An interview of Jack Sandler: Photographing the most famous waves on earth.
Among the top three most famous surf waves on earth, Mavericks slams into the coast of California just south of San Francisco, churned by a distant Pacific storm.
I pulled over to text Jack Sandler, a young Surf Photographer who shared the location with me: A hidden parking lot beneath a top secret Air Force base.
The next few days would make history, unleashing arguably the largest waves ever surfed, making careers and breaking records. Social media was blowing up, we had to see it for ourselves.
Verified image of record breaking surfer Alessandro “Alo” Slebir taken by Jack Sandler on Click
Proof: https://clickapp.com/zk/cid/QmTFPyFcE33GrioVdNHGKK7HTn8rgFjDc2mq2z5CjzfXBC
Geodesic domes and satellite dishes lined the hills. Just below some of the largest waves on earth crashed into the coast. People had come from all over the world to surf the edge of America’s nuclear defense.
It was part of that counterculture that defined our age, that had defined surfing since it first came to America (to Santa Cruz from Hawaii over a hundred years ago). I felt as if I had been let in on a secret. How could it be that surfing’s most famous wave is breaking nearby, and I had only just heard about it?
Apparently I was living under a rock (my own father who doesn't even live in California later informed me that he had been to shoot at Mavericks).
I arrived at the parking lot, an unmarked pin set on a map. Surfers mingled quietly around their vintage pickup trucks and vans, unloading surf boards, donning wetsuits.
“I’ve been thinking about this wave for my whole life, and I finally built up the balls to do it.” A surfer William, from nearby Oakland, told us.
Verified image of William taken by Author. Proof: https://clickapp.com/zk/cid/QmVX5BEhxde4C4eMK8V4fEjA17YkwHvYmMeTj2RudKABzD
Perhaps the most notable surfer was Cole (instagram), who had been surfing since dawn and said “I’m packing up early as I’ve got to get back to go to work.” He surfed one of the world’s most extreme waves in the morning, and then would casually head back to Santa Cruz to make artisanal wine. (We’ve heard from others it’s pretty good too.)
Verified image of Cole taken by Author. Proof: https://clickapp.com/zk/cid/QmcC8t4NeZqTxB4zuMv1oP6ufxDUaJCZLEvKEzc28YdRXN
Amidst the cinematic display of surfers meditatively organizing their gear, and with fog burning up around the mountains and antennas above, I posed a more existential question.
Perhaps even more existential than the Nuclear Deterrence lining the hills above.
I had driven down from San Francisco, the center of unchecked Artificial Intelligence and accelerationist ideology. AI was going wild, making it impossible to know what was real or fake anymore. With such a rapid pace of generative AI, what will define media, photojournalism, and in this case: extreme sports?
How will we know that in a world of social media-GenAI slop that the record breaking waves of the next few days were actually surfed? That it was not just a hallucinatory musing from the opening of a poorly written, high budget 90s Bond film?
We were entering truly dangerous territory, and over the next few days, the waves would grow to be record breaking. We wanted to be there to see it.
I brought along my iPhone, and with it the Click Camera app, which captures photos and videos that can be proven as real using blockchain (ZKSync on Ethereum) and an image technology called C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity).
I wanted to be the first to capture photos of extreme sports that could be cryptographically proven as real. But Jack Sandler, a local Surf Photographer, had beaten me to it. He had been out on the water since 7am, shooting professionally with a cinema camera and with Click on his iPhone. We are excited to announce Jack Sandler as our next Click Fellow.
The images he captured were truly incredible, capturing what is now considered to be a world record 108 foot wave surfed by 23 year old Santa Cruz local Alessandro “Alo” Slebir:
Jack brought along his cinema camera, and Click- proving the surfers were there, and that these waves actually happened. We caught up with him a few days after the action for an interview.
Verified image captured by Jack Sandler on Click https://clickapp.com/zk/cid/Qmak1H8Rhf3p7EWKfbcCn4H8XHFBpCFYQ3p4HwezyoSVKR
**Kinsman: Thanks for inviting me to Mavericks, I feel like I was let in on a secret cult thing.**Jack Sandler: Nah, anyone can go. Most guys are there for a little bit then go right back to work.
**That was one of the coolest things ever, seeing those waves come in. And meeting people who would surf Mavericks, then head to work. You were out there on Dec 22nd, the record breaking day.**Yeah it was a pretty freaking special week.
The night before we were scrambling to get a jet-ski. Everyone was pulling their jetskis out. I was up until 1am finding a ski and then we were there [at Mavericks] by 5am.
In the morning it was pretty rainy. The swell started building, coming in from Hawaii. The swell was so big it cleared out the weather. I’ve never seen that before.
From the cliff on shore you couldn't see anything. Out on the water the action was just starting.
**Is it true that you’re in college? How do you balance that with pro photography?**Yes, I’m in college, [laughs] and I don’t balance it. I just don’t go to class. When Mavericks breaks, I’m not at school.
**How do you get into surf photography?**Like, I just showed up. I was a water polo player, and water polo was my life. I played 6 days a week, 8 hours a day. Naturally, I got burned out. My shoulders didn’t work, and my back hurt, I was done. I was always a swimmer, and I didn’t really want to get into the water as my body was still injured from playing water polo. So I started filming my younger brother.
