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Yet some of those photographers are seen as the Judas
willing to sell out some special place for 30 pieces of silver
(actually a lot less). But is that really likely? Is not the
photographer’s first passion the same as that of the locals?
Talk with any professional photographers and they will
regale you with tales of abuse, projectiles, slashed tyres
and even death threats. Yet it is those photographers that
are willing to risk much to get that great shot, whether that’s
bobbing around in a boat shooting 30 ft waves, or scaling a
mountain to shoot a climber, or hiking for days lugging kilos
of camera gear just to get that one sunset shot.
For example: In 2010 I was asked to shoot Mel Bartels
(famous Hawaiian surfer) on the infamous West Side of
Hawaii, I was advised by a local North Shore photographer
and good friend not to go and definitely don’t take ya
camera gear, the locals don’t like the exposure. His parting
comment when I said I was going to go was, that he would
see me in hospital later. I spoke with Mel on the phone,
and she assured me it would be fine and that the localism
was “blown out of proportion by the haoles and the pussies
on the North Shore”.
We arrived early, the sun slowly rising, the surf pumping.
Mel and her girlfriend Teddy met us in the car park. As I
extracted the 600m lens and tripod from the back of the
rental car, the traffic was brought to a halt by a colossal
oversized 4x4 cruiser stopping in the middle of the street,
rocking back and forth on its over gelled suspension.
The window wound down and the black tinted space was
replaced by a heavily tattooed elbow the size of half a cow.
Out of the open window, a large Hawaiian man looked at
me and smiled (or snarled I wasn’t sure which).
I was paralysed like a rabbit in the headlights in the glare
of his mouthful of gold teeth, the difference between a
grin and a snarl became and internal confusion on how
to respond. The voice boomed down, “Bra what dah ya
fink ya doing eh?” Before I could reply Teddy embraced
me around the shoulders and replied, “he cool bra.” I felt
trapped between two large immoveable forces. There was
a moment of silence, a raise of the eyebrows, a nod, and
the deep beats faded as the window went up and the 4x4
drove off with the two Rottweiler’s in the back barking with
no sense of rhythm but with the same snarl-grin scenario.
I looked at Teddy she smiled raised her eyebrow and
laughed, “homies”. Not really sure what that meant but I
presumed it was under control. A wise man would have
seen the writing on the wall that even before I had left the
car park someone had confronted me.
To cut a long story short the rest of the day followed
exactly that same scenario. All day Hawaiians, both large
and small, would come and aggressively asked me to “f&^k
off Haole”, “what ya fink ya doin Haole”, “you got a death
wish bra?” To which my ever present body guard would
remind them I was here to shoot a local and they would
reluctantly simmer down.
At one point nature called and my bodyguard needed to
use the public convenience, she replaced herself with
one of the largest humans I have ever seen. While he
sat in front of me the number of those who said anything
dropped away to nothing. However, the nasty evil stares
still continued till my new mentor then decided to address
the stares with a “what ya lookin at brah? Steve with me.”
Eventually my bodyguard enclave grew to a small posse,
Top: Roys Peak, one of NZ most instagram famous spots. Image by Ondrej Machart
24//WHERE ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS/#229