180: Taylor Steele

Taylor Steele is one of the most iconic and prolific surf film makers of our time. Find him on instagram @taylorsteele.

Through his film Momentum, released in 1992 - a then twenty year old Taylor captured a new and dominating style of surfing that hadn’t really been seen before as he filmed young surfers that would go on to become household names in the surf world: Shane Dorian, Rob Machado, Taylor Knox and of course Kelly Slater.

As a film, it documented a complete shift in style and propelled these surfers into absolute idol status among fans.

Fast forward 25 years later, and Taylor has a new film out called Proximity featuring some of the surfers that he featured back in that first film.

It comes out May 12th in Australia for a limited release and will then be released digitally - but I must urge you to catch it on the big screen.

I’ve seen this film twice now, once on my desktop and once on the big screen and I have to say it’s easily the most beautiful surf film I’ve ever laid eyes on.

If you’ve never surfed, or always wondered about what would drive someone to compete in the world of professional surfing or indeed dedicate their lives to traveling the world and seeking out the most rare and untouched waves they can find - this is a fantastic film.

Pairing surfers from different generations together and sending them on journeys to the four corners of the globe in the midst of the four seasons of the year, Taylor has documented again what it means to surf, what it means to compete as a surfer, and what it means to put your life on the line in the search to ride in harmony nature itself.

I can’t recommend this movie enough if you’ve always been curious about surfing - you could watch it and then consider yourself schooled about why people would do it.

Taylor is a remarkable guy, by his own admission shy and quite specific, I can’t thank him enough for the hour that he gave me in his hotel room earlier this week.

He even let me rearrange the furniture so that I could get a better position to suit the microphones.

So come now to the tenth floor of the QT hotel on Market Street right in the middle of Sydney, a long way from where both of us were born - for a look into the mind of someone who has always lived a life he loves, a live of creating, and a life that plays a huge role in the surf industry today - because he essentially wrote the theme song to an entire generation of surfers.

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X OG