//Life on the road is something I was raised to embrace. Me ma' always encouraged us to open our eyes and our hearts to the world, make up our own minds for experience of being inspired. I see life in angles, in lines of perspective, a slight turn of the head, the blink of an eye, subtle glimpses of magic other folk might pass by. Cameras help me translate, interpret and understand what I see. It’s a simple act that keeps me grin’. I never set out to become anything in particular, only to live creatively and push the scope of my experience for adventure and for passion. Still all of it means something to me, same as most anyone with dreams. My heart bleeds Celtic blood and I am magnetized of familiar frontiers: broad, brutal, cold coastlines for the right waveriders to challenge. This is where my heart bleeds hardest. I try to pay tribute to that magic through photographs, weathering the endless storms for rare glimpses of magic each winter is both a blessing and a curse I relish. I want to see wave riding documented the way I see it in my head and the way I feel it in the sea. It's a strange set of skills to begin to acquire. And its only achievable through time spent riding waves. All sorts of waves on all sorts of crafts, means more time learning out in the water. Floating in the sea amongst lumps that swell, you’ll always learn something. Its been a life long wise classroom teacher of sorts, and hopefully, always will be. Buried beneath headlands, shaping the coast, mind blowing images of empty waves burn away at me. Solid ocean swells powering through deep cold water. Heavy wave, waves with weight. Coaxed from comfortable routine, ignite the imagination, convey some divine spark, whisper the possibilities, conjure the situations I thrive amongst enough to document. We all take knocks in the process: broken backs, drownings, near drownings, hypothermia, dislocations, fractures, frost bite, head wounds, stitches, concussions, broke my arm… and that was just the last couple of years. Still look forward to getting amongst it each winter though. Cold creeping into your core, driving you mad, day after day, mumbling to yourself while you hold position and wait for the next set to come. The Dark Side of the Lens – an art form unto yourself not us: silent workhorses of the surfing world. There’s no sugary cliché. Most folk don’t know who we are, what we do or how we do it. Let alone want to pay us for it. I never want to take this for granted, so I try to keep motivations simple, real, positive. If I only scrape out a living, at least it’s a living worth scraping. If there’s no future in it, this is a present worth remembering. For fires of happiness or waves of gratitude. For everything that brought us to that point in life, to that moment in time to do something worth remembering with a photograph or a scar. I feel genuinely lucky to hand on heart to say I love what I do. And I may never be a rich man but if I live long enough, I’ll certainly have a tale or two for the nephews. And I dig the thought of that.//
[ Mickey Smith, Astray Films ]