Barrie Sutherland - Pioneer Surf Photographer
"The heritage of surfing in Victoria and especially Bells Beach owes so much to the great black and white images shot by
Barrie in the 60's and 70's" - Doug Warbrick, Rip Curl co-founder
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Barrie Sutherland began surfing in the 1950s at Torquay in the state of Victoria, Australia. He was inspired in 1956 when the
Californians, Greg Noll, Mike Bright, Tom Zahn and Bobby Burnside visited Torquay for the Melbourne Olympics exhibition surf
carnival. When they paddled out and rode malibus for the first time at Torquay Point, Barrie was captivated for life! He wanted
to surf like they did.
After that life-changing experience, Barrie spent many years surfing and photographing the waves along Victoria's Great Ocean Road.
He was part of the 1960s
Torquay-Bells Beach surfing community and highly respected for his surfing ability. Surfing came first and photography second.
The combination produced one of Australia's finest portfolios of surfing photographs. It contains many of the legends of Australian
surfing in some of the best quality competition surf captured in the country. Barrie pioneered water photography at Bells when he
paddled out on a malibu surfboard as close as he could to the impact zone. With a Nikonos camera tied to his waist he took the
first photographs of Bells from the water.
Then, early one late summer morning, Barrie captured a dawn photograph overlooking Bells Beach. It was in colour and Rip Curl used it for
their first advertisement under the title, "The Dawning of Rip Curl Surfboards". It was a full page back cover advertisement in
Surfing World Magazine - the rest is history!
Barrie's work is noted for its strong tonal quality and exquisite composition, reflecting the quality of surf produced by the
power-laden ground swells of the Southern Ocean. Throughout the 1960s, Barrie worked with the major Australian surfing magazines of
the time. His coverage of the Bells Easter contest is renowned for its historical significance, capturing a special time and place
in the evolution of Australian surfing. Easter Sunday 1965 was the biggest, most dangerous and heaviest swell ever experienced in
an Australian Surfing contest.
Phil Jarrett wrote in The Australian Surfer's Journal (Vol 1 No.2),"As competitors struggled to get out into the lineup
through a 12-15 foot roaring forties swell, a lone photographer, Barrie Sutherland, shot the drama of the event. Robert Conneeley
won the event and Sutherland's photos forever fixed Bells in the mind of many as Australia's Waimea Bay"
Barrie exhibited in the Baltimore (U.S.A.) Museum of Art's international 'Man in Sport' photographic exhibition in 1967. He has also
exhibited at Torquay's Surfworld Museum, the Australian National
Maritime Museum, the Margaret River Masters, and Cottesloe's Old Mal Whalebone pro-event.
Some Galleries
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