Herbie Fletcher — and the Fletcher family as a whole — had a pivotal role in shaping surfing. Photo: Justin Jay
Justin Jay spends most of his time behind the camera. As a photographer, he’s got an impressive resume. For a while, he was a documentary photographer for Sean “Diddy” Combs. He’s worked with countless musicians, including Jay Z, Outkast, and the Foo Fighters. He’s worked with Julia Stiles, Alec Baldwin, Ethan Hawke, and Kobe Bryant, just to name a few. That’s just the tip of his celebrity iceberg. But Justin Jay also shoots surfing. For the last decade or so, he’s been working on a book called HI 1K – 10 Years / 1000 Moments on Hawaii’s North Shore. He’s spent nearly every winter on the North Shore, capturing candid moments of the world’s best surfers. He’s able to do it so well because he’s extraordinarily good at two things: blending in and making people feel at ease. He talks with everyone he meets like they’re a long lost friend, and he recently shifted that talent away from the camera into a podcast called The Plug.
In it, Jay talks with cultural arbiters and artists from all walks of life about but about everything, and in one of his more recent installments, he called up Herbie Fletcher. “Herbie Fletcher has had a profound impact on the landscape of surf culture,” Jay writes. “In addition to pioneering the surfboard traction pad, his family has been at the forefront of tow-in surfing, aerial maneuvers, and big wave riding.”
