Nathan Oldfield

Nathan Old­field is an Aus­tralian surfer, shaper, and film­maker who cre­ates achingly beau­ti­ful and thought­ful surf­ing films. Lines From A Poem and Sea­wor­thy are the result of his unique vision. Nathan shares with us his life and loves.

What was it like grow­ing up in Aus­tralia?
Won­der­ful. I was born out in the coun­try in the Blue Moun­tains and basi­cally grew up on my uncle and auntie’s farm doing spe­cial child­hood things: climb­ing trees, fly­ing kites, col­lect­ing eggs, catch­ing lizards, watch­ing clouds. Dad was a school teacher and a surfer, so we would spend most school hol­i­days some­where near the beach. Then when I was 10, we moved to the coast to a house (on the top of a hill on the edge of a national park) over­look­ing the sea. It was per­fect because I could run down the hill through the bush every day to go surf­ing. I spent all my teenage years there and it had a huge influ­ence on me. At the south end of the beach was a right-hand point, just a drain­ing slab of a wave really, that I deeply con­nected to and fell in love with. It was a fairly heav­ily local­ized spot with a strict peck­ing order, but I per­se­vered and over the years I earned my place out there. So I feel really for­tu­nate, absolutely blessed, to have had the child­hood I expe­ri­enced. My fam­ily loved me. I never went hun­gry. All I knew was peace and health and hap­pi­ness. I had much more than so many other chil­dren grow­ing up around the world. I’m very grateful.

When did you get your first surf­board?
I had always had access to Dad’s old sin­gle fins grow­ing up because he made and rode his own boards. But I remem­ber the first surf­board I could call my own was a lit­tle swal­low­tail thruster I got sec­ond­hand for my birth­day. I was maybe 11 or 12. It was an early eight­ies board from the tran­si­tion period between twin­nies and thrusters, so the cen­tre fin wasn’t fixed; it had a fin box. The board had air­brushed rails that tran­si­tioned from red to orange to yel­low, a kind of metal­lic glit­ter in the filler coat, crazy early eight­ies graph­ics and it was called a “Sur­face Fish”. Dad and I fixed the dings and pol­ished her up. and she was my pride and joy. Just think­ing about that board fills me with deep nos­tal­gia. I think I gave it away years later to some local kid who needed a board, but, geez, I wish I had it with me now.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
Because my Dad surfed (and my uncles too), I was exposed to surf­ing from a really young age, so I don’t have a very clear mem­ory of stand­ing for the first time. I do remem­ber cer­tain things though—really early mem­o­ries of body­surf­ing, my first clean trim on a green face stand­ing up, my first proper turn, my first real tube ride. All those moments became deeply embed­ded in my soul; they became part of me and drew me deeper into the romance with sea that surf­ing imparts.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
When I was very lit­tle, my Dad and his broth­ers. I just wanted to grow up and be a surfer and make surf­boards like them. As I got older I really looked up to the surf­ing of Mark Richards, Richard Cram, Tom Car­roll and Mar­tin Pot­ter. But my favourite surfer was always Tom Cur­ren. Every­one else surfed crazy good, but Cur­ren danced. His approach had a huge impact on my under­stand­ing of what pure waverid­ing should be. Also, apart from surfers, I was inter­ested in and inspired by artists—poets, authors, musi­cians, pho­tog­ra­phers, filmmakers.

What inspired you to begin shoot­ing images/film?
I’ve been tak­ing pho­tos ever since I was young. Dad found an old 1960’s Canon SLR that had been his and passed it on to me. I was hooked. I used to pore over old copies of National Geo­graphic and study the shots: com­po­si­tion, light, angle, sub­ject. So I’ve always taken pho­tos, and I guess the move to surf pho­tog­ra­phy and then the tran­si­tion to surf film­mak­ing was a nat­ural exten­sion of that activ­ity. Dad taught me to always be a do-it-yourselfer; he taught me to make my own surf­boards when I was about 15 or 16. So surf­board build­ing has been a part of my life for 20 odd years, and in lots of ways pho­tog­ra­phy and film­mak­ing are sim­i­lar. They’re just part of what I do as a surfer.

