A Beautiful Dance

Photographs by Luis Olive Estallo

Photographer Luis Olive Estallo shares his surf photography series, “Movement”. Luis discusses his process behind the project, pushing boundaries, and what makes a wave and a surfer connect.

Cassà de la Selva, Spain

What is your history as a photographer?

Well, I first started as a filmmaker. In April of 2019, I did my first promotional video for a restaurant, but I've been shooting and editing videos since 2014. I've always loved to capture and compose something that can make the viewer feel a certain way. All this years of shooting videos gave me "the vision" as I like to call it; the ability to see the frame and composition of the picture in the ordinary, where others overlook it and don't pay attention to it.

In November 2019, I went to my first surf trip as the filmer of the crew, and that's when I started shooting surf stills. Later on, I got the chance to work for a hotel as a photographer, and that was a real confidence boost to my work. Since then I started to shoot more and more, and I've never stopped.

You are sharing your current series "Movement". What is this series about?

The "Movement" series is a new concept that I started developing in November of 2020, taking as a the starting point the idea that surfing without movement can't be surfing; in fact, movement is the essence of it. Then I started to think what makes the wave and the surfer connect, what makes them unite to form the perfect line, and that is movement itself. So movement is the fundamental concept in surfing and that creates an intimate conversation with the surfer itself, generating a beautiful dance that goes beyond the ordinary.

Was there a specific process you followed to make the images for the"Movement" ?

Before the swell hiting the Catalan Coast (Costa Brava) I thought that it would be dope to capture the movement of the surfer blurring everything around him. When the swell came, I went to the beach and started shooting. I first realized that I was going to miss a lot of perfect shots, because I didn't have a tripod with me, and with the zoom lens and shooting handheld it was pretty hard to get what I was pursuing. But after some trial and error, quite a few bad shots and a couple of hours failing, I started to get the feel of it. I began to pan the camera at the same speed as the surfer was moving, trying to minimize the unnecessary movements that my body and hands made, controlling my breath and fully engaging with the subject. I ignored everything that surrounded me and just focused all my attention to shooting and it finally worked.

It took me the total of an afternoon and a full morning (before sunrise to past mid day) to get around 300 quality shots, so I got really happy with the final results.

What is the story behind one of the images?

Before capturing this frontside turn from a local surfer, I wasn't quite getting the results that I was hoping to get. I was panning the camera too fast, too slow, or shaking it excessively. I was thinking about all the shots that I was failing to capture, and consequently missing them, so pressure started to kick in. Sunlight was fading out, the last rays of sun were painting pink the horizon, creating a beast of a sunset, swell was irregular but when the big sets came, they were preety solid, the surfers where already warmed up and ripping so it was now or never. Also, my camera is not really a beast in low light, so after that last minutes of light I wouldn't be able to capture any more pictures. As I was thinking about this, the big set was arriving and I saw a surfer starting to get the wave, and I thought to myself "I better not miss this time". I fully concentrated, exhaled the last mouthful of air that I inhaled, and I let my hands flow in the same phase as him. When I looked at the lcd screen and saw this picture, I felt really proud, and I got motivated to push myself to capture more bombs within those last beams of light.

What inspired this project? Why is it important to you?

This project was, in fact, a random thought I had one day sitting at home, watching some images of my last surftrip, and thinking: this doesn't speak to me, this it's just another surf photo that doesn't comunicate what surfing really is; it just a piece of visual time documenting the session, but not expressing anything more. So I thought, why I don't not push my boundaries and get out of my comfort zone, trying to express what surfing is in it's essence? Then, I meditated on surfing itself, and I came to the conclusion that movement is what surfing is constructed on. Pushing my boundaries is really important to me, because it's the way to not get bored working, and getting the motivation that some days just won't show up.

How does "Movement" show your growth as an artist and photographer?

Every wave is unique, every turn that a surfer does on it, it's unique, so every time that i was missing a turn, a cut back or a floater, I was losing potential quality content, and I couldn't get it back. The chance of missing the wave of the day was there, so that really pushed myself to get the photos that I had in mind.

The fact of getting out of my comfort zone to achieve these shots, risking it to lose some in the process, made me view my work method differently. If i wanted to get bomb shots, I really had to push myself to go further. I knew that I was going to lose amazing photographs in the making, but no risk no story right?

What is next for you? What is next for "Movement"?

More surf trips, more surf sessions, more work, and less excuses! I really want to explore different aspects of surfing through my lens. Changing the subject in every session. Light and energy are two of the possible concept explorations that I will be developing during 2021, so stay tuned for that!