Dick Hoole Photographer

Burleigh Heads on Queensland's Gold Coast was where everyone surfed during the '70s and '80s. And veteran photographer and filmmaker Dick Hoole was there with camera in hand to capture it.

Dick Hoole is an Australian surfing icon who has had a 50 year career as a professional still photographer, magazine publisher, 16mm film cameraman, film producer and film distributor. He has a huge archive of stills and 16mm film footage from the golden era of surfing in Australia, Hawaii and Indonesia. In 2000, he was awarded the Australian Sports Medal by Prime Minister John Howard for his contribution to Australian Surfing.Now living in Byron Bay, there was a time when Mr Hoole called the Gold Coast home and was living the surfing lifestyle.

(Source: https://www.dickhoole.com.au/dick-hoole-about)

Now living in Byron Bay, there was a time when Mr Hoole called the Gold Coast home and was living the surfing lifestyle.

“In 1975, Burleigh was the main arena,” Mr Hoole said.

“Just like Hawaii had Sunset Beach and later Pipeline — on the Gold Coast, Burleigh was the arena,” he said.

“Burleigh was the centre of our surfing universe since and still is.”

Mr Hoole started his career as a surfboard shaper in Byron Bay where he moved to from Sydney in 1967 as a 17-year-old.

“I remembered how polluted the surfboard manufacturing industry was,” he said.

“I was doing the glassing and sanding and I remember the environment was so polluted and toxic that I swore to myself I didn’t want to be still working in a surfboard factory when I was a senior citizen.

While he worked in the shaping shop, the stories of the Hawaiian pilgrimages made by his older co-workers inspired him to take the same path.

He figured the only way people would believe he made it all the way to Hawaii was to start taking photos to show them he was really there.

“That’s basically where my interest in photography happened,” Mr Hoole said.

“One of the photos I took there was put on the cover of Surfing World — Tom Stone surfing Pipeline.

After bouncing around Honolulu for a while he met fellow photographer and filmmaker Jack McCoy and his career changed gears after the two connected. Mr Hoole returned to Australia to make the Gold Coast his home and embark on a film-making career.

“Basically, without a script or the Indiana Jones formula, we decide we’re going to make a film,” he said.

“There was no script and no budget.”

“We bought the camera and we just started filming the surfing that we saw around us,” he said.

“It was just the simplicity back in those days that made it so unique.

“It was purely to make a film that was shown in the theatre on the big screen and that’s when it came alive.”

Mr Hoole and Mr McCoy made history when they made surfing film Tubular Swells.

“Tubular Swells was the first feature film made in Queensland, it was more incidental because there was no film industry up there,” Mr Hoole said.

“All the processing and sound mixes were done in the facilities of Sydney, but the film was actually made in Mermaid Waters.”

They followed Tubular Swells with Storm Riders, starring surfers like Mark Richards, Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew, Gerry Lopez, Wayne Lynch and Tommy Carroll.

Mr Hoole said he was glad of the opportunity to document surfing history “because after all, we were just living our surfing dream”.