At thirty, Lachie McKinnon’s lived a pretty wild life. With a mum who worked as a media manager at surfing events and a father who commentated, he’s been around professional surfing all his life. So it was only natural when he picked up a camera and started filming what he was seeing at a young age. Since then he’s worked all over the world with some of surfing’s biggest companies, travelling constantly from one place to the next. When I caught up with him to get an insight into his nomadic lifestyle he was sitting in a café in Seminyak, thinking of heading to Java for the next big swell.
Give us the briefest possible rundown of your last ten years.
The best years of my life. A decade ago I was twenty and freelancing from job to job. I’d work the Quiksilver Pro at home, work for Rip Curl making web highlights of their CT events. I actually made a Tracks Does Bells cover-mount. I’d stay for three months in Hawaii and work for my greatest mentor, Mike Prickett, editing the Triple Crown highlights, learning as much as I could from him and studying his footage library. It was a busy year for a twenty-year-old but I’d been doing it a while and the next five years went pretty similar to that.
I’d just wait for the ASP schedule to come out and then try to hustle as many jobs as I could. I’d plan trips around those locations and get as close to the next location on the cheapest flight possible so they would hire me over the guy they had to fly from further away. I’d stay longer and surf, film or party until I had another job to go to whether it was an Oakley Pro Junior in Japan or an O’Neill Cold Water Classic in Cape Town. It was a pretty fun time and I was trying to be on the road as much as I could because the Gold Coast was just a giant trap for me at that time.
Over that period, I started taking more jobs with Oakley shooting their team and the World Junior series, and I ended up joining Oakley full-time to make the Dispatch Series and a movie at the end, which was such a great time. The gig came to an end though and my cameras got stolen at a party back on the Goldy and I hit rock bottom, had no jobs, no cameras and no money, so I did what any person should do and went surfing for two months. Mum ended up seeing a job on Facebook at Surfing Australia for a digital content assistant so I came in guns blazing for the job. The role developed into a digital content producer with the launch of mysurf.tv and I’ve been there three years now and couldn’t have asked for anything better.
How many passports have you been through in that time and where are some of the more unusual places you’ve travelled?
I’d say I’ve probably been through seven or eight. Most of my travel is pretty standard around events or commonly known regions for surf, but a tidal bore in the middle of the Sumatran jungle was pretty unusual.
Give us a pearl from your travels, something funny or weird or crazy that’s happened to you on the road?
The tidal bore in Sumatra was crazy. It was for the Seven Ghosts Rip Curl trip. The heat was ridiculous, two rubber-duckies popped from the heat, two jet skis broke down from the shit in the river, John Frank almost got ran over and killed by a crazy French guy, then on the last day we were waiting for the ‘Bono’ or tidal wave to come when the tide turns and our boat breaks down. This six-foot tidal wave starts coming down the river at us, Tom Curren has the GPS watch on to try and get the longest ride ever and jumps in to get the job done. I throw my camera in the pelican case and jump off the side of the rubber-duckie like it’s a trampoline and somehow clear the peak of this tidal bore. I end up maybe a 100 metres from the remaining crew with the boat and basically I start swimming towards them and the boat’s flipped upside down. I get about thirty metres from them when they decide to turn it over, as they turn it over James Hendy (Rip Curl Indo Manager) slides down to the back of the boat by accident and from my angle it looks like the prop just lands square on his head. I thought he was done, but I guess he got under at the last second and ended up just chopping a small part of his ear off. After that we’d pretty much had enough of the joint and got out of there asap.
As someone who’s had their focus literally fixed on high performance surfing for the last decade, you’re in a pretty good position to comment on the progression of the sport. What are some of the changes you’ve seen in the water in terms of performance and where’s it all heading?
It’s getting nuts. People are doing crazy shit constantly. But I think the kids these days who’ve grown up watching the likes of John John and Gabby and Felipe are just going to take it to a whole new level. Kids like Bronson Meidy from Lakey Peak who watch John John’s movie everyday just approach a wave differently. They hit steeper and shallower sections over dry reef where a kid when I was a grom would kick out. The combos on crazier waves, with bigger airs off bigger sections should be really fun to watch.
What’s the best surfing you’ve ever seen in person?
I watched the ‘85 Occy vs. Curren heat from my pram! I’ve been lucky to see so much great surfing and some that come to mind are Occy at Bells in 2006 when it was huge; Andy at the Pipe final in 2006 when he got that buzzer-beater over Slater; Slater at J-Bay in 2002 and 2006; and in more recent times, Jack Robinson at a solid swell in Teahupoo last year blew me away.
Who’s doing your favourite surfing right now and why?
It’s hard to go past John John. I think he’s everyone’s favourite right now. I just love the way he approaches sections, barrels and waves in general.
In terms of your own development, what avenues would you like to explore as a filmer in the future?
I’d be stoked if I could just continue to film surfing. This is what I love. I’m not really looking too far into the future; the now is way too much fun! I just want to swim and nail water clips of perfect barrels.
