Editor’s Note: Documentary photographer Mark Tipple wasn’t the first to help Pascale Honore and Tyron Swan tell their story. But his short spoke to a deeper level than any articles or videos that had come before. Here he shares his own experiences of first learning about Duct Tape Surfing, then capturing it for what has become the definitive telling thus far.
Preparations for getting the shot go a couple steps beyond pulling on a wetsuit and paddling out. Jesse Cas
Having left Sydney in July of 2012, I vowed to do more personal work. As much as I love Sydney, it’s like any city: expensive, busy, and home to plenty of talk. My business model was based mostly off licensing and print sales derived from my personal work, particularly The Underwater Project. As the years passed I was finding it tough to break out of that groove, and as my personal expenses rose, I spent more time in the office. Months would slip by without even touching a camera.
Enter #vanlife: my silent protest. I headed back to where my ocean stoke resided, in a small town on the west coast of South Australia. Old friends and fun waves welcomed me with open arms. I was fully self contained. I was ready to create again.
In December, I heard of a guy surfing with a paraplegic woman taped to his back. I immediately thought the worst — it must be to laugh at her.
On paper, though, it couldn’t have been a more perfect story for me, with my background working with a disability charity, as well as the ocean-based Underwater Project, plus the duo being close with my friends as well as living along the same coastline I called home. I still can’t say why I waited so long, but it wasn’t until a mutual friend’s birthday party later in May that we actually met. But more work came up in Sydney, and the film was put to the side.
In the meantime, journalists from the Adelaide Advertiser were on the prowl, and instead of waiting like me, they made it happen — soon thereafter they were front page countrywide and editorial submissions hitting the global market. As an additional extra they produced a short of Pascale and Ty checking the surf, suiting up, and catching one wave, which accumulated 200,000 Youtube views overnight, ripped from the newspaper’s servers and uploaded to a personal account, with ads enabled to make the revenue.
I was pissed. Again, I took the negative approach. A few hours later, sitting in my van on the side of the road, I looked at my calendar and saw that I had four days before I had to hit the road for Sydney. Then I saw a small swell show up on the charts. I was done waiting around. I set up a meeting.
The news article was a great read and had a nice feel, but the video was just a showcase about what they did — Duct Tape Surfing — not who they are. I pitched a rounded story about Pascale’s backstory of her love for the ocean and the waves around her home, and how the ocean was taken from her. Enter Ty, and the gift of surfing, the ocean, was hers once again. Both were keen on the concept, but they had their hesitations after the previous film was ripped unceremoniously from them. We set up a Kickstarter instead, so the publicity would be driven to that, and not myself. We started shooting the following day.
Over the next four days I was both humbled and stoked at what they were able to achieve.
The first wave we linked on a “GoPro handoff” as the sunset returned me to the ocean. Personally, I was going through a shift in how I viewed surfing based on a longboarding film I shot in 2010, and I was also moving away from a surf photography focus into the Underwater Project series. But I missed the pure act of riding. This trip was epic to see that it doesn’t matter what the waves are like, or what board you ride. It’s all about the attitude. Pascale’s smile was what I was looking for.
As one might expect, the interview process was challenging. I needed to engage people enough to support to their Ty and Pascale’s roadtrip to spread the word. And getting Ty to say he has helped Pascale… he wouldn’t admit that he did something cool, no matter how many different ways I re-worded the question.
I’m actually surprised that this film is still being talked about and touching people. Not to say their story doesn’t deserve it, but it’s been nine months and it’s still doing the festival rounds and being shared. The response has been overwhelming. At the end of the day, I’m stoked that the story is what people are connecting with.
The Duct Tape Surfers. Photo: Richard Humpries
I love seeing people’s stoke in the ocean. Through films and photos, I try to let them speak for themselves. To meet and spend time with two people simply doing what they do, and who inspire others and enable them to continue doing what they do, comes full circle for me.
