The collection at Thurston Photo initially begin accumulating as a result of my willingness to support my brother Glen in his pursuit of professional bodyboarding. I would accompany him daily as we ventured into the sea, ambitious to capture a unique and cool perspective of him riding that we could share with others and build his profile. I loved photography and having a subject to capture centralised my focus and in turn refined my ability to shoot and document the ocean from a unique vantage point. Over time, while Glen would be out the back waiting for the right wave, my attention drew to the many passing inside waves beautifully breaking on the reef platforms. I always had a fascination for the ocean, but being somewhat constantly exposed to the breathtaking power of the breaking wave stirred in me an overwhelming desire to eternalise what I saw with photography. My focus was always on Glen, positioning myself accordingly to the movement of the waves and his take off zone, in order to link up on the big sets that came through on the day, however if I was going to be that close to the impact zone I might as well photograph every darn wave that came through! And that I did, thus creating the collection that is now Thurston Photo.
I am incredibly grateful that my brothers passion to ride waves fuelled my own passion, you just never know the effect you can have on someones life that comes from the overflow of pursuing your own dreams. We were both doing what we loved and in turn accompanied one another's dedications to excel in our respective fields.
We don't get the chance to shoot together as much anymore as life has introduced other responsibilities, however over the last several years we've naturally accumulated a significant amount of images of Glen riding that any single one would be fit to grace the cover of a bodyboard magazine. In saying that, the demand for printed material has significantly decreased as online media continues to flood our lives and bodyboarding mags have since ceased to exist. Having many of my images published in the late magazines though, I never really did it to get in the mags. I did it to simply enjoy spending time with my brothers and this is the energy that has woven together this publication, Brothers; A hardcover premium Matte Laminated book with 75 images that tell countless crazy stories of ocean adventure and brotherly bonding.
The idea for the book has been with me for a long time, however leading up to christmas just passed, I invested the time to designing and getting it published. One copy that thankfully arrived on Christmas Eve! We unwrapped it together down at the beach on Christmas Day and it was to this day the most rewarding moment in my career. Pure heartfelt gratitude for having awesome brothers to do life with.
Enclosed are a few images of Brothers; the second publication from Thurston Photo.
