Surfing has nearly universal recognition and appeal. Anyone who lays eyes on Hawaii's Pipeline on a big day stare transfixed, hypnotized and is present. Nothing else matters as we soak in the warmth of the sun and daydream about snagging the wave of our life, whether we have surfing experience or not. Brown Cannon has been a surfer and a photographer for over 30 years and for all this time he has searched and patiently waited for a surf book that depicts the powerful allure of Oahu's North Shore surf culture. Cannon longed to be able to study the expressions and the gear of the watermen and women and then to be transported directly onto the face of a giant wave.
Surfing has hit mainstream media with recent shows like The Ultimate Surfer and a recorded influx of 10.4 million tourists visiting Oahu in 2019 alone, shows that public interest in surf and surf culture are a growing phenomenon. Annually, hundreds of thousands of people yearn to catch a glimpse of the infamous Pipeline and Waimea Bay and yet there isn't a photography book that delivers and brings readers into the circle, until now, NORTH.
The portraits for this collection were all photographed on twenty-foot seamless grey backdrops, allowing the reader to intimately study the exquisite shapes of 12-foot rhino chasers, surfers' bodies and their raw expressions. The portraits themselves are of surfers, lifeguards, surfboard shapers, water photographers, bodysurfers and bodyboarders. The images are reverent and reflective, allowing the viewer to get into each subject to study their gaze and gear.
Surfer Buzzy Trent once said, "Waves are not measured in feet or inches, they are measured in increments of fear."
In life we all confront fear, and fear is what often prevents us from doing many of the things we desire. It has the power to stifle happiness, love, truth, adventure and careers. Fear is the line that separates those in the sand from those who venture into the sea on a 20-foot day. But make no mistake, we all have limits and experience fear, the difference simply depends on where each of us draws our own line in the sand. NORTH enables the reader to consider their own fears and to
The NORTH collection of photographs is complete and current and includes generations of North Shore legends, new and old.
