Joe Curren

Joe Cur­ren is a Cal­i­for­nia surfer/photographer who is equally tal­ented on a board as well as behind a lens. He is fea­tured in the film “One Cal­i­for­nia Day” and exhibits his work inter­na­tion­ally. Joe took some time out of his busy sched­ule to talk with us.

What was it like grow­ing up in Santa Bar­bara?
Santa Bar­bara was mostly a great place to grow up. It’s a chal­leng­ing place because the cost of liv­ing is really, really high so own­ing a piece of any­thing there seems like a fan­tasy. The surf can get very good, but it’s fickle and extremely crowded. For­tu­nately, there are other things to do there that can bring a lit­tle soli­tude. Places close by like the back­coun­try, the Chan­nel Islands, the Gaviota Coast and parts of north Santa Bar­bara County make it easy to get away. Grow­ing up, my dad taught my brother, sis­ter and I to appre­ci­ate these places. He would take us fish­ing and div­ing, and we would take camp­ing trips in the back­coun­try with the whole family—sometimes for two weeks at a time.

As for the surf scene, grow­ing up it felt like Santa Bar­bara was off the map. There was barely any media cov­er­age given to it and rarely did you see cam­eras on the beach. Surfers def­i­nitely weren’t the cool kids at my school. We didn’t get much respect. At one point, I thought it would be great move to Aus­tralia and I tried to talk my mom into it. Surfers there seemed to be liv­ing the life.

When did you get your first surf­board?
The sum­mer of 1983. It was a yel­low 7’3” sin­gle fin Doyle. The next year, I got a 5’9” Al Mer­rick thruster that my brother broke in half and was later repaired.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
I felt like I was onto some­thing good. But then, at the end of my first ride, I jumped off my board and landed on my butt on a rock.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
Peo­ple who trav­eled and made things with their hands. Also my dad and brother, Daffy Duck, Tintin, Indi­ana Jones, U2, John Stein­beck, Mark Twain, Rab­bit Bartholomew, Derek Hynd, Occy. Also local surf heroes Chris Brown, Jamie George, Matt Mon­dragon and Tim Smalley.

What was it like being in such a famous surf­ing fam­ily?
There are some perks, one being that since my dad and brother com­manded a lot of respect before I even started, there was name recog­ni­tion straight away. I guess another perk was that I met most of my surf heroes at an early age. But it wasn’t all easy. From the get go, I was under a spot­light and I wasn’t com­fort­able with it. I was get­ting paid a lot of atten­tion for being somebody’s brother and, to be hon­est, it was odd because Tom and I just weren’t that close back then because of our age dif­fer­ence and since he was gone a lot. It wasn’t like he was at all my ama­teur con­tests giv­ing me point­ers or cheer­ing me on. I started surf­ing in 1983, 13 years after my brother started. At that point, Tom was mar­ried, already in the top 10 in the world and spend­ing most of his time on tour or liv­ing in France.

My mom helped my brother a lot when he was com­ing up by dri­ving him all around the coun­try for his con­tests. But by the time I started to com­pete, my mom was work­ing a lot so I was kind of on my own. Back then, coach­ing, ama­teurs get­ting paid a salary and home school­ing weren’t an option. Things seem to be a lot eas­ier for kids today. Granted, I wasn’t a nat­ural com­peti­tor like Tom, but it would have been nice for some­one to sim­plify con­test strat­egy for me. I always thought there was a secret to con­tests. I didn’t fig­ure out a con­test strat­egy until a long time later, until after I didn’t care about com­pet­i­tive surf­ing anymore.

What inspired you to begin shoot­ing images?
Trav­el­ing, old fam­ily pho­tos, Aus­tralian Surf­ing World Mag­a­zine, National Geo­graphic Mag­a­zine, pho­tographs taken by other pho­tog­ra­phers, scenes in nature.

What do you look for in a good pho­to­graph?
Mood and composition.

What advice would you give to an aspir­ing pho­tog­ra­pher?
Be inspired by oth­ers but give a unique per­spec­tive, espe­cially within your market.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out? And why?
Ice­land and Nor­way for their scenery. Sri Lanka and Sao Tome, Africa for their otherworldliness.

