For whom the swell tolls

“Hehehe!” laughs Mickey Smith. “Some of us do, some of us don’t – I’m someone who does.”

In fairness, he has been telling Hot Press about surfing in Iceland. In extreme weather conditions anything that helps you to keep warm is surely a good thing.
“It’s pretty cold up there,” he says, which has got to be something of an understatement. “It was a kind of out-there experience – being around ice and waves at the same time. It’s not really dangerous, but it is pretty bizarre.”
Smith grew up in Cornwall and began surfing and taking photographs from the age of nine. He’s a lucky man, having managed to combine his great creative passions – filmmaking and photography – with surfing. He’s worked as a photographer with surf magazines and last year released a short film, Dark Side Of The Lens.
“I’ve always been experimenting with cameras, making weird little movies when I was young. Dark Side Of The Lens was pretty well-received. It was a pretty cool little thing.”
“Pretty well received” is not exactly true. Dark Side Of The Lens won the Surfer’s Poll award and ‘Best Short’ in the Relentless Energy Short Stories series of short films. Although Smith is regarded as something of a legend in surf circles, he is modest to a fault. As he tells it, his career was something of an accident.
“I never went into it as a career, it just happened that way. I started documenting my travels and experiences in the sea. Magazine editors started approaching me and if I was travelling with different groups of surfers, the surfers would pass on a few of my shots to their sponsors and sometimes they’d want to use them. Then I started travelling for it as a career. It’s surprised me for sure, I’m still waiting for someone to pull the rug out from under me!”
It must be frustrating for a surfer, Hot Press muses, to be filming or photographing waves instead of riding them.
“Yeah, definitely! But I kind of focus on bigger waves anyway. A lot of the time, swimming around and documenting waves like that is what I feel I’m good at doing, where I feel comfortable, I guess. There are times when the waves look really special and you wish you could be surfing. If I feel like that I’ll put down the camera – some waves are just too special to miss!”
All this makes Smith well-placed to be the judge of this year’s Relentless Energy photography competition, the theme of which is ‘No Half Measures’ – amateur and professional photographer are invited to submit their best extreme sports shots.
As extreme sports action happens so quickly, getting the composition right is one of the biggest challenges, he says.
“It can be difficult, but it’s something you have to be aware of to get a special photograph. Mainly I’ll be looking for the overall feel that the photograph gives. You need something that’s exciting for the viewer, that’s had a lot of thought gone into it with the composition, the mood and the light and obviously it has to be pin sharp.”
Although Smith has surfed just about everywhere, he believes that some of the best surfing to be had is right here in our own backyard.
“A lot of people, when they’re going surfing, they like to go somewhere warm and sunny – Ireland is not like that, obviously, but it has some of the best waves in the world. If you don’t mind the cold then this is probably one of the best places in the world to surf. My travels have taken me to all sorts of weird and wonderful places but I always seem to end up in some pretty interesting situations in the sea here in Ireland.”
With almost a lifetime of surfing behind him Smith has gotten himself into more than a few frightening moments on the waves.
“I’ve had loads! I don’t know what the scariest one would be. A lot of what we do is based around being in scary situations so we don’t dwell on it much. You have to just enjoy it and not be scared of it.”
What about injuries?
“I’ve taken a few knocks,” he concedes with a laugh. “I broke my arm a few years ago and that was pretty nasty. But luckily, I’ve had nothing too terrible.”
What about sharks?
“I’ve encountered them, but not in a hostile way.”
Isn’t it true that sharks sometimes confuse surfers with large turtles though?
“I don’t think they get confused – they’re just inquisitive, you know. If you’re in a really sharky area, you’d be taking precautions like not surfing at dawn or dusk. You wouldn’t want to be surfing if there’s a lot of fish and a lot of feeding going on. A lot of the time you just have trust that the sharks know what they want to eat and it’s not you.”
Hot Press can’t help but wonder if surfers brag about the size of waves they encounter. Smith bursts into laughter.
“Wave sizes are really strange things because surfers measure them differently to how you’d normally size things on land. So most of us are reluctant to put sizes on waves because you’d end up sounding like an idiot if you did. Most of us tend to downplay the size more than anything else, I reckon.”
In addition to the attractions of the sea, this year’s Sea Sessions offers a great mix of local and international musical talent. The music is an extra draw for Smith, who’s been playing since he was a boy, including paying gigs in bars around Cornwell from the tender age of 13.
“My whole family is pretty musical. When I was really young my mum’s boyfriend introduced me to music and there were always instruments around the place and musicians coming through the house before and after gigs. I was out playing with him from about the age of ten and then I was working about three nights a week until I was 16.
“It was really interesting. You learn a lot. When you’re young like that and exposed to the adult world in such a graphic way in pretty rough bars, you learn pretty fast, but it was a cool experience.”
Smith won’t be drawn on which bands he’s most looking forward to, but the line-up has something for just about everyone. Bell X1, The Go! Team, Grandmaster Flash, Ziggy Marley, Villagers, Ham Sandwich, CODES, O Emperor and Herbaliser are just a few of the names performing over the three days.
“It’s a great weekend,” says Smith enthusiastically. “It’s an amazing location right on the beach in Bundoran. There’s some really exciting surfing going on, skateboarding, BMXing and all sorts of crazy music and all sorts of crazy people!”
Looking forward to it, are you then?
“Oh yes!”

The Sea Sessions Festival takes place in Bundoran from June 24 to 26. See seasessions.com for more information.