Bilderback documenting Hōkūle‘a on the Mālama Honua worldwide voyage. Photo courtesy of Nā‘alehu Anthony

John Bilderback was born in a house perched on a sand dune, overlooking one of the more treacherous East Coast inlets along the New Jersey seaboard. Growing up, he’d hear seagulls dropping clams on the rooftop marking dinnertime, and come sunrise, he’d watch captains navigate fishing boats through one of the most treacherous inlets on the East Coast toward the North Atlantic fishing grounds. By the time he was seven, he was surfing the nearby breaks, stirring his hunger for the perils and pleasures of the ocean. That hunger led to a life as a professional surf photographer, landing SURFER cover shots on every famous right break along the North Shore of Oahu, where he resides today with his family.
John’s love of the ocean led to his love of the land, and he currently serves the North Shore Community Land Trust, working to protect and steward the natural landscape of The North Shore. He’s also a Polynesian Voyaging Society crew member, who sailed on Hōkūle‘a during the epic three-year Mālama Honua worldwide voyage. His most recent, large scale venture documented the voyage for a book published by Patagonia — I was the fortunate writer to team up alongside him for the the project. Having known John for decades, hoping to capture some of his stories for years. With the recent passing of SURFER magazine, I turned to him, as a man who has enough surf stories to fill his own book. And so, I hope to skim beyond the surface here. Nope, John doesn’t ‘do’ yoga as most of know it here on the continent, but what he does and how he lives is truly the essence of the ancient discipline: treading in the mighty deep, settling the soul in the chaos. Here is some of his own path to _PRACTICE.

Living on the North Shore for thirty-two years now, I try not to brag about the fact that I’m from New Jersey, if you know what I mean. But there it is. Think what you want about Jersey, but Jersey can produce epic surf, but sadly not often enough to feed a full-time addiction, so many Jersey surfers eventually leave. You can find us all over the world now. But back then, nothing could motivate you to brave the cold winter waters like a fresh copy of SURFER magazine. We’d get great local pride anytime we’d see a dredging barrel from our neck of the woods in SURFER’s pages – and then, turn the page, and we’d be lured from our grey icy North East to exotic islands so very far away. Our existence, our identities, were totally locked into Surfer. And if SURFER was our bible, Hawaii was the Holy Land.

Blacks, back in the day, Bilderback on the long lens.

I guess you could say when I moved to San Diego to go to UCSD, I was really just moving one step closer to that Holy Land. After spending high school years in a dreary all-boys boarding school, with stern old Dead Poet Society type professors leaning over your shoulder, I happily found myself in two-hundred-person lecture halls where half of the people were, unbelievably, Girls! But nothing was as alluring as Blacks Beach. It was easy to breeze through classes in between long surf sessions. I started working in photo labs and camera stores, studying The Zone System designed by Ansel Adams and high level sensitometry. It was a great mix of science and art. Both my love for surfing and my love for photography grew and then the two merged at Blacks.

Blacks taught me humility. I scared myself many times swimming around in big swells out there, trying to get a shot, but nothing could replace the rush of pushing myself and bringing home images. You sneak out, get in position and then capture a moment to remain frozen forever. It almost felt like I’d stolen something and gotten away with it. A kind of robber. I wanted more. So, in 1985, I finally made my pilgrimage to Hawaii and the breaks I’d always dreamed of were all right there, next to each other. It still is the highest concentration of world class surf anywhere. Three years later, SURFING magazine offered to increase my retainer if I moved to The North Shore. As a single guy out of college, the offer to work and live on the North Shore was just too good to pass up. I left San Diego and moved to Waimea Bay.

The magazine’s most senior photographers Aaron Chang and Jeff Hornbaker used me as an assistant. They taught me how to handle the unique fearsome situations that come with swimming around, trying to get shots, hopelessly overmatched by the sea. They also taught me to navigate being an unwelcomed surf photographer. Not everyone wants ‘their spot’ photographed, to put it mildly. In those days, surf photographers stood out — with our huge tripod and lens, we were glaringly obvious on the beach, or we’d be popping up in the face of your wave! There was no way to hide. So, I had a choice: I could either try to be ‘friends’ with the heavy guys, or I could just get the shit beaten out of me and get all my gear stolen. Let’s just say I gave away a lot of slides, ‘cause in those days it was pretty rare to get a decent surfing photo of yourself. I spread the love as much as I could. I figured the Hui guys were less likely to send me in, if they knew I might give them a photo. Over time, slowly, I began to be accepted in most places by the heaviest guys. I always knew there was a limit to where I could shoot, and I tried to make it clear I knew my place and I didn’t want to wreck anybody’s spot. It paid off apparently as I’m still here thirty-two years later.

