![]() ![]() “It’s a real and present danger, constantly,” Chang, who understands the risk of what he’s doing, said.Ĭhang, who has himself been hit by a 60-foot wave, has learned to mitigate his fear and stay calm in order to hold his breath underwater for up to two minutes. Some of the big waves have even killed two of his closest friends by drowning them. Getting smashed down to the bottom of the ocean, it’s terrifying, you’re being tumbled. There are millions of pounds of pressure per square inch and the length of the wave that size. He said: “Imagine you’re getting hit by a 40-foot wave. However, Chang’s success comes at a price: the constant threat of danger. This special photo even went on to become one of the first Surfing Magazine cover shots that didn’t feature a surfer. This wave he believes put him on the map “in the realm of surfing as a true waterman.” He said: “ou could drive a school bus through the barrel of this wave and not get wet, so gigantic and powerful.” However to Chang’s surprise not only did he get through the waves that were in the range of 20 feet, but he was able to swim into position and get a portrait of an empty wave. I put my swim fins on, put my camera in a housing, and jumped into the ocean, not knowing if I would make it back to the beach.” all the best surfers and watermen were standing on the beach, watching the surf, because it was literally dangerously out of control. “I was looking for a day when nobody would go in the ocean because it was too wild. “he big thing is to graduate from a novice to what’s called a waterman, somebody that proves his ability in adverse conditions in the ocean in Hawaii,” he said. I found myself on the beach, sometimes before sunrise, waiting for that three-minute window when the rising sun is reflected in the face of a breaking wave.”Ĭhang, who shares his work on Instagram, attributes one of his favorite photos to the fateful day in 1985 when he chose to advance his surfing status in Hawaii. “I started to shift away from the action and just look for the beautiful situation in the water, or created by the wave itself. ![]() “By running this gallery, I started to discover that I could really explore the artistic interpretation of waves and water in fine art photography,” he said. Then almost 14 years ago, Chang opened a gallery in Solana Beach, California, to showcase his epic photographs, a fine art photography homage to the complexity of ocean waves. He was hired by major brands to do marketing campaigns for them. Soon, Chang found himself learning various photography skills as his job expanded while traveling. Then I started to expand that terrain to include countries like Portugal, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, New Zealand. “In the early ‘80s, I was going to places like Australia, where I would spend three months traveling and surfing. after that success, I was put on the road constantly,” Chang said. “One of my first excursions was to go to Indonesia. In 1979, Chang became the senior photographer for Surfing Magazine and spent the next 25 years traveling and taking photos on commission. It wasn’t until he made another 8mm surf movie in Hawaii, and took that film on a tour of California, that he made a name for himself. But more often than not during his youth the lure of surfing won over the lure of advancing his photography career. He could also do the same cinematography with film.Ĭhang was later hired by local news and surf movie crews, even working for ABC’s Wide World of Sports. He believes this is the skill set that put him on the photography map. I was producing pictures that were very rarely seen in the surfing world, where you’re actually inside the wave with the surf.” ![]() making plexiglass housings for my camera and swimming out in the ocean with them. “I was a champion swimmer, I was a surf photographer, and I was, in a very crude teenage way, an engineer. “I had a very peculiar skill set,” he said. From there, Chang began to photograph surfers and sell his prints. ![]()
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