Rob Kulisek

Rob Kulisek is a surfer / pho­tog­ra­pher / writer  orig­i­nally from the New Jer­sey area. Pre­fer­ring all things tra­di­tional, he shoots exclu­sively on film, writes his sto­ries on a type­writer, and does his noserid­ing on a log. He can be seen in Mikey DeTemple’s new surf­ing film, Picaresque.

What was your child­hood like?
I grew up on a bar­rier island, off the coast of New Jer­sey, called Wild­wood. Being a resort town, it goes from hav­ing a half-million tourists in the sum­mer to three or four thou­sand peo­ple in the winter—a ghost town so to speak. I always envied my friends who lived in the city, but look­ing back I think it was the quiet months that shaped much of who I am today. Most of my work involves a recur­ring theme of lone­li­ness, and that is prob­a­bly the result of grow­ing up there.

My mom was an artist and my dad worked really hard to pro­vide a com­fort­able life for us. My mom would always set up paints for me next to her easel when I was young, and then I was pro­pelled into pho­tog­ra­phy when she started pub­lish­ing a mag­a­zine called The Sun. She gave me two pages each issue to do what I wanted with them. So, grow­ing up I was sort of “forced” to be cre­ative. Even­tu­ally, it gained momen­tum on its own and now most of my life is cen­tered around creativity.

When did you get your first surf­board?
I got my first board when I was 9 or 10. It was a 7’6″ sin­gle fin.

What was the feel­ing you had when you you first stood on a surf­board?
I remem­ber my first wave quite vividly, actu­ally. It was early in the morn­ing. The waves were break­ing really softly out on the sand­bar, like a Waikiki sort of wave. Every­thing was golden. I was shiv­er­ing because it was still kind of chilly. I remem­ber walk­ing to the beach because I was really ner­vous. My mom was on the beach watch­ing. I pad­dled in and stood up and just went straight, but it was a long ride. I knew right then I was hooked.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
As far as surf­ing goes, Thomas Campbell’s movies were my sav­ing grace as a kid—as cliché as that may sound. South Jer­sey is not exactly a breed­ing ground for inspi­ra­tion, so I had to seek that out myself. The Seedling and Sprout helped with that a lot. Then there was the group of guys from the Off­shore Long­board Club who kind of took me in and really helped my surf­ing progress. They were all inspir­ing to me because they stayed true to the clas­sic men­tal­ity, which is the only train of thought that has con­tin­u­ally held my inter­est in surf­ing. The pro­gres­sive aspects never caught my atten­tion, but the 60’s vibe of it all drew me in.

What do you look for when shoot­ing images?
I used to want to become a “surf pho­tog­ra­pher”. Then all my gear was stolen and I had to rebuild my list of equip­ment from scratch. I was given a bunch of top-notch stuff from a retired com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­pher. This is when I began shoot­ing with a large for­mat view cam­era, which really slowed down the process of mak­ing a pho­to­graph. As a pho­tog­ra­pher, I began fol­low­ing an emerg­ing move­ment that involves an altered con­cep­tion of doc­u­men­tary photography—not doc­u­men­tary in the “here and now” sense but more in the poetic sense. Basi­cally, it is not about the por­trayal of real­ity, but rather of an artis­ti­cally well-grounded idea of the world at hand. So when I’m shoot­ing, I’m attracted to an object or per­son that a knowl­edge­able viewer can find ana­lyt­i­cal or exegetic value in, how­ever that may trans­late itself to be—just like a poem I guess.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out and why?
I’ve been all over world but for some rea­son I am drawn to the North­east, par­tic­u­larly Maine. It’s like God’s coun­try. My friend Ty has a farm up there and it’s cer­tainly my dream to live some­where in New Eng­land one day. Sure, it gets cold, but the waves are con­sis­tent and there are sharks. So that makes it stand out for me. If not there, I’d prob­a­bly say France. There are so many amaz­ing things squeezed into that coun­try. You’d never want to move out.

Who/what inspires you?
I am inspired by literature.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
How to not be shy and ask peo­ple for help. It does wonders.

What are you most proud of?
A very famous piece of art­work that was given to me. As well as a life that has allowed me to do all of the things I love rel­a­tively worry-free.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Surf­ing has always been the one thing that I’m sat­is­fied with every time I par­take in it. I haven’t ever intended to make money off of it, and so I have a grounded approach to it. It’s like I can avoid being frus­trated with it since I don’t take it too seriously.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Hav­ing film deliv­ered from the lab.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
Mikey DeTem­ple and every­one in his movies. And the cast of School of Surf on MTV2.

What is cur­rently your favorite board? Your favorite surf spot?
My favorite board is my Bing Clas­sic Noserider. It’s my every day board. It brings out a cer­tain style that I don’t have on other boards. As for spots, much of the East Coast is the same, but Rock­away Beach and this one spot in Mon­tauk stand out par­tic­u­larly. Plus, back home in Wild­wood the beach was just dredged, which usu­ally ruins the waves for a few sea­sons, but I’ve heard our lit­tle spot “Mini Mal­ibu” has been epic. That place is high up on the list.

What’s your favorite meal?
Cof­fee and a bagel.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
Always on rota­tion: Yo La Tengo, Brian Jon­estown Mas­sacre, Fla­vor Crys­tals, Moon­dog, and Space­man 3. Recently on rota­tion: Woods, Real Estate, Kurt Vile, Jana Hunter, Poc­a­haunted, Sun Araw, and Woodsman.

What are you most grate­ful for?
Being an artist, being left-handed, the gift of sal­va­tion, and being able to noseride.

What causes/organizations do you sup­port?
None at the moment, but I get phone calls daily and often think about join­ing some.

What’s next for Rob Kulisek?
I’m in the process of putting together another book with Ty Williams (which is both ardu­ous and extremely fun at the same time) in addi­tion to edi­to­r­ial assign­ments and a larger project, and book with help from a grant that I recently received. This month, Dustin Miller is fly­ing up to work on a lit­tle doc­u­men­tary. I’m really inspired by his work, so I think we will be able to work well together sim­ply because we “get” each other’s stuff, which is always impor­tant when col­lab­o­rat­ing. On top of that, this month I’ll be stay­ing at Ty’s farm for a good part of it—just surf­ing and test­ing out the rub­ber in my es-cent-ial wet­suit. I think today it was 10º with the wind chill and the water is hov­er­ing around 37 to 39. Plus school! Almost for­got about that.

More infor­ma­tion about Rob Kulisek and his art can be found here.