Owen Tozer: 5 Favourite Portraits

My co-author Owen on his fave pics from Looking Sideways Vol. 1

Looking Sideways Vol. 1, the first book by myself and my creative collaborator and right-hand man Owen Tozer, is primarily a showcase for Owen’s fantastic photography. Here, he chooses his five favourite portraits from the book - and tells the stories behind them.

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1. Jamie Brisick

The portraits of Jamie Brisick are some of my favourite from the book because (for me, anyway) they seem to carry more depth and feeling than most portraits.

We recorded this episode a couple of months after Jamie had lost his home and all his possessions in the 2018 Woolsey Fire. Obviously, this was an enormous personal loss, and I found the experience of meeting him, recording the conversation and shooting the picture on the site of his old home to be a very moving experience.

Jamie was very open and honest in his conversation with Matt, as well as generous and patient with me while we took portraits in a place that was obviously loaded with memories.

Despite the midday sun, we managed to find a few shady spots and I really love the pictures we came up with. 

Click here to listen to the interview with Jamie.

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2. Cara-Beth Burnside

I’m not sure what I was expecting when we met Cara-Beth - perhaps somebody quite macho and radical. In fact, she was quiet and thoughtful, and in describing some of the battles she’d fought to get recognition in a male-dominated world she really showed us how hard she’d worked and, quite frankly, how tough it had been to get to where she did.

She is a really impressive woman who has done a lot for all women in board sports (something all the women we spoke to for the book have in common).

When it came to portraits, she was a little self-conscious I think, but we had a quiet walk around her garden and I think she relaxed enough to show us a bit of herself. She has a steeliness and a thoughtful depth which really comes across in the photos. 

Click here to listen to the episode with CB

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3. Herbie Fletcher

Of all the people we met, Herbie was probably the most fun to shoot. He’s got so much energy and personality, so many stories and facets to him, it’s just a pleasure to follow him around and take photos.

One minute he was showing me his surfboard archive; the next he was painting a huge canvas, then telling me stories about scoring the cover of Surfer Magazine, or surfing Backdoor on acid.

He loved the attention and loved the camera, and was generally very playful and engaged, which was great fun to shoot.

This particular picture seems to catch him off guard, taking a little moment. Of all the photos we made, I think this one is a bit special because he’s deep in thought and seems to have forgotten I was there.

Click here to listen to the episode with Herbie

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4. Rip Zinger

What can I say about Rip other than he’s just full of energy and delight? I can see why people love having him around. He’s a very positive, generous human. A lot of the time when we do these photos we can be a bit rushed or people can be a little tense or reluctant about having their photo taken.

Not Rip! He took us down to the beach where he’s learning to surf (with his mentor and friend Rob Machado, no less), and once there, unprompted, proceeded to strip off to his shorts and run around me in circles skipping and laughing. Not at all what I expected and it made me laugh so much I could hardly take a photo. It was refreshing to have somebody just so up for mucking about and seeing what happens.

The resulting set of photos is really fun, and this one really makes me smile whenever I see it and remember him prancing around the beach, joyfully splashing in the sea.

Click here to listen to the episode with Rip

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5. Jamie Thomas

We had a slightly odd start to our meeting with Jamie, I think because Matt had forgotten to tell him I was coming, which caught him off-guard. Our only window to meet him was very early one morning at his house, and he was leaving immediately to go on holiday after the interview, so we didn’t have a lot of time.

I definitely felt the pressure to get it done and get it done quick. Jamie and Matt had just had a pretty full-on and deep conversation about mental health, mid-life crises, family pressures and coming to terms with change, so I was determined to make a good portrait to represent the trust Jamie had shown in opening up so completely.

I definitely flapped a bit, and was really worried that I’d completely kooked it. But when it came to looking back at the photos, I was actually quite surprised and delighted with how they came out. I think it helped that Jamie is a seasoned pro and knows his way around a camera from both sides. When he looks straight into the lens and really fixes you in his stare, it’s hard to look away and I think this picture shows both sides of him. There’s a fiery confrontation in his eye contact, but there’s a vulnerability too, which sums up the conversation Matt and Jamie had really well.

Click here to listen to the episode with Jamie

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We STILL have 25% off our book Looking Sideways Vol. 1! Acclaimed by Carve, Huck, Wavelength, Metro, the Telegraph, Sidetracked Magazine and Whitelines among others, Looking Sideways Vol. 1 is now into its second print run and is available to order via my website with free shipping globally, in case you were wondering what to buy for that that surf, skate, snow or Looking Sideways podcast-loving person in your life. Click here.