Anyone who surfs as much as I did wouldn’t really have a problem swimming in those waves with a camera. As the size of the surf changed, so did our approach to shooting it. When it was small, we would use a fisheye lens and just swim into the barrel with the camera. Then as it got bigger, especially at spots like Sunset and Waimea, we’d use a boogie board to float up above the water a bit and a long lens, a 135 mm for more reach. In huge giant outer reef stuff, we would use personal watercraft, a jet ski, and even longer lenses. Each approach had its challenges. Often, the ‘small’ days on the North Shore are still very powerful and the waves are breaking in less water. At Backdoor Pipeline, a super powerful right off of Pipe, when you get caught inside by a set, the wave’s breaking lip penetrates all the way to the reef, and there’s no chance of swimming beneath it. You get clobbered. It’s a scary place to shoot. At least one photographer died there.

Then there’s the massive playing field of Sunset Beach. It handles waves up to fifteen feet and tests surfers and photographers in many ways. First, the take-off area can be the size of a couple of football fields and positioning yourself is a skill that develops only over many years. The wave can be a massive drop on a West swell, or a lurching barrel on a Northwest swell. Shooting the big days, you could see the ominous lines of a set in the horizon approaching for thirty seconds or more before they buried you. When it got big, it was a mental game of chicken swimming out there.

The challenge was keeping your heart rate down as the sets lumbered in. If you tried too hard to get out of the way, you risked getting out of breath and having to face a long dive to the bottom with little air. It often was better to calm yourself, not paddle frantically for the horizon, and take your lickings right where you were. You could get calm, take some big breaths, and try to relax for a minute before half the Pacific landed on you. My personal strategy was borrowed from advice I’d read in SURFER years before: Relax any goddamn way you can. Sing the Brady Bunch theme song if you have to, and have a little laugh, because the next thirty seconds, or so, are really gonna suck! It’s much better to just laugh at your situation than panic.

It’s almost hard to believe we could only bring 36 shots out in the water with us, in this day of digital cameras. And we would always have to shoot a test shot, making sure the water housing was loaded and working. You never wanted to swim for twenty minutes, and then later find you’d neglected a setting or connection. So really it was 35 shots. And each one was precious. At places like Waimea Bay where getting out through the shore break with your gear could be a scary ordeal, and getting in was actually worse, each time you pressed the button you’d cringe wondering whether that one was worth it. Whether you’d have to go in just a little bit too soon. And that’s with massive 20-foot waves breaking in front of you.

As a surfer photographer, you’re trying to capture a moment in movement. One of the coolest things about taking a camera into the ocean, is the nature of water itself. Your usual experience of the world happens visually at around 1/20th of a second. If your eye were a camera, that would be your fastest shutter speed. But when you freeze water - like the lip of a barreling wave - at perhaps 1/1000th of a second, stop it dead still, you can scrutinize all the facets, contours and texture, and twists of the light, the physics, the surfer, the board’s rails releasing spray- for as long as your heart desires. Capture is an accurate word for it. Surfing that same wave, you would never perceive all of that that is happening. So, a great shot, a great still frame, is like getting to peak behind the curtain at nature.

Sometimes, when something really special was going to happen, you could sort of sense it beforehand. I mean you are swimming one-handed, with a ten-pound brick in the other hand, constantly trying to predict what the next wave will do, where the surfer will be, and where you will need to be to get the shot – BEFORE it happens. So, you become what the Hawaiians call, maka ‘ala, a very heightened awareness of your environment and many subtle, almost invisible details. You’re not intellectually processing those details, you’re fine-tuning your observations, your instinct, all your senses. Sometimes, you’ll move, and you’re not even sure why, and then you’ll see a massive set approaching. Being in the ocean, all your life, you learn to instantly recognize patterns, something all humans can do, if they spend the time, quiet down, and listen.

Hōkūle‘a sailing the Twelve Apostles toward Cape Town, South Africa.

What has the ocean taught me? What hasn’t it taught me? All the real important lessons, certainly. It has taught me how small I am and the need to keep my ego in check. It has taught me the interconnectedness of all things, the fragility of all things, and the impermanence of all things. It has brought me my best friends and taught me about my deepest fears. It has schooled me both gently and ferociously. Some teachers, the greatest ones, shape your entire life.