A Big-Wave Photographer Faces Frigid Water, Sharks and Currents to Get the Shot

When a run of huge winter swell is forecast at Mavericks, the enduring big-wave surf break 25 miles south of San Francisco, Sachi Cunningham is often up within the pre-dawn darkness, pulling on her moist swimsuit and readying her digital camera gear.

Cunningham, an ocean photographer, is at Pillar Level Harbor in Half Moon Bay by the point the primary gentle hits. The nervous power is palpable as jet skis and small boats rumble to life, and surfers and their groups experience out to the break, a half-mile offshore. Cunningham is aware of all of the faces; she’ll usually hitch a experience out with the big-wave surfer Bianca Valenti, whom she has been photographing for a decade.

One after the other, the surfers drop into the frigid water with their surfboards. Cunningham follows them and swims round within the lineup. So fluid are her actions — even whereas holding a 20-pound waterproof digital camera — that she’s earned the nickname Seal Pup, bestowed by her buddy Lance Harriman, a longtime native surfer.

To grasp the challenges of the work, think about swimming round in a cosmic washer stuffed with mortal hazards: icy water, sharks, currents, quite a few our bodies on 10-foot surfboards jockeying to catch waves that may develop as much as 50 ft. As surfers take off on the peak of the wave, Cunningham waits and watches across the affect zone, holding on lengthy sufficient to get the shot and conscious of the quickly closing window she has to swim down deep and quick sufficient to flee the lots of of tons of water falling on her head. She is commonly the one photographer swimming within the water at Mavericks, feminine or not.

“You don’t wish to get the identical photographs as everybody else on the boat,” Cunningham mentioned. “That’s why I swim — or one of many causes, anyway.”

Since 2014, she has been engaged on a documentary movie in regards to the big-wave surfers Valenti, Keala Kennelly, Andrea Möller, and Paige Alms and their combat for fairness within the sport. We spoke lately in regards to the obstacles that stay for girls within the lineup, even for Cunningham as a veteran photographer and filmmaker overlaying these athletes.

This dialog has been edited frivolously for readability and size.

How did you begin capturing surfers attempting to overcome these mountains of water?

Once I was a young person, I noticed a documentary about Aaron Chang, who was a part of this pioneer wave of water photographers. Years later, I used to be residing in Japan after faculty and saved $6,000 to purchase a movie digital camera with a customized waterproof housing. I went to an island within the south of Japan the place there was this tiny neighborhood of surfers from Tokyo and Osaka. As soon as I received within the water with that digital camera, I used to be like, “Oh, that is me. That is the place I’m presupposed to be.”

I went to grad college at College of California, Berkeley, for documentary movie, and I’ve labored in movie in Los Angeles and internationally for PBS Frontline making documentaries. Throughout that point, I saved getting again within the ocean around the globe, studying increasingly about find out how to deal with myself in heavy situations.

I moved again to San Francisco to show multimedia journalism at San Francisco State College in 2012, and had my daughter, Nami (which implies wave in Japanese). Not lengthy after that, I met Bianca throughout the big-wave season at Ocean Seaside and began swimming out along with her.

On the primary day of massive winter swell at Ocean Seaside this season, I shot Bianca in an unbelievable barrel. It’s a testomony to us working collectively and to our 10-year relationship of doing this. It’s a dance that you just do. The surfer is your dance accomplice.

You might have a idea about what makes big-wave surfers completely different from everybody else.

From my perspective as a water photographer, I’ve seen that many big-wave surfers are drawn to the game as a result of they’ve trauma they’re working by means of by doing what they do. Immersing your self in huge waves is a apply in survival — of being comfy with and weak to chaos, and making magnificence out of that chaos by making it your individual. I’ve survived my mother’s loss of life from most cancers, my very own most cancers, and two hospitalizations from bipolar dysfunction that surfaced in between.

