Daniel Costa

Daniel Costa is a surfer/shaper/photographer from Por­tu­gal who is the cre­ator of the pop­u­lar blog Retro Move­ment. Inter­ested in keep­ing tra­di­tional board rid­ing alive, Daniel doc­u­ments the surf­ing lifestyle through images, texts, and board build­ing. We caught up with Daniel to learn more.

What was life like grow­ing up in Por­tu­gal?
It was okay, but when I was young Por­tu­gal had just come up from a civil rev­o­lu­tion that for ages closed the coun­try to the world. I guess that kept us a bit behind the rest. When I was around 16, things started to change. I was lucky in some ways because I grew up on a farm instead of a city, so I had a pretty good childhood—always liked to be out­side doing my things. I was stoked on learn­ing and would do any­thing like build my own toys or do some agri­cul­ture to get some money cause my fam­ily was just a sim­ple coun­try­side one. I always felt that some­thing could be bet­ter than that. For some rea­son, I think I always knew that I was dif­fer­ent from all my friends where I grew up.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were young?
I don’t think there was any­one who I admired, to be hon­est, until I found surf­ing at age 15. I was on hol­i­days, and saw Surf­ing mag­a­zine for the first time cov­er­ing an inter­view with Dar­rick Doerner, with really impres­sive images in black and white of Waimea. And that was it. That was the chang­ing point to me. Then, I would say my heroes were guys like Tom Cur­ren, Gerry Lopez and Tom Car­roll with his famous snap in the curl of Pipe. Now, the ones I most like to watch glid­ing is Skip Frye, Terry Fitzger­ald and Derek Hynd.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
I remem­ber I felt some­thing like I never had felt. I still remem­ber arriv­ing at the beach to learn surf­ing. It was win­ter­time and I didn’t have a wet­suit. I’d been work­ing all sum­mer, but it was only enough to buy the board; the wet­suit had to wait another sum­mer, but it didn’t mat­ter. I never felt the cold; I was com­pletely stoked. For the first time, I was feel­ing really alive. It was like I had just been awak­ened from a long, long sleep. I still remem­ber like if it was today.

Where did you inter­est in art and design come from?
With shap­ing, I was pushed by my best friend. His words to me were, “Hey, man, you are really good work­ing with your hands. You really have to try shap­ing a board.” At that time, we were together all the time because we were run­ning a surf club in the town we lived, so he really pushed me into it. The pho­tog­ra­phy? It’s an old pas­sion that I have never had a chance to go for­ward with because of the money issue. Then, when the dig­i­tal was cheap enough, I bought my first Nikon and it has been my escape ever since. Now, I have a cou­ple of old Nikons and I really love to shoot film.

Now, with the stu­pid crowds in the line­ups, most of the time I just go away inland to stay alone, away from all the crap surf scene that is out there nowa­days. I just stay cool, look­ing for some­thing to shoot. Now I only like to surf when there’s no one out. I don’t have the pas­sion to be in the water with a bunch of jerks.

Tell us about Retro Move­ment.
It’s was sup­posed to be a project around my surf­boards, mostly about lifestyle—the lifestyle we had the first years I started surf­ing back in the 90’s, when surfers were a dif­fer­ent kind of peo­ple from the man in the streets. I still have in mind a cou­ple of ideas (like start­ing some cloth­ing using my pho­tog­ra­phy).
I have another thing start­ing to hap­pen next autumn. “The Retro Expe­ri­ence” basi­cally brings together peo­ple that want to surf relaxed on cool waves with­out the crap around. We’ll give them the oppor­tu­nity of rid­ing all kinds of dif­fer­ent boards—all real surf­boards built by me and not those plas­tics things. We will have long­boards, clas­sic noserid­ers, twins, sin­gles, quads, etc.
I still have a cou­ple more things I would like to do. I espe­cially want to try to give back some­thing to the sport that made me what I am today.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out? And why?
The East Coast of Aus­tralia. It’s a won­der­ful place to spend a cou­ple of months. There are incred­i­ble places with long point­breaks away from the crowds—just per­fect for long­board­ing. The peo­ple are great and their relaxed lifestyle is really a good vibe to feel and share. Also, I’ve made great friends there and met one of the kind­est men on earth—Alan Crosky. He gave us shel­ter for two months on his place, and shared with me plenty of sto­ries and knowledge.

