As the CT prepares to descend on Bells once again at the start of the upcoming Easter weekend, one man who will be on hand to capture the action is iconic Victoria photographer Steve Ryan, whose countless hours shooting on the surf coast over the past few decades has given him regular access to the world’s best surfers.
We thought this was the perfect time to reshare a piece from Issue 591 of our mag which takes a deep dive into Stevie’s archives.
In this feature you’ll learn more about the photographers early beginnings, as well as some of his classic moments and encounters along the Victorian coast with household names such as Kelly Slater and Shane Dorian. Check it out below.
Speaking from his cosy home in a Jan Juc culderasc, just down the road from Bells, Stephen Ryan recalls being a seventeen- year-old apprentice printer, working in the gritty inner-city fringes of Melbourne, in the early 70s. His fingers were permanently ink-stained and typically the only lines stacked in front of him were on something mind-numbing like a bundle of blank withdrawal forms. “I used to get a sore cheekbone from leaning on the machine watching the sheets and double-checking,” explains Steve. “It was really boring sort of stuff… I was just day dreaming about surfing the whole time, I was hooked.”
Born in Bendigo, Steve moved to Melbourne with his mum and five siblings when he was seven. Exposure to Victoria’s rapidly evolving surf scene came courtesy of his girlfriend’s mother and friends’ parents who were happy to make the drive out to the east or west coast.
For a kid from a single-parent home in Footscray, the first sight of Winki Pop on a good day was some kind of wonderful. “It was low tide and it was about four-five foot flawless. When I looked at it, I was just going ‘Wow’. There were no stairs and I remember you had to slide down the hill from bush to bush in those days, down over this little cave and then across the rocks… it was low tide and I remember looking at all the weeds on the reef and the waves are just peeling down. I couldn’t believe it. I fell in love.”
With the printing apprenticeship completed, Steve moved down to the Torquay coast and ran with a crew who danced to the beat of southern ocean swells. They were more bohemian times and if Bells and Winki weren’t on, they’d roam the Victorian coast, snuffing out its broken water mysteries and camping out. “Back then we used to light a fire in a beachside clearing, jerry-rig a home speaker to the car’s cassette player and listen to Steely Dan and Neil Young.” Somewhere along the way Steve picked up a camera. It began as a hobby; the lens frequently pointed at his eclectic group of friends in an instinctive attempt to capture the halcyon days of their surfing youth.
Eventually Steve met a Torquay girl, who was working the register at Walker’s local supermarket. Steve and Michele were a working team from early on in the relationship and after a stint running the Torquay golf club kitchen together they took on the lease for a Jan Juc milk bar, renamed it, and set about making “The Bird Rock Café’ a local institution. The venue catered for coast-hugging regulars and hungry surfers looking to refuel between frigid sessions. From the café you could stroll across the road, stand on top of the imperious sandstone cliffs and watch the tail end of the Winki Pop lines bend around the coast, tapering towards three or four of the less celebrated spots just below. Proximity to quality waves was certainly a fringe benefit. If the swell was on Steve could always duck out to take photos of Bells and Winki and he’s quick to show his gratitude to Michele for indulging his more capricious approach to café ownership. “She always was a good worker and could easily handle the café on her own if I nipped out.”
If Michele was the kitchen maestro, the café became the unlikely launchpad for Steve’s career in surf photography and a flourish of mid-80s-style self-marketing was the catalyst. Steve would showcase his best photographic work on the café walls. “I even used to spray them with a laquer because we had chips and burgers and all that greasy kind of stuff,” chuckles Steve, who’d sell the odd image off the wall to complement the burger sales.
It was a slow-burn transition into surf photography, but there was always a steady stream of good surfers to shoot. The pros would descend every Easter for the annual Rip Curl Bells contest and a clutch of dedicated locals had the whole coast dialed. Steve is conscious he may have missed important names but suggests the likes of Mick and Tony Ray, Mark Phipps, Greg Brown, Glen Casey, Andrew Flitton and Andrew Egan were all major players in the 80s and 90s scene, while Wayne Lynch was still the proverbial snow leopard of Victorian surfing. “He was around but was pretty elusive,” insists Steve.
