The Ol’ Boys is an ongoing personal project about those surfers who get up for “the early,” day in and day out. A term used to describe a person who has been surfing a particular spot for a long time, The Ol’ Boys is not about people surfing, but rather people who surf.
This collection of portraits looks to individually capture the faces of long-time surfers, and as a collection, capture the essence of non-professional surfing.
This project came about from surfing my local spot and observing the interesting characters around me. I decided to devise a setup I could replicate from spot to spot and set out on what is now this project. The endearing term “Ol’ Boys” is one used by local surfers to describe someone who is always out at a particular spot, and this project aims to take a snapshot of surfers on a given day at popular surf sports. To keep some authenticity to the project, we just setup at surf spots and approach surfers as they come out of the water. Sometimes we manage to capture a particular surf industry somebody, but in general, these are the grass roots of non-professional surfers – the plumbers, accountants, teachers, etc., who get up for “the early” each day.
To date, over 150 surfers have been shot in Australia and Bali.
“The Ol’ Boys: Australia” debuts in exhibition form at The Noosa Festival of Surfing this March.
See more of Kenny’s work at his website: www.kennysmithphotography.com
