ALAN VAN GYSEN

It's been a few months since we last published a Focus.

Many superb films were released, we organized tours and beautiful screenings, you were there... and we went surfing.

In the Focus we did on him, Greg Puget underlined the fact that Africa was rich in terms of surfing and that it was more than necessary to discover its potential.

Since then, magazines and brands have started to put forward African surfers.

At last!

On our side, we will soon set up a tour for the film AFRICAN TERRITORY by the Azulay brothers.

This feature film, released this year, received the "best film" award at the Anglet International Surf Film Festival and at the Portuguese Surf Film Festival in Ericeira.

For this new Focus, we wanted to ask questions to the South African photographer and videographer, originally from Cape Town, Alan Van Gysen.

After having started with articles in the local magazine Zigzag, he is now, at 37 years old, a world famous photographer and videographer.

His photos regularly feature in the best international surf magazines.

The movie scene in SLOW DANCE in which Craig Anderson surfs a strong Skeleton Bay in 2012, it was him.

One of the best sequences of the movie STRANGE RUMBLINGS IN SHANGRI LA, shot in Mozambique, him too!

He is now the man to call when the pros come to South Africa.

He was very available and we thank him warmly for having accepted to answer our questions.

See you soon at the cinema!

- Hi Alan,

where are you from and do you remember your first feeling in waves ?

"I am from a little surf village at the bottom of Africa called Kommetjie.

It’s the second last community in the deep south of Cape Town, South Africa where the tip of Africa meets the mighty Atlantic Ocean.

My first experience of the beach was the worst experience of my life.

I was two years old, and unfortunately at my young age, the worst height a person can be in gale-force winds on a sandy beach.

Even if it’s the best beach break in Africa.

The sand blows so hard offshore it feels like it could strip paint of any surface.

Now imagine the soft skin and eyes of a little child!

Not pleasant.

Many years later though, the same beach and surf environment would become one of my favourite places in the world to surf and photograph.

See below photograph titled Dunes…"

If you’re passionate about something and believe it’s your calling you keep at it, learning from your mistakes and ask questions and learn from those ahead of you.

My favourite surf films have always been ones which incorporate good surfing, travel, beautiful cinematography and people.

- What are your songs to get water and your post session songs ?

"I have a fairly broad appreciation for music but I mostly listen to Christian music when at home in the office or on the road traveling.

I definitely gravitate toward beat and rhythm tracks before a surf - popular and unpopular music.

"Fight on, Fighter" by FOR KING & COUNTRY and "Whatever It Takes" by IMAGINE DRAGONS are some of my favourites right now before a surf.

Post surf might include more mellow tracks by artists like FOR KING & COUNTRY and JOSH BALDWIN."

Surf culture to me is family and community inspired and focused.

- You just released a video on Reunion Island, why this place?

"We released the first of two films about Reunion Island.

The first is called La Jetée about surfing in St.Pierre which is considered to be one of the world best air waves.

The second is doing to be a bigger, more in-depth documentary about the state of sharks in Reunion Island and branching out to the state of sharks in surfing globally.

We went to Reunion Island mostly to document the work being done by researches, communities and government in Reunion Island after the shark crisis.

Keep a look out for this toward the end of 2022. "