Jeff Johnson is a freelance photographer, director, writer, brand ambassador and former North Shore lifeguard. He became Patagonia’s first staff photographer in the early aughts.
Johnson is also passionate about bodysurfing. In 2001, he wrote an adventure piece for the Surfer’s Journal titled The Body Will Suffice: Self-Propelled Through Primordia. This article details a “feral” bodysurfing mission along a rugged stretch of Hawaiian coast, where Johnson swam, bodysurfed, hiked, and camped with fellow watermen Chris Malloy, Todd Sells, and Seth Stafford.
Johnson first came on my radar in 2010 with his documentary film, 180° South. This environmental surf odyssey retraces a road trip taken in 1968 by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard from Ventura, California to Patagonia, Chile.
In 2013, Johnson helped produce The Plight of the Torpedo People, a collection of bodysurfing photographs, frame grabs and personal essays documenting the making of Come Hell or High Water, the first feature-length film made about bodysurfing.
Needless to say, I’m a big fan of Johnson’s work. Therefore, I’d like to share a couple of his best quotes about bodysurfing.
Bodysurfing is the basic fundamental of everything I do in the ocean. – Jeff Johnson
Plight of the Torpedo People
“The sun wasn’t up yet, but I could see big swells rolling through Pipeline’s outer reefs, unloading on first reef with loud, glorious explosions. It didn’t seem anyone was out, but then I saw something streaking down the face of a wave in the early light. It wasn’t a surfer in the traditional sense, and it wasn’t a bodyboarder either. Whatever it was trimmed high on the face, came off the bottom, disappeared in the tube, and cut out into the channel. I was quick to dismiss it, thinking the pre-dawn light was playing tricks on me. Later that day I learned that I had been watching the bodysurfer, Mark Cunningham.”
“As a surfer from California I was familiar with bodysurfing, but always thought of it as something you did when the wind turned onshore, or when the waves became un-surfable. Body whomping was more like it: A two second ride ending with a proper thrashing and all orifices full of sand. It never occurred to me to bodysurf when the waves were good; to actually surf them was an idea that took some time to wrap my head around.”
“In an age of insane consumerism, the simplicity of a pair of flippers and one’s own body for a craft registered with audiences in ways that people couldn’t quite explain. Perhaps bodysurfing is a sort of mythological transformation entwined with the innate human desire to exceed our physical limitations. Whatever the reason, Come Hell or High Water helps people see surfing a little differently, providing a much-needed reminder that the most intense wave riding experience is often just a short swim away.”
The Body Will Suffice
“The evening sun danced around the clouds as Todd and Chris bodysurfed the day’s remaining waves. The swell had increased throughout the day turning the cove into a boiling tub of tripled-up nonsense. Unless the future holds revolutionary advancements in wave-riding equipment, these waves will never be ridden on conventional tools. For now, the body will suffice. The body alone.”
