Saturday, August 20, 2011

Happy Birthday to Shaun Tomson


August 21 is the birthday of Shaun Tomson, a groundbreaking surfer with an unmistakeable style.

He has been featured in posts on this blog previously here, here and here.

Above is a link to the iconic 1978 surf movie Free Ride, which features Shaun Tomson and Rabbit Bartholomew along with Mark Richards, Larry Bertleman, and other innovative surfers of the era. Even thirty-three years later, some of the surfing scenes in this movie rival anything that has been captured on film.

The movie's long surf sequences and many slow-motion sequences allow viewers to really study the surf style of the different surfers, which completely changed surfing and which is even more impressive considering the boards they were using at the time.

In the movie, Shaun explains: "I've got this sort of standard in my head of what I think good surfing is, and I always try to exceed that standard."

Happy birthday to a true living legend of surfing -- may he long continue trying to exceed his own standard!