The Powers of Three - Now

Sometimes life just brings stuff and puts it at your feet. This is one of those things.

A little over a year ago I interviewed the world famous, big wave cinematographer Mickey Smith and featured his awesome short movie called 'The Dark side of the Lens'. Mickey was a personal hero of mine and I felt a certain connection (totally un-stalker-like) with the way he looked at life and the ocean. I was surprised and very stoked to get some words from him.

Mickey first came to my attention in a bewilderingly insightful film called The Powers of Three. As the title suggests the movie is about three chargers facing off against the wild Irish coastline with some huge slabs and the injuries that ensued. The players were Tom Lowe, Fergal Smith & of course Mickey Smith.

Fast forward to 2016 and the trio are still friends but all exploring totally different paths in life.

Tom Lowe - I was lucky enough to get an invite up to the opening ceremony of the Nazare WSL Big Wave Event this year. I know next to nothing about big waves, either tow in or paddle but I went to see what I could find out.

Who I found there amongst all the best Big Wave guys in the world was Tom Lowe. I had given my five year old boy a load of Surf Bunker stickers to give out (he likes to do this, tells them its his company) and he came trotting back with the familiar looking face of Tom who started introducing me to people I should have known, being a pretend surf journalist.

What I did discover was that Tom is now deeply connected, routed and respected into this set of the surfing elite. Check out this little clip of him at Jaws...

Fergal Smith - We all have friends that watch a lot of surf porn. It was with one of those that I asked if he had seen anything good. He shot me over this wicked little video about what Fergal is up to now.

Basically growing vegetables, surfing and oh running for the Green party in Ireland?!?.

Mickey Smith - One of my favourite humans and also one of the most skilled and gracious people on the planet.

Once more here it is, the master piece of which the best line has to be "If you only scrape a living, at least it's a living worth scraping. If there's no future in it, at least it's a present worth remembering".  Great stuff.

Okay I admit it, this whole article is just another excuse to get this on Surf Bunker again:

If you want to see the full interview I did with Mickey, check it here. If not, you are missing out.