I was born in Santa Cruz, California — barefoot, sandy, 70s beach-kissed colors stamped into my memory like permanent film: washed-out orange, pink, turquoise. We moved away to the lake (which I also love) when I was four, but the ocean had already cast a bit of a spell on my soul. My husband? Cape Town boy. Also born in a surf town. He didn’t have much, but a couple of his childhood homes literally sat on the sea, where he had pet octopuses who lived under rocks (true story). So it was not a choice: the sea was baked into both of our DNAs.
Salty sea blows me
Spin and crash waltz and fall me
Sun and kiss me now
—
Nature’s top salon
Ocean whales organic snails
Prime ingredients
When I was pregnant with our first child, Eyala, we went full beach-bum: sublet our place, flew to Cape Town for three months, and basically lived in the ocean. Surfing, hiking, sunbathing — I even had this light pink t-shirt that I wore incessantly that said Beach Bum in faded orange letters on the front. I wore it like my uniform, & did my best to live by it's manifesto! I knew I wanted my kids to inhabit these barefoot & salt-crusted spaces with healthy doses of wild sprinkled in.
Best babysitter
Sand sun sea take care of it
Shown to trump Prozac
It didn’t happen overnight, but somehow we landed in two beachfront houses when the kids were little — one in the Deep South in Cape Town, & one just north of San Francisco in a hidden cove in Marin. We got both through friends of friends at incredibly low rents. These hypnotic nights of changing tides, watching the spectacle of moonbeams dancing in our room, to surfers dancing just outside our window, continued to lure us deeper and deeper into this beach trance. Even when we weren’t living right on the sea, we were almost always within ten minutes of it. Daily life involved ocean-soaked: tidal pool swims, grocery runs along the coast, kids tumbling down dunes, & evening bonfires. The beach was our babysitter, our therapist, our sanctuary.
Loving the surfers.
Outside my window flying.
Salt-crusted soul-food.
—
The road to the beach
Ice cream in my pajamas
1970
Here’s the thing: childhood is sacred. It’s short. A quarter of your life at best. I didn’t want screens and traffic and concrete to steal it from my kids. I hungered for seashells, sunshine, and seaweed. The ocean doesn’t coddle you — it holds you one second and spits you out the next. It is messy, alive, & sometimes scary, but always real. It teaches you about risk, resilience, joy, awe, & staying present to our pulse.
Bellisimo blonde
Eternal beach-kissed beauty
Boom chicka boom boom
I became their paparazzi. I couldn’t stop photographing them: salty, sandy, sun-kissed. To me, childhood is gold: rich, irreplaceable. And childhood with ocean in it? Even more so. I felt a conscious desire to CELEBRATE the dirty feet, the messy hair, the glittery leotards and rainbow bikinis. Photography was my way of keeping a little magic in a bottle.
Om om shanti om
Princess of the sea be thy
Ruler of starfish
Surfing was never a question. First boogie boards. Then swim lessons whilst still in diapers. And eventually, surf lessons and boards too big for their bodies. I loved watching them be thrown into the waves — not just because surfing is fun, but because surfing is… different. It’s not a field or a court. It’s alive. It’s seals and storms and phosphorescence. It’s not about winning. It’s about stoke — that thing that lights you up from the inside out and spills out everywhere.
La luna night beach
Full moon fire sanctuary
I keep it with me
I wanted them to remember a tangible sense of aliveness in a world that tries so hard to numb. Surfing is therapy. It wakes you up. It is embodiment, dance, trust, surrender, play. Play that most adults forget how to do.
Salt bath siesta
Just me and seven mermaids
Que sera sera
Now my daughter has made a surf documentary — her own love letter and inquiry into the stoke. The ocean is loud and soft, harsh and forgiving. It asks you to let go, to risk, to breathe, to feel. That’s why I raised my kids by the sea. Because I wanted them to remember, always, that life isn’t about playing it safe. It’s about playing.
Hello beautiful
This is all you’ll ever need
Sand between your toes
"Surfing was never a question. First boogie boards. Then swim lessons whilst still in diapers. And eventually, surf lessons and boards too big for their bodies. I loved watching them be thrown into the waves — not just because surfing is fun, but because surfing is… different. It’s not a field or a court. It’s alive. It’s seals and storms and phosphorescence. It’s not about winning. It’s about stoke — that thing that lights you up from the inside out and spills out everywhere"
All photographs by Kelly Wainwright
www.kellywainwright.com
The haikus are part of Kelly Wainwright's up and coming book of poetic musings titled b. wilder
Ever since I was a kid running around with my little brother, my mom has always been behind the camera capturing and soaking up every moment, in both the US and South Africa. As I've grown, the love I have for my childhood being behind a camera has grown as well, and with that has my love for cameras and film.
