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Clark Little makes images in bedlam. His “studio” is the impact zone on Oahu’s North Shore, where sea meets land and huge slabs of water — some of the most powerful waves on the planet — rear up, pitch forth and let go. In that instant, Clark captures them — their sublime grace, intricate architecture, astonishing beauty — before everything around him explodes in a frenzy of water and energy. You’d think it’d all be a little … intense, but not for Clark. “When I’m in the ocean,” he says, “I feel just as calm as when I’m lying in my bed at night going to sleep. I feel like I belong there.” Every day he marvels at the good fortune that gave him both the skill of an incredible waterman and the eye of a visionary photographer. But he’s humble. “God created it,” he says. “I’m just trying to capture it.”
Fisherman: “This shot is one of my first,” says Clark. “It’s an early morning shot, taken at Ke Iki Beach on the North Shore. You can see the fisherman in the distance; that’s why I named it ‘Fisherman.’
“The wave at Ke Iki breaks close to shore, and it’s the thickest wave I’ve ever been in, shooting or surfing. It’s more of a cube than a wave — it’s as thick as it is tall. This wave was a ten-by-ten-foot cube of water. I was sitting right in the tube, and it was like being in a big cave. And the sound! It’s like an earthquake. You’re holding the trigger trying to get the best shot and then boom! The wave explodes. Usually I try to sneak out the back of the wave but that doesn’t always happen — if I hold on long enough trying to get that epic shot, sometimes I get sucked over the falls and thrown on the beach.
“Ke Iki is a favorite spot to shoot. When it’s big, there aren’t too many people out. I love to be in the ocean without a crowd. And I love to get thrown around … to some extent.”
Flame: “The way I look at it,” says Clark, “sunsets are beautiful, waves are beautiful and coconut trees are beautiful. But when you can get all three together at once, you get the ‘Whoa!’ factor. That’s what happened in this image. I was shooting in a shore break on the North Shore just as the sun was setting. The colors in the sky were just like the colors of fire, which is why I called the image ‘Flame.’
“I don’t know if I plan these things out. I’m in the ocean shooting because I love to be in the ocean. Then I think my passion starts to show, and you can begin to see it in the images. I was 5 or 6 years old when I first experienced the motion of the ocean, and in my 20s, I was a serious surfer in the Waimea and Ke Iki shore breaks. And my dad was a photography teacher, so it’s in the blood. It’s so meaningful to me to be able to share these photographs with people around the world. The positive feedback gets me charged to go back out.”
Green Waimea: “This shot was taken right before the wave exploded,” says Clark. “I shot it during the winter, and it was taken late in the day, around 4:30 or 5. You can see the sun going down behind the wave. It was a really clear and glassy day with good-sized waves. This wave had about an eight- to twelve-foot face and it was breaking about 100 feet offshore. In the winter at Waimea Bay, the surf gets big and sucks out sand. That creates sandbars, which cause the waves to break farther offshore.
“This picture brings back memories from the days when I used to surf the shore breaks a lot. Waimea is like a second home to me. When I come walking down the beach, and the waves are clean and beautiful like that, I can barely stop to put on my fins because I’m so stoked to get into the shore break and capture these images. The feeling is awesome. Sometimes I think: ‘Will I get crushed? Do I have enough breath?’ But I’m so excited that that gets pushed aside and my adrenaline takes over.”
Frothy Pit: “This definitely is a frothy pit,” says Clark. “I was deep in the curl when I shot this at Ke Iki Beach. It’s a really big wave. I just love waves that look gnarly like this one. You don’t have a glassy, perfect feel, but you have such a unique mass of foam and water all coming together. To get it that clear with my camera was great … I have my little secret of how I do that. Everybody has their own trick of the trade.
“When you’re standing in the shore break waiting for a ten- to twelve-foot wave, you have to really anticipate the wave and where it’s going to break. It’s hard to position yourself. Rip currents are sucking you in and out, and if you don’t time it correctly, you can get hurt: A wave can hit you in the face, can toss you all over the place. The ideal is to get into that sweet spot, and to do that you have to have a lot of confidence. Also experience, knowledge and training and, of course, tons of passion.”
Red Dirt: “I took this shot in the winter of 2008,” remembers Clark. “It was a classic North Shore winter: It rained for two weeks straight, and the rain began to wash red dirt from the old sugar cane fields into the ocean. The water was hideous, terrible. I thought ‘I’ve seen shots of dirty water before, but always in places like New Jersey. I’ve never seen a shot of red dirt water and surf.’ I said to my wife, ‘I’m going to shoot it, why not?’ She said, ‘You’re absolutely crazy. You’re never going to get anything.’ I said, ‘Just watch me.’ I went out by the bridge at Laniakea and got into the barrels in the surf. At that moment, the sun popped so there was this beautiful blue sky, coconut trees, sandy beach — and this very odd red pollution in the water.
“I’ve used this image all over the world. People say, ‘What is that?’ They seem to love it. And it taught me that you never know what you’re going to get until you go out and try. Still, my wife said, ‘You’d better put on Neosporin when you come in.’”
Goldilocks: “Sometimes the smaller waves are just as exciting as the big ones,” says Clark. “I try to get myself right into those perfect waves. This is a shot I took at about 7 in the morning, just as the sun was rising over the horizon. The water was glassy and clear, and as the sun came up, the water filled with all of these reflections. It looked like it was filled with crystals and gold. It’s so gold, which is why I named it ‘Goldilocks.’ It’s definitely a unique shot, a perfect little nugget.
“I try to catch the art of the wave, to show Mother Nature doing all of these different things. There’s all kinds of stuff out there: wind, lighting, texture. There’s always something new. There’s a lot of ocean in this world and there’s a lot of land, and when they collide, there’s your wave. To be in a wave is a special feeling … and to capture a wave for people who can’t be in it — for people who live thousands of miles from the ocean — is even more special.”