Here is the fourth in the selection of the most important photographs in Australian sporting history. The images are not ranked or presented in any particular order. Ranking is a subjective notion that I won’t buy into.
Each image presents a frozen moment in time that has historical significance in the Australian world of sport. Even more importantly, each image opens the door to a back story that may resonate within culture, consciousness and society. In other words, the photos have more guts than they may appear to have on the surface. With some images, you will have a good idea of what is going on in the shot and may have some understanding of the back story. With others, the importance of the image and story may be a complete surprise.
Of all the images that I have chosen as “the best” Australian sports photographs (with the best back stories) this is my favourite. Some may argue that this is not an Australian photograph. Maybe they are right. The photo was not taken by an Australian. The two characters in the shot are not (or, correction, were not) Australian. The setting for the image itself was not in Australia. But Rusty Miller, the character who is the undoubted star of the image, has been an Australian citizen for nearly fifty years now, so I am inclined to say that the born-and-bred Californian is very much one of us.
In claiming Rusty, I also want to claim this amazing shot of the Encinitas surfer charging down the face of a fifteen-foot bomb set at Sunset Beach Hawaii as an Australian sporting image, not just because it’s a great photo, but because the story behind it is such a killer.
After climbing to the top of the USA competitive surfing ranks in the mid 1960’s (mostly in the cruisy, mid-sized waves of Southern California), Rusty spent multiple winters expanding his repertoire of surfing skills by taking on the enormous waves on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii. No one had ever doubted Rusty’s talent as a surfer, but becoming well-known among fellow surfers as a “waterman” and a “big-wave-surfer” was quite another thing. In the eyes of a surfer, you hadn’t truly “made it” until you had proven yourself in gigantic waves. Rusty was one among a number of Californians who had joined that big wave club and won the admiration of his fellow surfers.
Brothers in arms at Sunset!
There are two similar photographs behind this story. Take a look at them both. Notice the difference? It’s that difference that creates the fascinating back story.
In the top image, Rusty Miller has just taken off on a booming Sunset Beach wave and has adopted his characteristic, Hawaiian-style, stance while the massive curl thunders right behind him. In the foreground of the photo, Rusty’s housemate in Hawaii and fellow Californian gun surfer, Miki Dora, while paddling out to the Sunset take off point, is pausing in his paddle to admire the critical take-off that his buddy has just made.
It’s an amazing shot. Two elite American surfers, brothers-in-arms, taking on the ultimate challenge in their chosen sport and doing it together. The photo is not just about individual courage and skill. There is also a strong element camaraderie. You can almost hear Miki cheering Rusty on.
While Dora and Miller had different surfing styles (and different personalities) they still had a lot in common. Both were articulate, intelligent, and stylish young men (out of the water) who had built reputations as being among the best in their sport back in mainland USA. Miller was the competition-proven surfing champion. Dora was the ultimate surfing stylist and undisputed king of Malibu. Both travelled to Hawaii to experience the challenge of the huge waves… conditions that were rarer on their Californian home beaches. Over time, through regularly surfing the North Shore of Oahu, under the tutelage of local big wave masters, both men earned their stripes and became respected by their peers as true “watermen.”
Recognition important?
No doubt, such recognition was important, to some degree, to Miller. Acknowledgement by your peers that you can shine in the most challenging situations has great weight for most elite athletes. For Dora, however, recognition was possibly even more important. I suspect that his reputation as being a master of small waves rankled. Dora claimed that he didn’t care about what others thought of him, his surfing, and his surfing life, but comments that he made throughout his surfing career show that he wanted people to know that he was as good in big waves as he was in small. Dora was the rock star of surfing in the sixties. An unconventional, anti-authoritarian, bad boy who loved to be centre of attention. Dora was not the kind who would appreciate being underappreciated.
Now we come to the second photograph.
One day, while Rusty Miller and Miki Dora were surfing Sunset Beach on a big day, emerging surf photographer Dr Don James was hanging around in the channel taking photographs from angles that had only been dreamed of a few years earlier. He managed to capture the beautiful shot of Miller just after he had dropped into the bomb with the wave curling behind him while his buddy was paddling out in the foreground. Having captured such an intimate image of a pair of gladiators in action, in extreme conditions, was rare in the surfing world at this stage. The photograph was a cracker. A rare achievement.
Something missing!
With surfing starting to emerge as the next big thing on the US mainland, in the mid-sixties, James was able to sell the special photo to the advertising agency that produced work for the Hamm’s Beer Company. Twelve months later thirty-foot high billboards began appearing along the highways of Los Angeles. Then the same billboards began appearing throughout California. Not long after, enormous representations of Rusty Miller flying down that magnificent fifteen-foot face began popping up on freeways right across America!
But the image had changed somewhat. Something was missing. In the space where the super surfer and surfing stylist Miki Dora had been, was now a can of Hamm’s beer. What had initially been one of the best action surf shots ever taken, had been transformed into a trendy beer commercial.
Imagine being Miki, cruising down Route 66, with the top of your jalopy down, the desert breeze blowing through your carefully styled hair, when all of a sudden, at the side of the road, you spy a monstrous image of your mate Rusty surfing at Sunset Beach accompanied by a can of beer… instead of you. If you were the kind of guy who cared about your reputation… and cared that people classified you as merely a “small-wave master”… and you had taken your share of beatings at the world’s most dangerous surfing spots to prove your big-wave credentials… then this might have pissed you off. You were a sporting superstar made redundant by a can of beer.
But it’s a great photo. A great photo of our Aussie Rusty… and a can of beer. Could you get more Australian than that? In his later years Miki Dora was well known for his stated hatred of the “commercialization of surfing.” Wonder why?
Leave a Reply