The surf magazines were also in full stride and eventually one of the photo editors wandered into the Bird Rock Café and asked Steve if he wanted to start submitting images. He was more than happy to oblige and so began a long-standing relationship with the surf media. “The first shot I remember being run that I was happy with was of a goofy-footer, Brian Curry,” indicates Steve. “Just a good bottom-turn on six-foot day at Winki Pop.” Pre 2000, publication like Tracks were still in black and white, so it didn’t matter if you shot Winkipop on a cloudy day. So long as those steel-cut lines cut across an image with hypnotic definition the shot could run in the mag. Eventually Steve and Michele sold the café. The long winters were pretty quiet compared to current times, and they figured they could do better out of catering gigs and Steve’s photos. Meanwhile, they fell hard for the rugged, untamed coast of Victoria’s western districts they’d spent their youth roaming. Steve loved to surf the lonely beachbreaks in the region and they purchased a plot of land in Port Campbell, eventually relocating an old soldier-settler’s house onto the empty block. However, as they raised their two, young kids, Mathew and Ali, the Jan Juc home in Torquay remained their base. Torquay may have maintained the veneer of a sleepy, surf village, but it was still the engine room for a global surf industry. Living around the corner from Rip Curl and Quiksilver’s head quarters ensured Steve also got tossed the occasional industry assignment. For a number of years Michele and Steve were the ultimate double act at the Rip Curl Pro Bells contest. Michele would handle the catering for event staff or a corporate grandstand, while Steve captured the contest action. “We were busy,” insists Steve. “I’d be carrying crates of food out to Bells in the morning and then shooting the contest all day. Mind you, the other photographers used to get pretty jealous when Michele would walk down the stairs and hand-deliver a plate loaded with good food.”
The defining, early career moment for Steve came on a blue-sky day in 1991. It was mid-way through the Bells event and several of the surfers who didn’t have heats took one glance at the small swell and bolted down the coast. As luck would have it, Steve was already at his second home and got the tip off that a car-full of celebrated pros were making a cannon- ball run for a big, offshore right that had a rep’ for snatching thick southern ocean swells and bending them into reeling, fifteen-foot barrels. Steve had never shot the wave before but by the time he had his Nikon 600ml lens set up on the cliffs, Martin Potter was tossing him his keys to mind and paddling out alongside Derek Ho, Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones into a 12-15 foot lineup with the odd 20 foot set.
“It was unexpected,” reflects Steve. “I was the only photographer there and yeah, it was big and there were world champions out there.” Steve’s images revealed sun- dappled, ruler-edged giants that roared down the line, the allure of perfection goading would-be challengers into a drag race with a lip that savagely conveyed the full force of the southern ocean.
It was certainly no playground for exuberant amateurs but the images proved Australia could lay claim to a wave that might rival Maui’s Honolua Bay or Kauai’s Hanalei Bay for big-wave quality. In an era long before the Instagram spoilers reduced the genuinely epic to an underwhelming match-box-size scroll, Steve’s shots of Victoria’s big wave jewel received top billing in surf mags in Australia and abroad. Despite the seren- dipitous sequence of events that gave Steve his pay dirt moment, he still has a few regrets. “When Martin Potter and Derek Ho came out of the water, I still had their keys and they wanted to go and surf another wave, so I tagged along. But the big right was sunny and pumping all day. I probably should never have left. I would have got heaps more shots.”
Getting the Jump on Kelly
Back in 2003, Kelly Slater was making his return to professional surfing, goaded back to the competitive arena by the wrecking-ball impact of Andy Irons. Despite the all-consuming rivalry with Andy, Kelly was still hungry for free- surfing diversions. In the lead up to Bells, he was exploring the waves on Victoria’s southwest coast with filmers Chris Bryan and Tim Bonython. Steve had spent half a lifetime roaming the region and was happy to tag along, driving down muddy tracks and scaling cliffs with Kelly to shoot him surf. However, by the time the Rip Curl Pro kicked off, one softly whispered wave still had Kelly intrigued. When the contest relocated to Johanna, Kelly and Shane Dorian reached out to Steve again, and professed their desire to surf the mysto left slab that was known to break like a kind of scar-faced Teahupo’o. Kelly had done his homework and knew Steve had a place down the coast. When he asked if he and Shane could stay there overnight and check the left the following morning, Steve was obliging but hastily explained that it wasn’t exactly The Hilton. “He said, ‘Don’t worry Steve, I’ve slept on floors all around the world’.” Steve vividly recalls the inauspicious drive back from the contest with Kelly and Shane in tow that night. “The hills were ablaze because they were back-burning. Then I almost hit a big kangaroo that leapt out in front of me and Kelly was driving so close he almost rear-ended me when I hit the brakes.”
En route to Steve’s place, they stopped off at Port Campbell where Kelly shouted dinner at Nico’s, a regulation pizza joint. While they ate, Kelly made it apparent Bells was far from his favourite wave. Steve tried to highlight the wave’s virtues but Kelly wasn’t buying it. Steve drops into a classic Kelly take-off as he recreates the conversation. “I remember him saying, ‘Come on Steve, you know it never gets any good’.”
Overnight, Kelly received the news that he was in the first heat at Johanna and unfortunately this put the kibosh on plans to surf the heavy left. The next morning a low fog hung over the bush as Kelly raced off with Shane riding shotgun. Mean- while, Steve went to check the left slab. “It was pumping,” he says with conviction. “About eight foot and just sheet glass with spitting barrels.”
