Photographer, Russell Ord recently collaborated with Alex Workman to produce ‘Life Around The Sea’.  The premium quality tome showcases Russell’s expansive body of work, while Alex’s pithy vignettes provide welcome context to the places and characters, which give Australian surf culture its many shades of meaning. Below, Alex writes about his connection with Russell and the journey they embarked upon to capture ‘Life Around the Sea’•

I first met Russell Ord in his home town, Margaret River, during my early days at Tracks magazine. The world’s best surfers were heading to Western Australia for the next stop on the WSL Championship Tour, and I jumped at the chance to leave the office behind and cover the event. Tracks editor Luke Kennedy suggested Ord as a potential host. A phone call was made and without hesitation, Ordy agreed to put me up and show me around. I flew west knowing little about the region beyond snippets of surfing folklore – tales of Margaret River’s Hawaiian-like power, beauty, good wine, and great white sharks. I steered my rental car down a gravel driveway to a house straight out of a Tim Winton novel: a hardwood timber home on stilts, nestled among towering eucalyptus trees, with panoramic views of the hinterland. A Jet Ski in the driveway confirmed I was at the right place as a chorus of kookaburras announced my arrival. After meeting Russell’s wife, Catherine, and their three children – Kalani, Tavian, and Ayla – I set off to explore the coastline. I bounced the rental car down a dirt road until I met the horizon, taking in the vista of the Indian Ocean, its cobalt blue water the most striking I’d ever seen. It was exhilarating to explore a new coastline, and with no one around, I felt like I …

To be honest, I didn’t really want to be there, but you can’t say no to a heartfelt request from the biggest-hearted of all Big Kahunas, and in recent times, when Jack McCoy said, “Jump!” all I could ask was, “How high?” So I was at Nambour for the last picture show.

Jack and I have been helping each other out in different ways for 50 years or more, probably since he pulled up on his bike at my losmen in Kuta Beach in 1975, interrupting my banana and tea breakfast by hollering, “Man, have I got a scoop for you!”

I was the new editor of Tracks, and Jack and Dick Hoole, his partner in Propeller Productions, were our Bali correspondents, among other things. The scoop, it was soon revealed, was that Jack had secured an exclusive interview with the legendary Miki Dora. Several of us in the small posse of surfers who frequented dry-season Bali in those halcyon days knew that Dora was in town – I’d spied him lurking in the lineup at Kuta Reef just a couple of days before – but Dora talk? Yeah, nah.

However, after only a year and a bit of our acquaintance I already knew the persuasive power of Big Jack, so I grabbed my tape recorder and jumped on the back of his bike, bound for the Legian Beach Hotel.

It didn’t happen. Dora flat out refused to do an on-record interview or be photographed, but we lounged around in his room while he held court from his bed for more than an hour, all off the record, of course, but very entertaining. When we’d done I got Jack to drop me at the cane juice bar in Kuta where I took a corner table and wrote down everything I …

Colin MacLeod drags himself up the rocks onto the remote beach on the Nullarbor coast. He collapses into the sand, and he starts to cry. There is no one within two days’ drive to comfort him. He is alone and almost ready to give up on life and surfing, as intertwined as the two are for him.

At 34 years old, Col has given everything to surfing, and surfing is no longer giving anything back. This last session proved it. He’d hurled himself over the ledge of a wave he’d spent years trying to find, only to hit the reef, collide with his board, fall on take-offs, and get hammered by the lip. Adding to his terror and frustration was the sight of a giant stingray floating through the lineup with its wing bitten off.

Trying to come in over the reef, Col deliberately hurled himself face-first into the limestone. For so long, surfing had been his salvation – his answer to work problems, heartbreaks, and family struggles – but now it was just another addition to those frustrations.

Colin enjoying the ultimate friction-free drop on a north-west-Oz freight train. Photo: Scott.

“I remember in that moment thinking, ‘whatever, just brain me’. Just everything I had been going through: the difficulty of trying to fit in, finding this thing I thought was the answer, but hitting my limits with it. It was super emotional, man. I realised, I’m not f***ing good enough. I just wondered what the point of all this suffering was,” he says.

“I packed the car and drove all the way to Perth. The whole way, I was thinking about surfing and what I loved about it. It was the progression. I needed progression, to get better at something and keep learning. And I realised I had …

Behind the Cover: Jake Steel by Nick Green

I was under the knife getting my hip replaced almost 24 hours to the hour after this photo was taken. I’d been running a hip that had been slowly rotting away for a few years and it was finally time for it to be replaced… but this particular patch of reef doesn’t break often, so as soon as I saw the forecast the day before surgery, I knew I wanted to get amongst it – one last swim in some juice for a little while. The surfer is 24-year-old, Tassie underground local/charger, Jake Steele. He grew up mainly riding paddle boards and foils, surfing as a hobby until the last few years. The natural pull of Tasmanian big wave chasing eventually lured him in. He copped a two-wave hold down after this wave and to be honest I’m surprised I didn’t see him in the hospital alongside me the next day. That boil coming back towards him, underneath it lies a massive granite slab of rock that’s broken bones before.

