Jeff Divine

Jeff Divine is described as one of the best surf pho­tog­ra­phers in surf­ing. His keen eye brought us back glimpses of The North Shore and recorded the bold and excit­ing surfers that defined the ‘70s. Jeff shares with us some of his thoughts.

What was it like grow­ing up in Cal­i­for­nia?
It was par­adise. No free­ways – just empty lots for forts and base­ball through­out La Jolla Shores. The Marines from Camp Matthews, where UCSD is now, would march down the unpaved La Jolla Shores Drive. All of the neigh­bors were Korean War and WWII vets. Barry Gold­wa­ter would stop by the neigh­bors’ house for mar­ti­nis. And Dr. Seuss and Jonas Salk lived up on the hill, while Gre­gory Peck went to La Jolla High with my Dad. High­way 101 is the only glimpse you can see that’s left of the 50’s nowadays…

When did you get your first surf­board?
1964. I was four­teen and got a rough pop-out from my Hawai­ian friend from Pt. Loma, Kame Richards. We were all very ocean-oriented; I grew up two blocks from the beach. We were already get­ting bar­reled on rafts and sty­ro­foam boards for years before that. By age 18, we were really deep into surf­ing. We made boards in my par­ents’ garage on Hid­den Val­ley Road until the fire mar­shal shut us down. Then we made more in my grandmother’s garage on Tor­rey Pines Road. Because of all the activ­ity, the cops thought we had a drug lab going on!

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
Grow­ing up at a beach break, we would pad­dle out, turn around and catch the white­wa­ter. We did that for days and days, months before we pad­dled out­side and caught a wave. It was a long transition/evolution of build­ing up skills first. It’s not like there was that big moment of first stand­ing up. We were a group of neigh­bor­hood boys who charged every­thing. If you couldn’t keep up or par­tic­i­pate, you were onsid­ered a dork. Tim New­burn, George New­burn, Bill Matzinger and Jay Matzinger were my neighbors.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
My father, George Divine, was an archi­tect and ten­nis cham­pion. My grand­mother, Alice Clark, was an artist and famous bego­nia grower and had 300 vari­eties of plants in her gar­den in La Jolla. I was exposed to a lot of great peo­ple grow­ing up.

Early on in my surf­ing world (1960’s) and later, just based on surf­ing skills, at that age noth­ing else mat­tered. La Jolla, PB, Pt. Loma and North County had many great surfers to look up to. Dicky Moon, Bill Sunkel, Jon Close, Car­los Andrade, Frye, Hyn­son, Gary Cooke, Fleet White, Tom Ort­ner, Chris Prowse,  Rullo, Randy Pidd, Neal Nor­ris, Kurt Ledter­man, the Neil­son broth­ers, Yanon Vol­cani, Char­lie Carter, Pink Bod broth­ers, Mike Doyle, Eric Hauser, Mike Smith, Guy Hansen, Tom McMeekan, Greg Durbin, Andy Tow­ne­send and  Matty Welsh. They were all admirably rip­ping, laugh­ing and cavort­ing on many dif­fer­ent levels.

In the 70’s, we were deep into it with G&S—Larry Gor­don ramp­ing up, giv­ing a lot of my friends exper­i­men­tal boards. The Evo­lu­tion, Witzig film, really rocked our world. Wayne Lynch was our hero. Reed and Joel Mayne, Gary Keat­ing, Tim Lynch, Bob Bow­den, Gary Goodrum, Steve See­bold, Blayne Broder­son, John Lowrey, Dick Low­ell, Xavier, Rusty, McCul­lom, Ken Mit­suda, Ger­ald Saun­ders, Bill Satcher, Jesse Cleve­land, Hen­nesy, Tin­kler, Pat Ohern, Kyle and Lee Bakken, Steve Lis, Mark, Rex and Bird Huff­man, Jeff Ching, J Rid­dle, The Hulk, Greg Loehr, Jeff Craw­ford, Balz­erak, Mike Croteau, Deb­bie Beacham, Jon Fos­ter, Ron Mcleod, Matt Moore, Gary Mac­N­abb, Glomb, Hollingsworth broth­ers, Greg Mungall , and the Orloff broth­ers. Because of surf­ing and my pho­tog­ra­phy, I knew a lot of peo­ple from all up and down the coast.

I could go on, but by 1971, I had moved to the North Shore of Oahu and was intro­duced to a whole dif­fer­ent level of really epic surf and surfers.