This put me in an environment to film better surfers up at OB (Ocean Beach). I loved filming surfing and taking photos and figured out about Mavericks Surf Awards and just showed up with a camera. Turns out they didn’t have anyone taking photos, and I said, “Hey, any chance you can get me out to Mavericks?” The next year, they put me out on a ski. This is now two seasons ago.
Last year was an insane year, and I got to go out every time it breaks.
**I had no idea the most insane break was only 30 minutes away from San Francisco. Now there are some big names reposting your work.**Yeah, for sure. One of the biggest was Mason Barnes, who is huge in big wave surfing. He won the biggest wave of the year, in all of the world in Nazaré, Portugal, in 2022. He was here a month ago, and I caught his biggest wave at Mavericks.
**Something I found interesting was all of this happens beneath a pretty classified military base.**Yeah, lol, that cliff is no joke. A lot of people get in trouble. We would always joke about what the base is for because we would be in a certain area on a boat and get a call on the radio: “Don’t be in that area.”
**Will you do this professionally?**Yeah, I hope so. I’m a Spanish major, which I only did to get into college here in California. When I was finishing high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.
Then at the end of the year, the biggest swell came to Mavericks, and I was in the middle of filming it, and all these guys from all around the world were coming here. Red Bull was there, and I said, “Yeah, I want to do this.”
I didn’t apply to any film schools. Now I could probably get into any school in the country.
**You need to go to film school, you’re doing it now.**Yeah, a lot of people go to film school to meet their future work partners, and now I kind of have that already.
If I can keep filming the biggest waves in the world as a job, I would love to. But that's not the most stable job, so I would love to get into the film industry.
**Have any photos recently convinced you of the power of photography?**Honestly, I don’t get to see that many photos. All of my Instagram is video-based content now. Recently, I got into some of my friend’s drone stuff. I spent an hour and a half on Tucker Wooding. That guy is insane.
He has the dream job, traveling the world and filming the biggest waves from a drone. Then during the summer, he goes and commercial fishes in Alaska. He is so cool.
**How does AI play into all this? How do you know what is real or fake now?**I haven’t experimented with it much, but I have seen some really cool stuff. But in extreme sports, you don’t know anymore. A reputable source like Surfline or Red Bull would never post an AI image. But there’s definitely tons of AI-looking stuff on my Instagram feed.
One thing I’ve noticed when using AI (I use Topaz to enhance blurry photos) is that AI really messes up writing. If I have a jet ski and it says a number on it, it will really mess that up. Or sponsor stickers on a board!
Verified image taken by Jack Sandler at Mavericks on Click. Proof.
**When does what you do become photojournalism or become art?**It becomes art in my free time when I’m sitting at home after a 7 am to 5 pm on the water, and I go through all my footage and start pulling frames. Some of these frames make it on my website or become prints available for sale, or even shorter form edits.
**What does “proving reality” in extreme sports mean to you, and what were your thoughts on Click?**If you’re sitting in your room using AI and you’re claiming you’re out at Mavericks taking a photo, that’s insane. It takes away the purpose of my job. For me, it’s super important. You can’t just claim you’re out there. You can’t just take my photos on Instagram and repost and not tag me, this happens all the time.
The same happens to my coworker who I shoot with, where other people are selling his photos of great white sharks on merch. This stuff drives photographers crazy.
**What does it mean to be in sports media in 10 years when everything is AI-generated and we don’t know what is real?**The extreme unpredictability in surfing is the key thing. Thirty years ago, there wasn’t tow surfing, and now people are being towed into waves 30 times their size. The founder of that, Laird Hamilton, gets so much crap for making them rideable. I think it’s cool.
The waves that hit Monday, [Dec 22nd] No one will ever paddle that. The only way to do that is tow in.
**What advice would you give your younger self pursuing a career in photography?**Stick with it. I know it sounds stupid. Every day I come in from shooting on the water, I say it’s the best day of my life. Every time I come in, I’m even more mesmerized by Mavericks. Even my parents say I’m in a visibly good mood.
**Are you into crypto?**Yeah, I’m your average 19-year-old Coinbase user.
[laughs] Before we go, tell us about the record wave. News outlets all over are saying this could be the largest wave ever surfed anywhere. ( Reference: https://www.vice.com/en/article/california-surfer-rode-potential-world-record-108-foot-wave/ )
It could be a record. It could be a record or not. You don't really know. You just have to wait for people to analyze the data. It can take months. And by then the hype is gone.
**It's great that your images will be part of proving a world record. And it’s pretty cool for California to get the record, especially The Bay (area)**It’s really cool!
**You were out shooting Click, did you catch the record wave?**I got it on video with my cinema camera, but we got some Clicks of Alo [the surfer who broke the record]. There was one other photographer [who shot the famous wave], but it was on an iphone. I was the only one to get it with a cinema camera.
**That’s history.**Yes it is.
What’s next? How do you top that? Or is everything downhill from here?*Laughs* I don't really know, I have an adrenaline black out. I don't really remember anything. I just got back to SLO, and I’ll figure it out from there.
**Incredible, thank you for sharing and for shooting Click.**Thank you!
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You can follow Jack Sandler on Instagram or Click, we are excited to see what he gets up to next.
Verified Image taken by Jack Sandler on Click https://clickapp.com/zk/cid/QmQZWvQ8YYHm7BoR7WZarEqttVdMDZKL6LzPqzsBgWDhso