Sachi Cunningham
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Release Date: 11/25/2025
Ozzie Wright
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in 1976, hailing from Narrabeen on the northern beaches of Sydney, Oscar “Ozzie” Wright burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s and swiftly ascended to global surf fame—never in contests, but nearly always doing something imaginative, like flying through the air, doing spell-casting things with the tube, or surfing remote Indo in a pair of handcrafted bat wings. Wright appeared in a number of Volcom-produced videos, among them BS!, Psychic Migrations, Lobotomy, and One Hundred and Fifty Six Tricks. A prolific maker of artwork in a variety of mediums including...
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Danny Kwock
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in Hawaii in 1961, Danny Kwock rode his first waves at Waikiki when he was ten. Surfing took a brief hiatus when he moved with his family to the San Fernando Valley, but picked up soon thereafter when they moved to Newport Beach, right at Wedge, which is where Kwock made his mark, charging big waves and becoming one of the brightest, flashiest surfers of the Echo Beach scene, wearing pink boardshorts and riding polka dot twin-fins when most Californians followed a far more understated ethos. Kwock was featured on the cover of Surfer and Surfing magazines in the early 1980s, did a...
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Sachi Cunningham
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
For more than two decades, Sachi Cunningham has been training her lens on women and the pioneers of big-wave surfing. After earning a BA in history from Brown University and a Masters of Journalism from UC Berkeley, Cunningham started the first video team at the LA Times, where she produced the award-winning series Chasing the Swell, which documents the first ever Big Wave World Tour. She was the first person, male or female, ever to have water shots published of wily Ocean Beach. Other “firsts” include serving as the first female board member of Save the Waves Coalition and first...
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Randy Rarick
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1949, Randy Rarick moved with his family to Hawaii when he was five. He started surfing at age 10, under the tutelage of the Waikiki Beach Boys. He was a Hawaiian state junior champ, and made the semifinals of the 1970 World Championships in Australia. In 1976, at age 26, Randy and 1968 world champion Fred Hemmings founded International Professional Surfing, aka the IPS, which linked together what at the time were fragmented pro events around the world. They established a ratings system and a world tour, which ended with the crowning of a world champion....
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Ross Clarke-Jones
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Hailing from the central coast of New South Wales, Australia, Ross Clarke-Jones joined the ASP world tour in 1986, at age 19. He was good in the small waves that the tour typically competed in at that time. But when the surf jacked up to 20-plus feet in the 1986 Billabong Pro at Waimea Bay, Clarke-Jones heaved himself over leadges and exited the water as one of the world’s great big waves surfers—and has held that position ever since. He’s been a major force in nearly every Eddie, winning that coveted event in 2001. He’s paddled Jaws, towed Mavericks, Nazare, and Shipstern Bluff, and...
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Bob Hurley
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Surfwear tycoon Bob Hurley spent his early days around Huntington Beach, California, shaping for labels like Hot Stuff, Infinity, Wave Tools, and Lightning Bolt. After spearheading Billabong USA from 1983 to 1998, Hurley transitioned to the creation of his namesake brand, centered around an ethos of innovation that he observed in the youthful counterculture of Southern California at the time. While he stepped down as Hurley’s CEO in 2015, he remains deeply involved in surfing, still sculpting foam, as well as working with John John Florence on the latter’s own namesake company. In...
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Pauline Menczer
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in 1970, raised in Bondi Beach, Australia, Pauline Menczer found her way to the surfboard at age 14. Actually, it was half a surfboard—a snapped hand-me-down from her brother. Four years later she won the 1988 World Amateur Champs, hopped on the ASP world tour, and finished the year ranked fifth overall. Her surfing was loose, springy, full of hurled tail. She won lots of events, and, in 1993, the world title. Menzcer has appeared in many surf videos, including 1998’s Blue Crush (the surf video, not the feature film), 2001’s Peaches: The Core of Women’s Surfing, and 2004’s...
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Chris Burkard
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in 1986, Chris Burkard grew up on California’s Central Coast and knew from a young age that he had to get out. Photography became the avenue. Primarily self-taught, Burkard won the Follow the Light Foundation grant in 2006, and away he went, working as a senior staff photographer for Surfline, Water magazine, and Surfer magazine, as well as freelancing for The New Yorker, National Geographic, and ESPN.com. In 2009, he was contracted by Patagonia to be a projects photographer. Burkard’s photo books include The California Surf Project, Come Hell or High Water: The Plight of the...
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Jeff Hakman
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born in California in 1948, Jeff Hakman’s father introduced him to surfing at age eight. Four years later, the family moved to Oahu, and the year after that, at the age of 13, Hakman surfed Waimea Bay for the first time. In 1965, he was invited to the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku Invitational, held at Sunset Beach. Hakman was 17. He won. In the ensuing years, on his Dick Brewer-shaped boards, Hakman transitioned seamlessly from longboards to shortboards—and went on a winning streak. He won the Duke again in ’70 and ’71; won the first Pipe Masters in ’71; won the Hang Ten Pro and Gunston...
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Holly Wawn
The Surfer’s Journal presents Soundings with Jamie Brisick
Born and raised on the northern beaches of Sydney, Holly Wawn’s father started pushing her into waves at their local Bungan Beach when she was three. She started competing in her teens, won local events, and won the 2012 Australian Junior Titles at age 15. From 2015 to 2019, she competed full-time on the ’QS, bagged a few thirds, but came to realize that she was happiest surfing outside of the contest forum. Now 27, based in Coorabell, near Byron Bay, Wawn is a freesurfer known for her big, swooping hacks. In this episode of Soundings, Wawn sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about lineup...
info_outlineFor more than two decades, Sachi Cunningham has been training her lens on women and the pioneers of big-wave surfing.
After earning a BA in history from Brown University and a Masters of Journalism from UC Berkeley, Cunningham started the first video team at the LA Times, where she produced the award-winning series Chasing the Swell, which documents the first ever Big Wave World Tour. She was the first person, male or female, ever to have water shots published of wily Ocean Beach.
Other “firsts” include serving as the first female board member of Save the Waves Coalition and first woman to receive the Wave Saver Award from the non-profit. She documented the first women’s heats at the Mavericks WickrX Invitational, the Puerto Escondido Big Wave Challenge, the Da Hui Backdoor Shootout, and The Eddie. Cunningham has been included in both Surfline’s list of top filmmakers and Surfer magazine’s list of top photographers. Her feature-length documentary, SheChange, about the quest for pay equity in big-wave surfing, is presently in post-production, and has been featured in the New York Times and on the Today show.
A mental health advocate and cancer survivor, Cunningham lives with her husband and daughter in the Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco, where she’s a Professor Emerita at San Francisco State University.
In this episode of Soundings, Cunningham sits down with Jamie Brisick to talk about shooting from the water at Ocean Beach and Maverick’s, the importance of journalism, her quiver, motherhood, and her battle with cancer.
Produced by Jonathan Shifflett.
Music by PazKa (Aska Matsumiya & Paz Lenchantin).