Through the Glass

We asked 4 of the world’s most highly respected surf photographers to pick one wave and reveal why it lights their respective artistic fires.

Ray Collins

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my adult life was going snorkelling on a beautifully-flat morning at Pipeline.

All of the imagery I grew up devouring: from line-up shots of people paddling for their lives over feathering, blue crests as tall as buildings, to images from brave, water photographers of silhouetted surfers standing triumphant in barrels, that I would never want a chance to be near; to Tom Carroll and ‘the snap’, A.I. going over the falls backwards, Greg Noll pre-paddle out, to Lopez, Ho, Johnny Boy, and the list goes on. Everything I’d known about Pipe, happened on that reef I was gliding over!