Liz Cockrum

Liz Cock­rum is a San Diego-based pho­tog­ra­pher who works in medium for­mat film to cap­ture the unique aspects of surf cul­ture. Her lat­est work “Sirens,” a look at the many facets of ded­i­cated women surfers, has been pub­lished in the U.S. and inter­na­tion­ally.

When did you get your first surf­board?
I got my first surf­board in 2003; it was a gift from my awe­some brother who taught me how to surf when I came to Cal­i­for­nia to visit him from Chicago. We saw Step into Liq­uid and I was so stoked to surf on the lake that he sent me home with one of his boards.

What was the feel­ing you had when you you first stood on a surf­board?
Pure joy and exhil­a­ra­tion… I was thrilled! I also remem­ber being very proud of myself because it felt like it took me a thou­sand tries before I was finally able to ride the wave.

Where did you study pho­tog­ra­phy?
Colum­bia Col­lege, Chicago.

What brought you to Cal­i­for­nia?
Surf­ing and sun­shine. I had never lived any­where other than Chicago and wanted a change… the man of my dreams felt the same way so we ran away together to Cardiff.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out?
There isn’t one place that stands out in my mind; rather it’s the expe­ri­ence of dis­cov­er­ing the unique sense of place every city, state, coun­try, etc has to offer.  It’s so excit­ing to spend some­where and get to know what it sets it apart from every­where else in the world. One of the things I love about mak­ing pho­tographs when I travel is that it gives me a license to explore and meet peo­ple that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

What code do you live by?
My code is sim­ple: treat oth­ers the way I’d like to be treated. I believe in karma and get­ting back what you put out into the world, so I live my life accord­ingly. I try to remem­ber not to sweat the small stuff, and to live in the present moment with­out wor­ry­ing about the past or future.

Who/what inspires you?
It changes from day to day — the inter­net has exposed me to SO much and has vastly expanded my artis­tic hori­zons. Unchang­ing sources of inspi­ra­tion are my fiance Greg, pho­tog­ra­phers like William Eggle­ston, Stephen Shore and Annie Lei­bovitz, watch­ing light shift, and any­thing that’s vin­tage. I love to look­ing at all the great shops on Etsy and am very inspired by food – I am obsessed with try­ing new recipes these days!  I’m read­ing the book, Four Argu­ments for the Elim­i­na­tion of Tele­vi­sion, and that has got my wheels turn­ing too.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
There are two things; first is my “code” that I men­tioned above. Expe­ri­ence has taught me that liv­ing any other way is shit. The sec­ond thing, is to trust my instincts. The older I get, the more aware I become of my intu­ition and gut feel­ings and how fre­quently they are right-on. It’s pretty sweet!

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
To me, surf­ing rep­re­sents joy, a con­nec­tion with nature, being healthy, hav­ing fun… maybe a sum­mary would be surf­ing means pos­i­tiv­ity.  It’s my way of unwind­ing and get­ting back in touch with what mat­ters. Surf­ing has changed my life in so many ways — most obvi­ously, in 2007, I left the only place I’ve ever lived to pur­suit of waves. It’s exposed me to an entirely new cul­ture and lifestyle. But inter­nally, it’s changed me by help­ing me real­ize the impor­tance of liv­ing in the present moment, eat­ing well and tak­ing care of my body, and that we’re all part of some­thing big­ger. It’s pretty amaz­ing how the ocean can make you feel so con­nected and alive, yet so tiny and insignif­i­cant at the same time. Surfing’s taught me a new respect for nature and the world at large. I wouldn’t be the same per­son with­out it.

Oh yeah, and let’s not for­get how surf­ing has changed my pho­tog­ra­phy with Sirens! I’ve met so many incred­i­ble peo­ple, includ­ing my surf­ing heroes, and got­ten great expo­sure (pho­to­graph­i­cally) through this project. Get­ting pub­lished in the Surfer’s Jour­nal is a dream come true for me; surf­ing has had a really pos­i­tive impact on my art.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board? Your favorite surfspot?
My cur­rent quiver con­sists of a 9’2 Gary Hanel sin­glefin, 9’1 Pend­oflex per­for­mance long­board, 6’8 Fine­line dis­place­ment hull, 6’8 FCD Mako and a 5’10 KG twinzer. My favorite board is the Pend­oflex; it’s my first custom-board, deliv­ered this sum­mer. This might sound obvi­ous, but it FEELS like it was made for me and I just love it. The hull is super fun too. My favorite surf spot is any­where that is uncrowded and con­sis­tent :) I’ve got a few go-to spots in North County that I prob­a­bly shouldn’t name specif­i­cally… and of course, I’ll always love the spots I learned to surf in Win­netka, IL and Whit­ing, IN.

What’s your favorite meal?
It changes month to month. Right now I am all about Thai food: yel­low curry with chicken. I dream about it.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
I lis­ten to a pretty wide vari­ety of music, but here’s what came up in my shuf­fle this morn­ing:  the Bea­t­les, Mon­sters of Folk, Regina Spek­tor, Bob Mar­ley, Mates of State, M. Ward, Jimi Hen­drix, Etta James, Ella Fitzger­ald, and the White Stripes.

What causes/ projects/ orga­ni­za­tions do you sup­port?
I’m a mem­ber of the Surfrider Foun­da­tion and sup­port them as much as pos­si­ble; I think it’s so impor­tant to raise aware­ness about  the state of our oceans and do what­ever we can to pre­serve and pro­tect them. I recently worked with a group called Words Alive, which was a fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence. They’re a literacy-advocacy orga­ni­za­tion, pro­mot­ing lit­er­acy in under-privileged com­mu­ni­ties. For a school year, I vis­ited 4 pre-school classes each month and got the kids engaged in books and read­ing. It was really great to see their enthu­si­asm develop over time and have the kids be so stoked to see us and read. I myself am a book nerd.

Another orga­ni­za­tion I’d like to work with in the future is Surf for Life — their focus is to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in impov­er­ished areas through projects like build­ing schools.  The basic idea is surfers band­ing together to make a hands-on dif­fer­ence in areas where they love to surf. It seems like an amaz­ing way to score some great waves and give back.

What’s next for Liz Cock­rum?
Pho­to­graph­i­cally, Sirens is on the mid-to-back burner while I focus on cre­at­ing more ver­nac­u­lar / ran­dom images just for the love of the art.  I get a lit­tle burned out focus­ing on one thing all the time, so it’s fun for me to freely pho­to­graph every­thing and any­thing that grabs my inter­est. I’d like to get back to mak­ing land­scapes. In surfing…I’m work­ing on hang­ing 10, that’s my goal right now. I’ve improved my surf­ing leaps and bounds since mov­ing out here, but let’s just say there is a lot of room for improvement.

Personally…I’m get­ting mar­ried! My new name is going to be Liz Lantz start­ing Janaury next year, so start get­ting used to that… I’m so stoked!

More infor­ma­tion about Liz Cock­rum can be found at her web­site: lizcockrum.com. Por­trait of Liz is by pho­tog­ra­pher Stephanie Dana.