| Australia's first surfing photograph |
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| Friday, 30 December 2011 16:11 |
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Australia's first surfing photograph was taken in 1912 and shows Tommy Walker performing a headstand on his heavy wooden surfboard while riding a wave at Main Beach, Yamba. The historic surf photo was taken by Osric Burston Notley, a former Yamba Surf Club member. The man accredited with introducing surfing to Australia, back in 1909, will be remembered with inaugural Tommy Walker Surf Classic, a surf contest set down for Main Beach on January 2n, 2012. Walker spent his childhood on Sydney's northern beaches and had the opportunity to visit Hawaii, as a seaman in 1908. In the Pacific islands, he bought his first surfboard for $US2 and travelled with it to Australia. Historical reports of the Manly Surf Club tell that Tommy Walker and friends tested surfboards around Manly in 1911. The "Yamba 1911-12" inscription on the back of the photos proves the age of the surf photo legacy and the photo was kept by several generations of surfers. The first edition of the Tommy Walker Surf Classic will feature a surfing exhibition, with invited guests from around Australia riding long board replicas from the same period, static exhibition of surfboards, images and surfing memorabilia from past eras, in the Pacific Hotel. All this incredible pieces of Australia's surfing history are studied and recovered by Ray Moran, historian of the Manly Life Saving Club. "There is a 1909 photo taken of Tommy at Manly standing alongside his surfboard on the beach – it’s a nice portrait, but he’s not surfing" Moran explains. The world's best surfers and shapers like Rod Dahlberg and Albert Fox, both of Angourie and Tom Wegener, of Noosa Heads, will also discuss the multiple facets of surfing with the general public, in several workshops.
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