What was the inspi­ra­tion for your lat­est film, Sea­wor­thy?
I made my first film, called Lines From A Poem, with no for­mal train­ing and no idea of what I was doing basi­cally. But the goal I had in mind was to make enough money to buy a new cam­era. After about a year, I saved enough to get a semi-professional cam­era sec­ond­hand and I began gath­er­ing footage. I was tak­ing my time and relax­ing with it and still get­ting my thoughts together about where I wanted the film to go, but I didn’t have any solid ideas or direction.

Then our daugh­ter, Wil­low, was still­born and I was sud­denly and shock­ingly hurled into a whole uni­verse of grief. Los­ing a child isn’t some­thing I would wish on any­one. But as I began to travel the grief jour­ney, I felt the need to tell Willow’s story. I came up with the idea of mak­ing a board in hon­our of her mem­ory, hav­ing lots of friends ride it and doc­u­ment­ing the story in a film. That board became a lit­tle 5’5” quad fish I called Noe­lani, and in lots of ways it is the cen­ter­piece around which Sea­wor­thy revolves. So Wil­low, really, was my pri­mary inspi­ra­tion for mak­ing Sea­wor­thy. It has been one of her gifts to me.

What advice would you give to an aspir­ing film­maker?
I don’t espe­cially feel qual­i­fied to give advice but I’d say this: Don’t wait. Don’t hes­i­tate. Do it now! I think it’s always impor­tant to run with an idea or a dream or a pas­sion you have for some­thing. Mak­ing things is a healthy and noble pur­suit— whether it’s a film, a poem, a paint­ing, a pho­to­graph, a song, a surf­board, a home-cooked meal. Do it from a pure place in your heart, and go for it.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out? And why?
My first over­seas trip was to West­ern Samoa and it was a beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence. It was about 15 years ago, pre-surf camps and pack­aged tours and inter­net fore­casts. Just six weeks of adven­tur­ing, find­ing spots, scor­ing, get­ting skunked, search­ing and surf­ing myself silly. We got incred­i­ble surf, but what emerged for me as being most sig­nif­i­cant was con­nect­ing with the peo­ple. We stayed in the vil­lages with local fam­i­lies who were dirt poor, but gen­er­ous with what they had. It was a beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence and I ended up vis­it­ing there for a few years in a row. I also really enjoyed trav­el­ing around Spain with my wife some years ago before we had kids. I have fam­ily there, so it was a kind of home­com­ing in lots of ways. We did a lap around the coun­try and had a really spe­cial jour­ney together. We love it over there and can’t wait to go back. Apart from that, I love the north coast of New South Wales: warm water, long right hand points, rolling green hills. It’s one of the most beau­ti­ful places in all the world that I’ve ever been, for sure.

Who/what inspires you?
I’m inspired by cre­ativ­ity. Any­one who makes beau­ti­ful things can inspire me: shapers, writ­ers, painters, dancers, poets, musi­cians, film­mak­ers. But I’m espe­cially inspired by nature. A bit of soli­tude in the great out­doors under a clean wide sky helps recharge me.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
Life is frag­ile and fleet­ing, but it is also sacred and good. Every breath is a gift. I try, but so often imper­fectly, to live in a way that expresses grat­i­tude to God for that gift.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
Of course! I never under­stand when peo­ple say, “I don’t have any regrets.” Of course I do. I make mis­takes and fall short of my poten­tial all the time. I regret them when they hap­pen, and hope­fully then I learn from them, grow beyond them and move on.

