Larry Haynes Webbed feet
Larry Haynes has more lives than a cat. And he probably needs them, too. As one of the world’s premier water cameramen, Haynes spends most of his time negotiating some of the planet’s most treacherous surf.
“I love the thrill,” he says, “the big, insane, dangerous stuff, that’s what I’m into. If you see my films, it’s not like you’re gonna see little ripples - you’re gonna see big waves, huge manoeuvres and heavy wipe-outs.”
Close calls, as you’d image, abound. One particular wave at Pipeline, Hawaii, draws attention, as the man apparently did die – and then came back to life.
Haynes explains: “It was a wide closeout set a few years ago. I’m diving to go under – you just find little crevices where you go deeper – and I’m going through this little crevice and then it just turns black and I just hear a big… ‘bang!’ Next thing you know, I’m just ringing like a thirty-foot copper bell, just ringing… ringing… And then I look around me and I see this light hitting me with bubbles all around. Then the next frame, I just see myself and I can’t move a thing… I’m five foot back from myself and I’m silhouetted with bubbles all around me… You see, I’m actually out of myself, looking at myself out of my body and I’m… chilling. Next frame, and I just wake up, no problem - though my helmet is totally split in half.”
Heavy shit. Still, it seems there’s very little Haynes won’t do in order to get the shot. During the recent O’Neill Highland Open, in Thurso, on the north coast of Scotland, he braved water temps as low as five degrees Celsius to film the event. “It’s like a refrigerator out there,” he says, “but I’m always at home in the water.”
And it shows. Out in the surf, Haynes looks like a happy seal, ducking, diving and splashing around with his film equipment in tow. On land, he is loud and boisterous. These days, Haynes is keen to talk about his latest project, The Endless Winter: “The film has footage from the last couple of decades. I’m writing the script for it right now. The idea is to have a premiere on July 7, 2007. We’re gonna have this go huge.”
The concept, which originated from a conversation with late big-wave surfer Mark Foo, is Haynes’ answer to Bruce Brown’s iconic Endless Summer: “Mark Foo and I, we were always talking about the endless winter – always chasing the big waves all over the world. I’ve already got the footage. Now it’s time to make the film.”
To learn more about the Endless Winter project and other Larry Haynes’ films, check out www.fluidvision.com. For more on the O’Neill Highland Open, go to www.oneilleurope.com/highlandopen.
This story originally appeared in Huck #001.
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