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I met John Collins when I was working behind a coffee machine in Frankston, Victoria. We quickly got chatting about surfing and photography. One day, he was just another regular; the next, he was like family, joining me on my 5 am beach walks with my newborn. During those walks, I learned about his life in surfing, his deep connection to the ocean, and his stint as Contest Director of the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach in the 80s and early 90s. He ran the show at a time when professional surfing was evolving into something bigger, riskier, and more chaotic than ever before. During his tenure, John had to make decisions about everything from relocating the contest for the first time to awarding the prestigious trophy to a hospital-bound finalist.      

On John Collins’ 68th birthday, I interviewed him about his formative surfing years and the role he played in shaping the folklore of Bells.

John Collins is no longer submerged in the heady world of professional surfing, but he still likes to get in the water.

What got you into surfing? 

“My cousin, Greg McConville, got me into it originally. He grew up in Frankston and discovered surfing through his neighbour, Danny, one of the early surfers on the Mornington Peninsula. Greg convinced me to surf Port Phillip Bay with him when we were about 10 or 11 years old. It wasn’t exactly a surfer’s paradise –more like windblown chop – but it was what we had. Pretty soon, my mates and I – known as the Davey’s Bay boys – were spending freezing winter afternoons working with whatever small wind swells rolled through.

The real turning point came in the summer of 1969. My uncle and godfather, also named John Collins, was a commando in World War …

Julian Wilson is sitting in the yard of his home in Whitebridge, just south of Newcastle. The night before he’d driven eight hours back from Burleigh with his three kids in the back seat and a monumental contest in the rear-view mirror. As we speak, Julian tells me he’s perched in exactly the same spot he was when I’d spoken to him a month earlier about his decision to return to the competitive fold. In the first interview he’d quietly dropped the fact he’d been given a wildcard into the trials of the Gold Coast Pro. Of course the world looks and feels a little different for Jules as we talk for the second time around. “It’s a bit surreal to think that all this has transpired since we last spoke,” he offers… It’s come a long way in 10 days.”

***

During his hiatus from major competition, Julian Wilson didn’t put a handbrake on his surfing. He was living in Newcastle, where his wife Ashley is originally from. Newy is a rusted-on surf town with a rich history, vibrant daily scene and plethora of nearby waves to ride. Mark Richards still lives across the road from the beach at Merewether, Ryan Callinan is a regular in the water when he’s home, as is Jacko Baker. Morgan Cibilic surfs for the Merewether club, and a flock of other locals surf with A-grade polish and flair. Matt Hoy continues to lay down deep furrows and you might find Craig Anderson hunting ramps on an inconspicuous onshore peak; his sister Phillipa prepping for a comp down the beach. Meanwhile, Julian’s good mate, Rhys Smith is a local surf industry baron and each year Rhys’s dad, Warren, runs the Newcastle Surfest, the most core surfing contest in the world. In Newcastle, there are …

Growing up in Tasmania, Nick Green didn’t always dream of being a surf photographer. His first love was soccer. Nick’s skills with a ball took him all the way to the Institute of Sport before he grew disenchanted with an elite sporting culture that sucked the joy out of it all. Shooting pictures helped fill the void when he quit shooting goals.

Nick discovered early that he preferred to see things through a black and white lens. It gives his work a certain gravitas, drawing you towards the lines and curves of the subject matter, highlighting the nuances of movement for surfer and ocean alike. In 2019 a collection of Nick’s black and white imagery earned him Surfer Magazine’s, Follow the Light award. More recently he won the 2025 Surfing Australia, Surf Photo of the Year. He’ll take the accolades but telling a story with his images and authentically representing the moment is what he’s really striving for.

Below Nick talks openly about growing up in Tasmania, the relationship between photography and his mental space, and how he navigates towards subject matter that keeps him stimulated.

Hollow silk.

What was your childhood like growing up In Tasmania?

I grew up 15 minutes south of Hobart, in a little coastal suburb called Blackmans Bay, unfortunately Bruny Island blocks swell from coming up the Derwent river so we only got ’surf’ a few times a year and it was mostly just a shorebreak beachie with a few novelty set-ups. So surfing wasn’t really on my radar until a bit later. Once I got my license, I started doing laps of the whole state exploring.

Thumbs up from Creed McTaggart.

