John Witzig’s photographs are tied so closely to the seminal 1960s in Australian surfing, it’s tempting to wonder if that golden age would ever have happened without them (in the sense of a tree falling in a forest). Nat Young became not just a surfer but an icon of the period through Witzig’s photographs; likewise, Bob McTavish, Wayne Lynch, Ted Spencer and the breaks they surfed in Australia and Hawaii. Witzig thought he was only taking pictures of “my friends who became famous”, but he ended up creating an Australian folklore.
Mark Richards at Haleiwa. Credit: John Witzig “Without the photographs I think that period would be profoundly different, I really do,” Witzig says. “I have a very visual memory, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask, but that period would be extraordinarily different if we were just going by oral storytelling.
” The 24 Witzig photographs on display at the Dickerson Gallery are already iconic (there’s no escaping the word). Some are in the water, such as a famous “headless” McTavish or Richards on the apex of a turn, and others are out of it, like Peterson “radiating suspicion” on North Narrabeen beach or surfers Baddy Treloar and Owl Chapman in a car park at Fairy Bower in Manly. Country Soul is one of Witzig’s favourites.
Credit: John Witzig Young, in various moods, was a favourite subject. Witzig’s photograph of perfect deserted waves at the National Park break at Noosa, waiting for surfers to come and get them, .