Who or what inspires you?
In the shap­ing, I need to have the feel­ing. For exam­ple, let’s say I have a nice noserider on order. I will not start shap­ing till I feel like it. Nor­mally, it comes after a good ses­sion in the water. When wait­ing for the waves, I’m think­ing on the last wave and the board I’m using, and it’s gonna start devel­op­ing in my head the idea of the next board. If I view in my brain the board I want, then I leave the water and go straight to the shap­ing bay. This is how I like to do it. Some­times my cus­tomers have to be patient, but I’m lucky; they already know how I work and they are quite happy with this idea because 90% of my cus­tomers know really well what they want. They don’t want a crappy board made in China.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
That life isn’t about acquir­ing wealth and a big house with the garage full of Fer­raris and Mer­cedes. Life is about joy and shar­ing with the ones you love. It’s about sim­ple things—like rid­ing a wave with your mates, putting your child to sleep and feel­ing the uncon­di­tional love from her, meet­ing a nice human being …so rare these days now. I am lucky and found great friends all over the place. That what counts and that’s what I’m try­ing to teach my daughter.

What are you most proud of?
Search­ing for my goals. Every­body said that I was crazy giv­ing up the best engi­neer­ing degree to work on boats to watch the ocean and get money to go away and see the world. The first year peo­ple from Por­tu­gal were able to visit Indone­sia, I straight away get the flight. Then, I went to Aus­tralia to live there for six months and came back with the cer­tainty I would never work from 9 to 5 again. In a week back at my par­ents, I was done. I bought a car­a­van, asked the guy to drive to a camp­ing area on the south­west coast of Por­tu­gal and, for the next seven years, that was my home. I was on top of the world, had achieved what I thought was impossible.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
When I saw those images of Dar­rick Doerner at Waimea, I thought to myself that it could change my life. So, I started to search for more infor­ma­tion about the surf­ing world. I found what I was look­ing for: a goal, friend­ship, com­plic­ity among mem­bers of a totally dif­fer­ent tribe from the man on the street.
From an “A” stu­dent with the nor­mal goal to achieve wealth, I changed to a sim­ple guy just try­ing to surf as much as I can and totally absorbed by the surf­ing cul­ture. Even­tu­ally I quit col­lege. My par­ents freaked out. I started to be seen as the black sheep of the fam­ily, but didn’t care.

Nowa­days, I can live and be happy with what I get instead of search­ing for a big­ger house and a bet­ter car than my neigh­bor. I ful­filled most of my dreams and have had my work rec­og­nized by peo­ple who know what they are say­ing. Next May I will be exhibit­ing my pho­tos in Japan at the Green­room Fes­ti­val. I’m stoked and com­fort­able with what I’ve got.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Every day, I wake up my daugh­ter to take her to school and she’s always happy like if it was the best day of her life. That’s the ulti­mate hap­pi­ness. No mat­ter how long the tube rides or hang tens you’ll do, noth­ing com­pares to the smile of my daugh­ter Zoe.
Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
There’s a lot of new guys out there. But, to be hon­est, I still believe that “the mas­ters” are still the mas­ters. To me, Don­ald Takayama and Skip Frye are the best ever.

What is your favorite board? Your favorite surf spot?
Hmmmm, it’s dif­fi­cult to say just one. Nowa­days, any­thing that noserides well and I’m stoked. I also would say my first pig; I drew the tem­plate on my board bag from what Alex Knost was rid­ing in the Sali­nas Long­board Fes­ti­val. It’s based on the Velzy Pig and I just loved it.

My favorite surf spot would have to be the place I used to live in my car­a­van. I got there the best waves, and the biggest too, of my life with no one or just with friends.

What’s your favorite meal?
Seafood with friends and family—that’s the best. I have some friends that are fish­er­man, so some­times the great meals are at my place.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
I’m always chang­ing, but some things are always there: Ben Harper, Pearl Jam, AC/DC, TSOL and the Lit­mus soundtrack.

What causes, projects, orga­ni­za­tions do you sup­port?
Right now, I’m a bit dis­ap­pointed with orga­ni­za­tions in gen­eral. I think they are run for the wrong rea­sons. On top of that, I have so many things going on in my life that I have no space to sup­port anything.

What are you most grate­ful for?
I’m grate­ful for find­ing surf­ing back in the 90’s. I could feel and try the lifestyle, the cul­ture, the stoke of meet­ing another surfer, surf­ing another wave. Peo­ple who learn to surf today don’t have a clue what surf is. Also, I’m grate­ful for my friends I have that I known I can count on no mat­ter what. I’m also grate­ful for my skills; I’m the worst sales­man, but, on the other hand, I’m able to build what­ever I want to.

What’s next for Dan Costa?
Good ques­tion. I ask the same ques­tion to myself over and over again. I want to take even fur­ther my surf­boards. I’ve accom­plished so much more than I was expect­ing, but now I know that it can be bet­ter. I want to take for­ward the Retro Move­ment project, my pho­tog­ra­phy and, most impor­tant, be 200% present in my daughter’s life, giv­ing her the tools to be a great human being. Pay my mort­gage… that’s impor­tant too. If pos­si­ble, next year I would like to go to Cal­i­for­nia, but I would need a great summer!!!!

Find out more about Daniel Costa and Retro Move­ment here.