Kane Brown is a twenty-six-year-old photographer who has been shooting for roughly ten years. He owes his style to the Sunshine Coast environment he has grown up in, and is especially drawn to the ocean’s unpredictability and changing conditions. He’s open minded about his future, but predicts it’ll probably be attached to a camera. Here are five of Kane’s favourites.
BLUE THUNDER. CLOUDBREAK. I’d already been in Fiji for a week watching the charts in anticipation of this swell. You know it’s going to be good when surfers start arriving from all around the world with their ten-foot guns and tow boards. Surfers didn’t want to miss out on this swell, including Dane Gudauskas. The first sight of Cloudbreak that morning was an empty lineup with a few boats bobbing up and down in the channel. Dane was with a couple of other surfers contemplating if it was even surf-able. Moments after watching a couple of sets roll through, only a few early birds decided to paddle out. This photo was Dane’s first wave of the morning. It was 5:50AM. He set the bar high for a historical day of surfing.
VIVID MEMORIES. SUNSHINE COAST. There’s no place like home, right? It’s not very often the Sunshine Coast looks this stunning during the middle of the day, especially during summer. We had such a fun run of waves over last summer, but this day was certainly a highlight. This is one of the better moments from the day with Ziggy Alberts.
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE. NIAS. This strike mission to Nias was only a few months after my Fijian trip. I had plans to shoot from the water for this one, but unfortunately my camera equipment broke down on the night before the swell hit. The day didn’t disappoint though. It was brutally big. There was so much energy in the swell it broke pieces off the reef. There was rock boulders rolling around the shores in Lagundri Bay.
VIEW FROM THE CHANNEL. SOUTH PACIFIC. Sometimes the favourite image from a trip won’t be a typical ‘wave of the day’. I generally like a lot of empty space and simplicity when it comes to photography, and this image of Laurie Towner is a perfect example. I only had one camera body on the boat that day, so I was swapping lenses while dodging rain squalls and sea spray. There were moments it was so wet I couldn’t bring out my camera. Although it doesn’t have those stunning South Pacific blues in this image, the overcast conditions certainly provided glimpses of magic.
CALM MOVEMENT. SUNSHINE COAST. There’s something visually attractive shooting with slower camera shutters in the ocean. It can be a little hit and miss most of the time, but extremely rewarding when one strikes nicely. This was taken last winter on the Sunshine Coast during first light with only a little patch of colour.
You can check out more of Kane’s work over on the ‘Gram at @kanebrownphoto