Any defining moments that kind of changed your trajectory?

In 2019, I was awarded the Follow the Light Award, recognising ‘the best surf …

Surfer: Occy. Photo: Kane Brown.

Occy is 58 . That means we’ve been watching him pull this turn for over 40 years. It’s been that long since a stocky, Italian kid from Kurnell put surfers under a spell with his highly original approach to riding waves. Back then it seemed like no other surfer bent their limbs and torso through a turn quite like Occy and no one ever really has since. His distinctive blend of power and style is beyond imitation. It’s improv’ Jazz music with a stadium sound system. Play it different, play it loud, but make it sound good. You can’t clone Occy, he’s just too unique. Occy reminds us that self-expression still matters and that technically precise surfing can still accommodate artistic flair. It’s when those two elements intersect that the magic really happens. No, you can’t copy Occy, but you can certainly take inspiration from him.

Surfer: Xavier Stark. Photo: Dean Wilmot.

For surfers and photographers alike, Cape Solander is one of those bucket-list waves. Although it has been ridden and shot prolifically over the last two decades its potent mix of ledging take-offs, hollow girth and writhing lips make it an addictive prospect for all relevant parties.

A fruitful, Easter pulse saw Nathan Florence get his first taste of Solander’s near shore thrills – a mandatory inclusion on his global slab tour. It was also the maiden outing at ‘Ours’ for photographer Dean Wilmot, who has resumed his post behind the lens after an extended hiatus. Although he boasts dozens of magazine covers from a water angle, Dean figured discretion was the better part of valour on this occasion. “Easter Friday was huge and messy and had the devil SW wind – besides the life-threatening swim to get in with a camera and fins, …

Having a parent who works in a surfboard factory is like being a kid in a sweet shop with pocket money to spend. The possibilities feel endless, and you can sample whatever flavours you fancy. For Lilliana Bowrey, the rideable palette spans across longboards, twinnies, quads and thrusters. She attributes the diversity of her quiver to the influence of her father Jake Bowrey, who, alongside Thomas Bexon, started Thomas Surfboards when Lilliana was five-years-old. Over the last 15 years the Noosa-based board builders have earned a rep for producing a range of longboards and alternative craft, which strive to intersect the ideals of aesthetics and performance.

“If it wasn’t for Dad, then I wouldn’t be the surfer I am today,” professes Liliana Bowrey, who is talking to us over the phone in the wake of a full-tilt run at Kirra during cyclone Alfred. 

“Because of him, I’ve grown up around so many boards and it gave me the chance to ride different shapes, sizes and fin set-ups. While it’s hard to teach style, I believe the more time you spend experimenting with various boards, the more influence it has on how you want to ride a wave.”

While TV and film offers have come her way, Lilliana’s first love is the aquatic stage. Photo: Matissek.

It’s apparent that Lilliana’s desire to try new things has had a positive impact on her approach. She glides freely on longboards, charges forehand tubes on quads or twinnies and can flare up on a traditional thruster. It’s a dynamic skill set and although dozens of male surfers have cultivated careers around their disparate board tastes, Lilliana is one of the few women to really embrace the ‘ride everything’ approach.  A specific kind of plasticity of body and mind is required to dance and weave …

The thruster looked like revolution. Sounded like revolution. Threw fire around with a ‘fuck you’ kind of third fin. It was Curren on Black Beauty, Occy on Rusty ‘84, Tom Carroll on Byrnes, Kong on ‘Hot Stuff’. It arrived in the early 1980s, under the arm of a beer-loving natural-footer from Narrabeen and was embraced by neon, tank-topped alpha types with habits for car park punch-ups and cocaine.

By 2020, it was high time for the pot to get stirred again in the way that we ride surfboards. The world had changed enough so that the craft would have to follow suit in some way. We braced for stronger, faster, sharper — a new weapon to stake its claim. But what we got was an egg. A round, smooth, perfectly medium-sized elongated gumdrop that, if it could speak, would sound more like Mr. Rogers than it would Miki Dora. The egg, now referred to as the mid length, smiles at you whether or not you smile back, and it wouldn’t be a true revolution if that didn’t piss a bunch of people off. You either love them or hate them.

Shortboard purists will say that mid lengths are for out-of-shape or delusional surfers who take all the set waves and believe they’re ripping. This is true for some. The pandemic saw an influx of adult learners skipping the necessary rites of passage, paddling into the lineup with more foam than skill.

But this sub-group of people would not have a powerful enough influence on surfing to create and sustain a legitimate movement as enduring as this one has been. There’s a reason why there has never been a Wavestorm revolution. The mid length is subtle. It doesn’t ask that we pay attention to it, but we should at least take …