It’s fair to say John Witzig chose the artist’s way. Now 80, he can reflect on a life filled with wonder and creative accomplishments.

By the time he became a co-founder of Tracks in 1970, John was already a visionary journalist, photographer and designer, capturing the spirit of a nascent, Australian surf culture. While David Elfick and Albe Falzon were there with him in the beginning, Witzig takes credit for the name Tracks, and its tagline: ‘Tracks — continuous line, series of marks, left by person, animal or thing in passing along’. The dictionary-ripped description of ‘Tracks’ reads like a quirky pointer to the nomadic tendencies of the surfers John ran with; an eclectic bunch of pioneers, innovators and eccentrics for whom there was still much to be revealed around the next headland.

As a consequence of his connections to surfing’s vanguard, John has arguably the best-documented archive of the shortboard revolution in Australia from the mid-1960s and 70s. His photographic series ‘Arcadia’ has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and is a timeless window into a period of Australian surf culture often dubbed a ‘Golden Age’. His pictures from this era were mostly of his friends, who also happened to be revolutionary surfers, such as Wayne Lynch, Bob McTavish, George Greenough and Nat Young.

This cast of trailblazers explored and discovered some of the best waves in Australia. Many found their own version of Arcadia and never came home. John also succumbed to his own sense of wanderlust, dragging his mother’s Beetle down innumerable dirt tracks to document new frontiers of the Australian coastline. Ultimately, John’s images embody a heady period of surf culture as it found its way into the towns and lives of people who fell under its spell. It’s a testament to the quality of ...