I'm rapt to be able to have an opportunity to go and work with them.

‘That's the beautiful thing about photography. I just don't think you stop learning.'


See Photo Review magazine Issue 14 for the print edition of this profile which includes additional images.

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