LeRoy Grannis
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LeRoy "Granny" Grannis (August 12, 1917 – February 3, 2011) was a veteran
Life
Living a beachfront childhood, by the age of five Grannis was taken swimming and bodysurfing by his father. Soon Grannis made himself a bellyboard from a piece of wood and rode it during vacations in his mother's home state of Florida. In 1931, at age 14, his father gave him a 6' x 2' pine board from which he hacked a kneeboard using a drawknife[1]. At Hermosa Pier, stand up surfing was the rage, so he began borrowing boards until he could get his own. Later, he struggled to balance surf time with family and work as a member of the Palos Verdes Surf Club, second only in America to the Corona Del Mar Surf Board Club, which was established in the late 1920s. [2]
Odd jobs and war
Unable to afford an education at
Peace and new opportunities
He had already begun to venture into photography, and several of his pictures were featured in photo pioneer and close friend John Heath "Doc" Ball's[2] 1946 book California Surfriders. He surfed the occasional contest during the 1950s, gradually settling into the role of assisting Hoppy Swarts at the controls during the early years of the United States Surfing Association. The telephone company job had given him an ulcer by 1959 and his doctor advised him to take up a hobby, and Ball suggested more serious photography.
His work soon appeared in prominent surf culture magazines of the time including Surfer, Reef and Surfing Illustrated. He quickly became one of the sport's most important documentarians. Other photographers were shooting from the water, but they were forced to return to land to reload. Grannis developed a rubber-lined box that enabled him to change film in the lineup. He spent the decade in California and Hawaii, capturing the best surfers in the world riding the best surf. He was a photo editor of Surfing Illustrated and of International Surfing, which he co-founded.[3] He was named Grand Master of the 2007 Hermosa Beach Art Walk "Salute to 100 Summers." [3]
Some awards and accomplishments
He was elected to the
As said by Jason Borte, "Leroy Grannis wasn't the first to depict the California lifestyle with his photos. It wasn't his idea to begin shooting in the first place. His contributions to surfing photography occurred over a brief 12-year period, and he hasn't much bothered with it since 1971. Nevertheless, most of the great images from the '60s golden age of surfing, regardless of the magazine, bear the inscription "Photo: Grannis".[4] In 1971, fed up with increased competition for the perfect angle, Grannis quit shooting surfing and soon found himself involved in hang gliding. The sport balanced surfing in his life, and he held a brief stint as photographer for Hang Gliding magazine. Several injuries, including a badly fractured leg in 1981, caused him to find a new outlet. This time it was windsurfing. Until the late 1980s, Grannis both engaged in and photographed the sport.
Grannis moved with his wife to Carlsbad, California, after retiring from Pacific Bell in 1977. Grannis married Katie LaVerne Tracy in 1939, when she was 20, and the couple had four children- Kit, Frank, Nancy, and John, six grandchildren- Robert, Cindy, Alan, Elizabeth, Alana, and Kaylee, and three great-grandchildren- Casey, Emily, and Dane, and two great-great grandchildren during their 69-year marriage before Katie died on December 3, 2008, at age 89. [4]
Death
Grannis died on February 3, 2011, at his home on
Bibliography
- Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s (2007) ISBN 978-3-8228-4859-3
References
- ^ Trebay, Guy, "Back to the Beach," in The New York Times, Style Section, June 1, 2006
- ^ "Surf Pioneer". www.surfingwalkoffame.com. Archived from the original on 2010-07-11.
- ^ Smithsonian Magazine | Arts & Culture | Endless Summers Archived 2011-02-18 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Surfline | Leroy Grannis (August 12, 1917-)