What are you most proud of?
I’m really, really proud of my wife, Eliza. She is beau­ti­ful and cre­ative and pas­sion­ate and wise. I get stoked when peo­ple meet her because she’s just so per­son­able and endear­ing and pos­i­tive. I am very proud to have been given the priv­i­lege of being her hus­band. Together we have helped bring four beau­ti­ful chil­dren into the world: Noa, Wil­low, Blos­som and River. Beyond all the things I can ever make with my hands (surf­boards, pho­tographs, poems, songs, films, bon­sais), they are the con­tri­bu­tion to the world that I’m most proud of, hands down.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
I’ve been surf­ing for nearly a quar­ter of a cen­tury, so I can’t really remem­ber what it’s like to not be a surfer. It’s helped shape who I am as a human being. I’ve said it else­where, but I’m happy to repeat it here. For me, surf­ing is purely an extra­or­di­nary gift. Surf­ing isn’t a sport; it isn’t just a phys­i­cal activ­ity. It’s actu­ally meta­phys­i­cal, an expe­ri­ence of heart and the spirit. Surf­ing is a way of being and breath­ing. It’s joy and shel­ter and desire. Surf­ing is a place to go to, a place to be, a place to belong.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Qual­ity time with my fam­ily. Good, uncrowded waves. Mak­ing stuff.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
I think we’re at a good place in lots of ways. Peo­ple are open to new ideas and there are so many cre­ative, inspired, tal­ented peo­ple in surf­ing today. I reckon there are prob­a­bly too many to name, but they are the surfers who are mak­ing films and pho­tographs, paint­ing and draw­ing, mak­ing music, craft­ing beau­ti­ful hand­made surf­boards, writ­ing, organ­is­ing fes­ti­vals, pay­ing homage to our elders, design­ing t-shirts and board­shorts, keep­ing blogs, rid­ing a whole range of equip­ment, cel­e­brat­ing diver­sity. They’re hard at work, believ­ing in what they do, excited and grate­ful to be surfers and eager to share that sense of stoke and thank­ful­ness. All that cre­ative activ­ity is really sig­nif­i­cant and not just for its own sake, but because it helps nur­ture the heart­beat of surf­ing today and for the future.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board?
Thrusters. Logs. Fish. Ala­ias. Sin­gle fins. Hand­planes. Swim fins. At the moment, I’m pretty addicted to a new log I made a few months back, and I’m really enjoy­ing get­ting to know a lit­tle high per­for­mance quad fish that Sage Joske just made me.

What is your favorite surf spot?
I have a few places that are my favourites, but the one dear­est to my heart is a lit­tle out-of-the-way rocky cove tucked away in a national park not far from where I live. It is a spe­cial piece of coast, with ancient Abo­rig­i­nal rock carv­ings etched in secret caves in the sur­round­ing val­ley. You have to walk in through the bush to get there, and in the lit­tle bay there is a nice right-hander that breaks across a rock shelf that I have surfed and loved since child­hood. It’s a sacred place where there are few signs of civil­i­sa­tion, only sand­stone cliffs that tum­ble steeply into the Pacific. It is my favourite place in all the world, but not just because of the wave. It is a lit­tle beach that means a lot to my fam­ily because it is where we gave our daugh­ter Willow’s ashes to the sea. When­ever I go down there, whether for a bush­walk or for a surf, it’s always with a sense of homecoming.

What’s your favorite meal?
Sushi and sashimi in the sum­mer­time. In the win­ter, a plate of my wife’s curry. And my Dad makes the best paella out­side of Spain. It’s legendary.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
I’m always on the look­out for new music for films, and just gen­er­ally excited about music alto­gether. It’s one of my biggest pas­sions in life. If you asked me this ques­tion next week, I’d prob­a­bly have a new answer. But at the moment … Fan­farlo, Mid­lake, Small Sur, Sigur Ros, Noah and The Whale.

What are you most grate­ful for?
My fam­ily. My faith. My health. A happy child­hood. A surf­ing life.

What’s next for Nathan Old­field?
I always want to get bet­ter at being a hus­band and a dad. So that’s some­thing I’ll keep work­ing on. Apart from that, I’m cur­rently work­ing away at my next film, tak­ing pho­tographs, mak­ing some boards, some writ­ing, and maybe a cou­ple small projects with friends. At the end of the day, I always want to make things. Hope­fully, they can be things that are beau­ti­ful, things that I can be proud of.

More infor­ma­tion about Nathan Old­field and his films can be found here.