For a handful of days a 12 months, when the swell is excellent, this big-wave neighborhood comes collectively. Everyone knows one another’s superpowers. If you see somebody backlit within the barrel and also you’re there kicking like loopy to fulfill them in that place, it’s electrical. Your finger’s within the socket. It’s magic, and it’s precisely the place I wish to be in that second.

What’s your mind-set and preparation to exit on a giant day, whether or not it’s at Mavericks or a warm-water spot like Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu?

A part of the preparation is remembering to breathe deeply the day earlier than, to attempt to management that pleasure. I swam competitively and performed water polo in faculty. I’ve had apnea coaching for big-wave browsing, I’ve achieved big-wave risk-assessment trainings, I’ve had twenty years of coaching at Ocean Seaside on the largest days. The mind-set is reminding myself that I’ve ready my complete life for this, that I’ve the muscle reminiscence.

I simply turned 50. I need folks to know that what you’re doing now could be laying the groundwork for one thing you’ll be able to’t even think about that you just’re going to do sooner or later.

I attempt to get a great night time’s sleep, however the actuality is that I’m up late getting all my gear collectively: a number of cameras for capturing picture and video, charging gear, arduous drives, two units of swim fins, an affect vest, an inflatable vest, a helmet and backups of the whole lot. Oh, and reserving journey, coordinating with the surfers and my jet ski or my boat, and determining child-care logistics with my husband.

And while you’re within the water?

I’m impressed by the tiny animals who swim in big surf, like surf scoters and sea turtles, what they’re doing to outlive. I’m often considering of the window of escape — that even when I have been plucked and thrown, I do know what to do. For essentially the most half, I am going right down to the very backside, the place the water continues to be. It’s often very settle down there.

I see and really feel issues swimming round that different folks may not be attentive to. Final season, there was a day I seen these odd units that have been breaking exceptionally vast — wider than the surfers have been anticipating. I received into the boat as a result of they have been making me uncomfortable. Minutes after I received out of the water, this rogue cleanup set simply took everybody out. The ocean doesn’t discriminate.

You’ve lengthy pushed for girls to get their due within the big-wave-surfing neighborhood. What’s your view on how issues have modified within the sport, and the way they haven’t?

Again in 2015, I launched these big-wave girls to Sabrina Brennan, the previous harbor commissioner for San Mateo County. Sabrina had the concept to make use of California legislation to power organizers to incorporate girls at any Mavericks surf competitors, an occasion that was ruled by permits issued by the California Coastal Fee.

The ladies fashioned the Committee for Fairness in Ladies’s Browsing, and that pushed for pay fairness on the worldwide skilled surf tour organized by the World Surf League. That was huge. Bianca, Keala, Andrea and Paige are in the end opponents with one another. It’s a giant deal that they got here collectively to combat for a spot on the desk with contest organizers just like the W.S.L. for inclusion and pay fairness.

The prize cash is now equal, however browsing as a sport nonetheless has work to do. Take a look at the world tour — the W.S.L. permits twice as many males to compete as girls. The runway isn’t equal, the event of the bench isn’t equal, and that’s the place I see the actual work needing to be achieved.

You’re on the ultimate stretch of ending a function documentary about how this yearslong quest unfolded. How has that course of paralleled what you’ve seen within the sport?

I began capturing pictures of girls on waves as a result of I by no means noticed pictures of girls browsing. You don’t need to know something about aggressive browsing to know that while you see a picture of a girl on a giant wave for the primary time, it modifications what you suppose is humanly doable.

These girls have fought for the possibility to compete on the identical waves, and, after they win, to receives a commission equal prize cash to the boys. I’m a feminine filmmaker attempting to inform this story — it’s just a little wild how arduous that has been to do.

Ambition as a girl is an endurance sport. It’s like that dance photographers do with surfers and waves: We’ve discovered find out how to dance; we’ve made it to the dance ground. We simply want somebody to activate the lights so we will begin the social gathering.

On opening day at Mavericks in November, Bianca took 16-year-old Zoe Chait out to get her first wave. That’s the sort of mentorship I’m advocating. Momentum breeds success.