Smorgasboarder_16_March-2013

Early Days
Born in Tennyson, a beachside
suburb of Adelaide, Tim Bonython
walked out the back door of his
family home and quickly discovered
the playground that would keep him
enthralled for the rest of his life.
laTEsT: INTERVIEW
Even though he lived on a beach
with no surf, he found all manner
of things within the ocean to
consume him from catching fish in
milk bottles to spear fishing. Later
on when his parents moved to the
inner-city suburb of Paddington
in Sydney, he discovered a new
frontier, Bondi Beach.
Tim attended Cranbrook School in
the eastern suburbs not far from
Bondi, along with another, now
famous surfing family, the Webbers,
brothers Greg and John. He would
regularly catch the bus down to the
beach and in his first year managed
to snap three Coolites. At this point
his mother decided to buy him an
old, second hand Ron Ford single fin.
Tim explains his surfing progression.
“I couldn’t ride it, so I started
kneeboarding it and suddenly I was
a kneeboarder. My relationship with
the ocean, in a surfing sense, really
took off. I was thirteen. I suppose
you could say I was a bit of a late
starter.”
Tim began dating one of (radio
presenter) John Laws’ daughters,
and would regularly hang out at
their Woollahra home. He noticed
in John’s office, a Super 8 movie
camera lying about...
“I said to John I had noticed the
camera sitting on the floor and
explained how I was right into
photography and asked whether
I could borrow the camera. John
replied to me, ‘Tim, I know you have
been eyeing that camera off and you
can have it as long as you promise
to me you will make something out
of it.’ So I started shooting surfing.
“My first day, I filmed Cheyne Horan
at Bondi. I would also go over to the
Northern Beaches to shoot Peter
Crawford on his kneeboard.
mar/apr 2013 | sMOrGasBOarDEr 53