When I was about 13, I was given my mom's old film camera for Christmas, which my parents had caught my wandering eye glimpsing at. That day alone I probably took about 13 pictures, and for those who don’t know, film is pretty expensive so that's a lot of photos to take in one day. And so with this camera my eyes began to grow more in love with being behind the lens. I discovered a passion for capturing moments just like my mom.
When it came to picking what to do for my project, I always knew it had to be something that meant I was behind the lens, especially because everyone told me “make sure you do something you love for your project that will keep you focused." I didn’t want to do photography because it wouldn’t stretch me and I already do that anyway. That's when I thought of a documentary. I have always loved the way documentaries are made, the emotion they hold and how raw they feel. A surf documentary felt like I hit the nail on the head.
My brother is in love with surfing, I mean it is his true love, this means many surf movies are watched in our home. As I watched these films and my brother and his friends, I couldn’t help but notice how much passion they all seemed to have for surfing. I knew there was something special there and I wanted to find out exactly what it was.
Fast forward, I landed on making a documentary that I hoped would capture Muizenberg's unique surf culture but more importantly the stoke one feels when surfing. I was lucky enough to meet Alan van Gysen, a world-renowned water photographer and producer, at one of my brother's surf competitions. He became my external mentor and truly made this whole thing possible. I want to give a huge thank you to him!
Before actually filming anything there is a lot of preparation that is needed, which honestly was probably the worst part for me. I couldn’t answer the questions I needed to and felt a lot of pressure to figure everything out. In my heart, I knew that I could do it but at the same time I wasn’t so sure.
After a few meetings with some lovely people, I finally had somewhat of a plan, deciding on interviewing three people from Muizenberg. From the beginning, I knew I wanted a diverse mix of people, Angelica Rosslind, one of my friends, was top of my list. She has a heartfelt story and is such a passionate surfer, Titch Paul was also someone I had in mind from the beginning. He is a ‘local legend’ and owns the 2nd oldest surf shop in Muizenberg. I knew he would add some rich history to the documentary. My third person wasn’t finalized as I reached out to a surfer but he never got back to me. I then decided to reach out to Natasha van Greunen. Her excitement was through the roof and I knew she was the perfect fit. By the end of January I knew who I was interviewing and was excited to film. I also spent a lot of time filming my brother and his friends both in and out of the water. One of my favourite parts was catching the joy on their faces’ after seeing the surf.
I was able to do the interviews in March, which Alan guided me through. I was extremely nervous about doing the interviews but with some extra questions from Alan, during the interview process, they turned out just how I imagined them. We shot all of the interviews on Alan's camera in Lifestyle Surf-shop, in Muizenberg as well as using his sound equipment, which made the BIGGEST positive impact.
Fast forward to May, I had all of my interview footage but I still needed a few more beach scenes. I spent some afternoons on Kommetjie and Muizenberg beach capturing both beach scenes as well as surfers in the water. Before the editing process began my whole family got invited to a film premiere of Alan's called "Le Jardin" which was so exciting and a great inspiration pre-editing time. Everyone told me that editing would be the most time consuming, so I went in knowing this but was still surprised by how long it really took. The many ups and downs that come with editing are very real. The accidental delete of a clip or the struggle of learning software is definitely worth the final outcome.
Thank you mom and dad for calming me down when I thought the world ended after messing something up or helping me fix whatever needed fixing. I couldn’t be more thankful.
Editing was something that I found very hard, finding a good momentum, and because of this I felt very anxious that I wasn’t going to finish my project. But deep down, I knew I was going to finish, mostly because I knew I wouldn’t let myself not finish. Getting the beginning of my film done truly made everything start to flow. During this editing process, I found watching other short documentaries a very helpful way to find inspiration and see what styles I like and didn’t.
At the end of the editing process, music and colour grading made the biggest difference, it took my film from being unfinished to complete. It brought everything to life. Although choosing the music and finding a way to still make the story flow was definitely something I underestimated. Having a complete documentary felt incredible but it definitely wasn’t the end of the process. I still had to find what I wanted the cover to be, which thankfully came to me very naturally. I chose this particular picture because I liked its simplicity and feel like it represents my documentary in a good way.
"Ever since I was a kid running around with my little brother, my mom has always been behind the camera capturing and soaking up every moment, in both the US and South Africa. As I've grown, the love I have for my childhood being behind a camera has grown as well, and with that has my love for cameras and film."