Joe Curren Photography | Blog

I’ve noticed that Matt Warshaw’s forthcoming book The History of Surfing has a photograph of my dad Pat and his old friend John Elwell on its cover. My dad lived in Hawaii from ’57-’61. The photo is of he and Elwell checking the surf at Yokohama Bay on Oahu’s West Side taken by Surfer Magazine founder John Severson in 1957, the year Elwell visited my dad.

The following black and white portraits I took of Elwell this summer at his house on Coronado Island in San Diego, which is just down the coast from Mission Beach, my dad’s hometown. It was actually Elwell who introduced my parents to each other. Elwell met my mom (who also grew up in Coronado) when she was 16 and then introduced her to my dad at Wind N’ Sea in La Jolla. My dad asked my mom if she would go tandem surfing with him. The surf was about 8-feet that day but my mom, who’d never surfed before, agreed to go. The rest, as they say, is history.

Elwell holding a photo he took of my dad surfing Waimea Bay

From L to R, Elwell, a lady friend and my dad during their time camping on the beaches of the North Shore Photo: Tom Keck

If you’re in the area and you want to see a good surf flick by Patrick Trefz and some interesting boards designed by Carl Eckstrom and Hydrodynamica, head to Richard Kenvin’s 9th Festivus event tonight in downtown San Diego.

Kenvin and Skip Frye with a gift for Richard, a 7–foot Frye long fish with modified wings

Carl Eckstrom

Eckstrom – surfboard and furniture designer, inventor of the “flow rider” and the assymetrical surfboard and the only man my father Pat will trust to glass his valuable wooden boards – pictured with a model of one of his shapes. Before production, Eckstrom makes a model of his designs at ¹/₄ scale or smaller.

When I was in San Diego a few weeks back, along with Skip Frye, I also spent some time with surfer/filmmaker Richard Kenvin, staying at his place near Wind N’ Sea in La Jolla. For the past couple of years Kenvin has been working on his mini Simmons designs which are based on the boards enigmatic shaper Bob Simmons made and rode in the late ‘40’s/early ‘50’s. Kenvin explores Simmon’s influence on the evolution of modern surf board design in his work-in-progress documentary film, Hydrodynamica. It was an inspiring couple of days…

Kenvin talking board design over morning coffee

Discussing assymetrical mini Simmons with shaper/designer Carl Eckstrom

Kenvin and Coronado’s John Elwell with the board that inspired Kenvin, an original “hyrodynamic planing hull” made by Elwell’s old friend Bob Simmons in the early ‘50’s

Logging footage for Hydrodynamica

rk – faithfully compiling the facts

Wind N’ Sea

“Rincon, January 16th, 2010”, Ilfochrome, 7–¹/₂ x 20” (matted to 20 x 24”), edition of 75

Pictured is a framed Ilfochrome print (formerly Cibachrome), custom made for a friend in San Diego. Ilfochrome printing from photographs made on slide film started in the early ‘60’s. I’ve always printed with both digital and traditional methods, but after getting a few Ilfochromes that’s going to change. My digital prints made from high resolution scans were good, but for me, especially when it comes to printing from slides, nothing compares to the quality, detail and the glossy metallic–look of Ilfochromes.

Plus, there’s just something to be said about something that’s handmade. Who know how much longer Ilfochrome printing will be around (these were made by Frank Green of The Lab Ciba in Burbank, ca), or even film for that matter, but I’m going to keep printing and shooting with traditional methods as long as I can.

Speaking of handmade, I milled the moulding for this frame from salvaged Pacific madrone (arbutus menziesii), a western hardwood. It’s finished with a varnish.

Skip Frye amongst his quiver of longboards, holding an original Greenough spoon.

Earlier this summer I visited the master shaper and living surf legend at his shaping bay in San Diego. His quiver really is amazing. This is about half of his personal handcrafted fishes and longboards – he has another room this size filled up as well. Skip cherishes his boards, keeping them all very clean and organized. When I was with Skip in the Outer Hebrides a few years ago, I watched him clean all the wax off of his board after a surf, then polish it with at towel. He said he does this to all his boards, after every session.

Skip is such an inspiring guy, I don’t know anyone more humble. The following quote from a recent interview with Skip from the website Liquid Salt caught my eye. It’s such a contrast to the us Open which is underway this week in Huntington Beach. It reminded me why I was originally drawn to surfing other than to, let’s say, the nfl or nascar

“It’s get­ting more and more crowded out there every­day as the sport grows by leaps and bounds. We have to learn about the aloha spirit. One thing that goes against that is com­pet­i­tive surf­ing. It’s in the media fore­front so to a lot of peo­ple that are in the water – they act like it’s a heat.

I used to com­pete and in fact I have ben­e­fited from com­pet­ing in two dif­fer­ent eras. But I am not so much into that any­more. I don’t really attend any of the com­pet­i­tive for­mat things just because I just don’t like that aspect of surf­ing. I just like it when you go out with your friends and have fun and every­body is num­ber one. In the com­pet­i­tive for­mat, there’s only one per­son that really feels good about it.”

This is the link to the rest of the interview, which was posted a few days ago: Liquid Salt

Here’s a link to a story my wife wrote along with some of my about our trip to Chile.

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