What inspired you to begin shoot­ing images?
Neal Nor­ris and Tex Wil­son (Kauai) were tak­ing pho­tos in the early 60’s in La Jolla.  I dis­tinctly remem­ber Neal show­ing us 8 by 10 prints of David Nuuhiwa surf­ing at a con­test in P.B., Barry Kani­aupuni at Win­dansea and oth­ers. I worked at John Cole Book­store and imme­di­ately went and bought a Pen­tax with a 400mm Lentar lens from Bob Davis Cam­era. The rush was to shoot your friends on the best days, process and make prints. I got hooked fast. The Shores, Blacks and Win­dansea were some of my first shoots. In 1966, I shot my first roll at The Shores where Dicky Moon was out with an Ekstrom fin sta­bi­lizer and Doyle was tip rid­ing. Just sat on the wall just north of the bath­rooms. Once I had cam­era in hand, get­ting a shot in Surfer inspired me as did Ron Stoner’s work.

What do you look for in a good pho­to­graph?
That’s a broad topic. I look for some kind of thought behind it all. Tech­ni­cal appli­ca­tion, dif­fer­ent angle, and some­thing that in some way cap­tures a bit of the emo­tion of surf­ing in the sense that all surfers would be attracted to it. There is always one photo that if you laid it out in a group of  20 on a table, most surfers would agree that one is the best. What’s inter­est­ing is what a real core surfer would pick has not much to do with tech­ni­cal qual­i­ties; it’s all about the moment and sur­round­ing envi­ron­ment of the wave and where is the surfer on the wave. Off­shore, sideshore, Santa Ana light­ing, trop­i­cal blue, slate grey glassy, crys­tal clear, dark blue, heavy, slab, late, casual, barelled, through the trees, per­fect three foot, per­fect six feet, per­fect ten feet, clean 20 foot are all qual­i­ties the lay­man would never understand.

What advice would you give to an aspir­ing pho­tog­ra­pher?
In surf pho­tog­ra­phy, you should be in love with it. It’s not a way to make a living.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out and why?
South Africa for its vari­ety of cli­mates (from Dur­ban trop­i­cal to Capetown cold) and its African cul­ture, beauty, cheap­ness and epic surf. For pure surf­ing, the Mentawai Islands off Suma­tra. For per­fect lefts—I’m a goofy foot—Nemberalla on Timor.

Who/what inspires you?
The LA Times, New York Times, PBS, my wife Julie, my son Tay­lor, my body of work and all of the dif­fer­ent ways to present it to the pub­lic. Cal­i­for­nia sea­sonal changes.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
Every­thing works out. It’s not what hap­pens, but how you han­dle it. You can think of where and what you want to be and then steer towards that and make it.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
That I had used sun­screen (skin can­cers) and drunk more water (kid­ney stones) in this desert climate.

What are you most proud of?
The whole nut: my fam­ily, work, house, skills, friends.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Before I started to surf, between 10 to 13 years old, I’d go to my Granny’s house and slump down in her library and watch TV after school. Surf­ing got me off the couch and into a whole dif­fer­ent universe.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
The 20 year olds who are push­ing the enve­lope on ath­leti­cism in rid­ing waves from two to 20 feet. There’s a lot of them out there. Also the surfers who see the world more and delve into the skills and pol­i­tics of it all rather than going through life with blind­ers pointed at the surf.

What is in your cur­rent quiver?
I have two Rusty Desert Isle boards I love, a Matt Moore and a Chris­t­ian Beamish design that I haven’t tried yet.

What’s your favorite meal?
My wife, Julie, is a gourmet cook. Every night is like a fancy restaurant.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
I love all music. I have speak­ers through­out my house and lately have been lis­ten­ing to a lot of light clas­si­cal. I’m slowly start­ing to move a bit away from rock. it seems really sim­ple. Clas­si­cal takes you more on a mind trip of feel­ings. I lis­ten to rock on Pan­dora at work.

What are you most grate­ful for?
That I have a job, I work hard at it and make it. Many in our surf indus­try have been laid off and are strug­gling. It’s a bum­mer. All of the glassers, shapers, ding repair­ers, glossers, rub out,surf writ­ers, surf pho­tog­ra­phers, soul surfers, judges, surf shop sales peo­ple, etc. have no safety net. Many are con­tract labor. SIMA should cre­ate group health and retire­ment plans for all surf indus­try work­ers. There is a lot more to our surf world, espe­cially in a core surfer sense, than who had a great party and won the ad cam­paign of the year award. Not to be too cyn­i­cal of the indus­try, because the real­ity is that thou­sands of surfers have jobs with the sport they love. That didn’t exist in the 60’s, 70’s and into the 80’s.

To view more of Jeff Divine’s work, please visit here. To pur­chase his book Surf­ing Pho­tographs from the Sev­en­ties, click here. Jeff’s fine are prints are avail­able for sale at the M+B Gallery.