On the Right Coast: Surfing Rockaway

All photos by Susannah Ray

CS: How did you start surfing and where?

SR: I started surfing two years ago. I had wanted to try surfing since I was a teenager but never took the initiative to make it happen. In 2003 I pulled through a break-up that was particularly hard on me and really needed to throw myself into something new, needed to shake up my life and refocus it in a more positive direction. I paid through the nose for two lessons out in Long Beach. I was hooked after the first ride and have been obsessed ever since. I'm actually grateful to my old boyfriend for dumping me!

CS: What did you think when you first surfed Rockaway?

SR: SKETCHY! I was so nervous walking from the 90th street shuttle stop. As for the line-up, I was pretty clueless when I started, so I don't think I tapped into the scene and its attendant dynamics until this past fall.

CS: What led you to move to Rockaway?

SR: Every time I crossed the Marine Parkway Bridge as I headed from Brooklyn to Rock for a session, I felt this real release and a sense of coming home. I shared a bungalow this past winter with a whole bunch of people as a kind of test of how I might like living in Rockaway, as well as a way to keep surfing through the bitter cold. My community has grown by leaps and bounds and more and more of us have moved out here, so when my lease came up I decided to take the plunge. I surf every day and now that its summer, my social life is actually on overdrive.

CS: How long have you been taking photographs?

SR: I started taking pictures right before I went to college. I majored in Visual Arts at Princeton and got an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC.

CS: Rockaway's got a unique culture. It gets a lot of flavor from NYC, but it feels so far from the city. What's your take on the Rockaway culture?

SR: Well, right now Rockaway Beach is definitely a neighborhood in transition. There is still a lot of blight in the neighborhood, there are crackhouses on my block and on my friends' blocks as well. That being said, Rockaway is a tight yet welcoming community. Its very small town here: I go to the bagel store and they ask me how the surf is, I'm on a first name basis with the counterman at Elegante Pizzeria, and I can't drive to 116th without spotting some of the kids from the line-up skating in the parking lot at Waldbaums.

CS: Your series Right Coast documents the snowy 2004/05 winter at Rockaway and it looks pretty bleak. Is there a particular kind of brain damage that makes someone WANT to surf through a New York City winter?

SR: Yes! Its called surfing! It is really an addiction, to the point where we'll put on ridiculous amounts of gear just to make sure we get our fix. But the winter is a beautiful time as well. I had some sessions in Montauk that blew me away, the air was crystalline, the colors of the light and water were really thin and ethereal. Rock doesn't get that spectacular, but it has its moments. And the late winter/early spring swells are a force to be reckoned with. You don't get those kind of waves in the summer.

CS: Do you think there's something about city surfers that sets them apart from other surfers, or are we all part of the same global tribe?

SR: I don't know enough surfers from elsewhere to accurately comment, but I do think there is something about New York City surfers that is very different from all other surfers. If you stay in NYC and surf, there is a reason to be here other than waves. Which means the surf community is insanely diverse and also filled with people who have interests beyond the newest surf vid. Lots of artists in the line-up, doctors, lawyers, writers, mortgage brokers, art directors, etcetera. People are very driven; the myth of the slacker surfer doesn't really apply here. Although we all scheme to bail on work early when a swell hits...

CS: Is surfing incompatible with a real job?

SR: No, but a nine-to-five job can relegate you to being a weekend warrior. Living at the beach helps, in that you can grab a session before or after work. I freelance, so the upside is I can surf for five hours on a weekday, as I did last Thursday. The downside is that when the work comes in I have to prioritize that because I don't know when the next job will come in.

CS: What's the next photo project for you?

SR: Well, I'm still hard at work on Right Coast, so I don't know. Mostly I'm thinking about where these pictures are going, if a book will come from the project, etc, etc.

CS: You have a gallery show coming up soon. When and where is that?

SR: The show will be at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts (formerly Artek Contemporaries) in Manhattan. It's a group show of photography and it will open September 8 at 526 W. 26th St, Ste 411.