Who/what inspires you?
Art, good books and films, going to new places, cold places, wilder­ness, scenes in nature like trees, clouds, wildlife, etc. Also good writing—especially by Stein­beck, William T. Voll­mann and Wen­dell Barry. And the life and work of Gerry Lopez, Wayne Lynch, Eddie Aikau, Steve Pre­fontaine, Terge Haak­en­son, Tom Waits, Will Old­ham, Bob Dylan, Bill Mur­ray, Peter Beard, Michael Kenna, Ansel Adams, Galen Row­ell, Sam Abell, Robert Frank, George Gree­nough, Tom Blake, John Sev­er­son, Jim Jar­musch, Wim Wen­ders, Sebas­tiao Sel­galdo, Anton Cor­bijn, Ernst Haas, Jan Tschi­chold, Frieden­sre­ich Hun­dert­wasser, Tom Adler, Peter Kirkeby, Les Stansell, Art Brewer, Andrew Kid­man, Patrick Trefz, Dave Par­menter, Skip Frye, Richard Ken­vin, Lewis & Clark, Chief Joseph, etc.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
Think pos­i­tive. Wear warm clothes when it’s cold. Keep­ing it sim­ple is good. Love your neigh­bor as yourself.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
Sure. I wish I learned a craft like wood­work­ing or started shap­ing surf­boards at an early age. Also, I wish I would have stuck with the piano lessons I took when I was nine. I also wish I would have started tak­ing pho­tographs ear­lier. I remem­ber tak­ing trips to places like Tas­ma­nia and West­ern South Africa when I didn’t even have a point and shoot. Also, I wish I would have gone with my brother to J-Bay in ’92 when I was invited by Rip Curl to be in “The Search” but passed so I could grad­u­ate with my high school class. That same year sum­mer I also wish I would have hung around my brother’s place in France after I was invited by Bruce Brown to be in the End­less Sum­mer II instead of bail­ing to Por­tu­gal with my friends. Oh well.

What are you most proud of?
That I’ve been able to travel to most the places I dreamed of going when I was a kid.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Surf­ing has been an obses­sion for most of my life which has led to the desire to travel the world. Travel has taught me almost everything.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Sand points, good food, fam­ily and friends.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
Dane Reynolds, Greg Long, Derek Hynd.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board? Your favorite surfspot?
Quiver: Mostly Al Mer­ricks with a 6’2” Tay­lor Knox model, 6’4” to 7’3” deep six chan­nel bot­toms, 5’7” Even Keel tra­di­tional fish. Favorite boards: a cou­ple Pavel micro wing fish and a Pat Cur­ren 7’3” semi gun. Surf spots: Rin­con, Sand­spit, Hossegor, J-Bay, Bal­lito, Oax­aca sand points.

What’s your favorite meal?
Zen Yai Thai, Santa Bar­bara or a seafood feast of salmon, alba­core, abalone and dun­ge­ness crab.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
The Avett Broth­ers, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Bon­nie Prince Billy, Jason Molina, Songs: Ohia, Cat Power, Wilco, Gillian Welch, Sigur Ros, Neko Case, Lucinda Williams, Grant Lee Buf­falo, Pearl Jam, Ry Cooder, Lit­tle Wings, Joni Mitchell, Bjork, The Rolling Stones, Ali Farka Toure, Fela Kuti, The Descen­dents, The Smiths, U2, Feist, Emmy­lou Har­ris, Fleet Foxes, The Heart­less Bas­tards, Julie Doiran, Sun Kil Moon, Mum, Nico­lai Dunger, etc.

What are you most grate­ful for?
My health and friends and fam­ily, espe­cially my wife Teasha.

What’s next for Joe Cur­ren?
I’m going on a surf and snow­board trip to North­ern Japan and hope­fully a cou­ple book projects in the works will be released next year.

Find out more about Joe Cur­ren and his work here. Por­trait by Chris Orwig. All pho­tog­ra­phy is copy­righted and may not be used with­out permission.