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Jordy Smith and Chad Du Toit, makeshift shower, This Is (South) Africa

Photog Ryan Miller just pulled into South Africa to work with Jordy Smith for a stint before the tour hits Rio. “Straight off the plane and straight to the beach in my airplane clothes,” says Ryan of his first coupla hours in Durban. “Surfed this dumpy beach break that was perfect for punts. After the surf we went walking up to the showers at the surf life saving club and these perfectly beautiful showers were off. The boys knew it ahead of time and went right to this lawn sprinkler and stuck a hose into it to make the water shoot out the top. Evidentially the showers have been off for years and the boys are old pros with the sprinkler trick. Here’s Jordy hosing off Chad DuToit and then then Chad hosed off Jordy after. There is a saying down here in South Africa: “T.I.A.” It means This Is Africa. It applies to everything ghetto or specific to Africa that you wouldn’t find anywhere else. Sticking a hose into a lawn sprinkler to wash off after a surf is so very T.I.A.

Photographer profile

Ryan Miller

Ryan Miller, 33 years old, does not know how to write a bad email. Your pals at Stab have learnt to live vicariously through Miller’s red wine-fuelled letters from the road. His travels take him to some dreamy locales and, in those places, he scores all-time photos: “My favourite photo I’ve shot was of Benny Bourgeois in the Caribbean, with a fisheye. Often I just take photos, but rarely do I get to make one.” In an age of tail-highs and released fins, Ryan still most likes to shoot someone who can lay-down a big backside turn. Namely: Jordy Smith, Dane Reynolds, Gabe Kling, Kekoa Bacalso, Damien Hobgood and Peter Mendia. Like most photogs, Miller misses Scott Aichner’s work. But, as far as contemporary inspiration? “Trying to see things through my daughter’s eyes. It’s wild to think about someone experiencing something totally new on almost a daily basis when, as adults, we rarely get to experience something truly new.”

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