About fifteen minutes after Kelly and Shane had left, Steve pulled up to the austere corner shop at nearby Laver’s Hill. There he found his two, overnight house- guests looking rattled as they stood over a small Nissan 4wd with the bonnet caved in and the headlights bent sideways. “It was just smashed,” explains Steve. They explained that shortly after leaving Steve’s place Kelly had collided with a kangaroo. Steve laughs as he recalls Dorian’s wide- eyed response when he asked him about what exactly transpired. “He said, ‘I don’t know Steve, I just saw this big blur go over the windscreen’.” Dressed in his fir- trimmed jacket (probably faux-fur) and shorts, Kelly was good enough to pose for a photo with his beaten up ride. In the background you can see the fog hovering low over the setting. Well aware that Kelly was still rattled by the Kangaroo incident, Steve declined to tell him the left was all-time. “I didn’t want to get in his head before he surfed a heat,” explains Steve.
It was an old-school shop that didn’t take cards so Kelly asked Steve if he could borrow ten bucks to get some breakfast. “When he came back from inside the shop I remember he tried to give me the change and I waved it away,” recalls Steve. The car was still driveable so Shane and Kelly then headed to Johanna with a story to tell the rest of the tour surfers. As it transpired the contest was put on hold because the low-lying mist had obscured the lineup. With the delay, Kelly would have had time to pit his skills against the mysto left, but by the time Steve reached Johanna the sting had gone out of the quest. “It was a missed opportunity,” laments Steve who at least has the story to recount and the fabled photo of Kelly and the car.
In the end Kelly got knocked out, Andy went on to ring the Bell at Johanna (and win the world title) and no one ever found out what happened to the Kangaroo that got the jump on Kelly.
Having a fixed address down the coast gave Steve more opportunity to explore the potential of its myriad swell-exposed reefs and coves. Back in the mid 70s he and his friends had stumbled across a fearsome left at the base of a long, hill descent. “A guy we nicknamed gnome wanted to surf it,” explains Steve. “But we talked him out of it because we were scared he’d get hurt and we’d have to carry him all the way up the hill.” By the time Steve had his place down the coast, over a decade later, a crew of brazen body- boarders were regularly surfing the wave, which offers a marginal entry point before it folds southern ocean juice into liquid cement. As the ‘slab’ sub-genre exploded more surfers showed up to have a shot at the near-impossible wave that sometimes resembles Teahupo’os ugly Oz cousin’. According to Steve, Jason Polakow was an early up-taker, and ‘did really well out there’. Steve was also on hand when noted tube aficionado Anthony Walsh successfully paddled the beastly left. Then in 2003 Kelly Slater and Shane Dorian reached out to Steve about the wave and became involved in an infamously ill- fated quest to ride it. (See full story with photo over)
These days Steve still loves the occasional dash down the coast, but you’re more likely to find him elbow-deep in his Jan Juc back garden pulling up the spuds he’s planted, or snatching peaches off the trees before the resident rosellas beat him to it. From the yard he can still keep an eye on the weather, waiting for that moment when all the elements align for the beguiling Bells or Winkipop shot he’s chasing. “I never used to concentrate on all that the scenic stuff as much because there was a lot of other stuff going on, but I’m much better at it now.” Although Steve and others have shot Bells prolifically he still sees scope for improvement. “I can always get a better lineup shot,” he insists. Quizzed about the coalescence of variables required to produce the ideal moment at Bells, Steve ponders for a moment before responding. “A south swell, at about 8-to- 10 foot – super straight – that’s what I’d like. If you got it on sunset or sunrise with some colour in the sky that would be epic. And no guys dropping in on each other. That’s one of the things that mucks up photos.”
The ink-stained teen that surf-dreamed through his apprenticeship has also gone full circle back to printing, although the present-day subject matter is far more engaging than the reams of forms he once churned out in a Collingwood bunker. Steve has two professional-standard, Epson 9900 Stylus Pro printers in the garage and can produce an array of archival standard prints on a grand scale. Classic examples of his own work stretch boldly across the walls of Steve’s home, showcasing his versatility the pastel pyrotechnics of a Jan Juc sunset, roaring Bells in moody black and white and the sentinel twelve apostles drenched in brilliant, lemon light. Steve sells prints via his website and at local flea markets; even hangs a few at a local café, just like he did back at The Bird Rock Café. Now in his late sixties, it’s been a long journey from Bendigo to Bells but it seems he’s finally found his niche. “I really love printing photos and I love printing other people’s photos too,” he enthuses. “Especially artworks and all sorts of pretty things. I like it. I really like it.”
