Meet the Gold Coast surf photographer who’s been snapping the best for 40 years
ALONGSIDE Kelly Slater, he’s one of the most familiar faces on the World Surf League tour — Peter ‘Joli’ Wilson has seen it, snapped it and lived it all.
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PETER “Joli” Wilson considers himself a memory millionaire.
The salty sea dog’s impressive library of 400,000 numbered and categorised frames in his Tugun home is testament to just how many moments — and 40 years of memories — he has captured.
“I’m probably at well over a million now,” he said since he switched to digital photographs in the late 1990s.
Given a camera for his confirmation by his eccentric godfather Mr Joli, now 65, had his first photo published in a surfing magazine in 1972.
“After saving up for over a year, Grandad showed me how to develop and print my very first photograph of me holding my very first surfboard,” Mr Wilson said.
Since then he has worked with surfing legends and “followed the sun and surf as much a possible” around the globe.
Not bad for a boy from Ballarat who moved to Sydney to work for surfwear giant Quiksilver in the 1980s until publishers Surfing Life, based on the Gold Coast, convinced him to move to the Glitter Strip.
“We (he and wife Jan) now wonder why we didn’t move to Queensland earlier,” Mr Wilson said. “It was taking us hours to get to the airport in Sydney to go away on trips.
“It’s funny because from Bilinga, we realised it was quicker to get to Sydney Airport than it was from the Northern Beaches.
“We moved in 1992, so I guess you could call us locals by now.”
Mr Wilson, who spends months of the year in far-flung locations chasing surf, admits he isn’t too familiar with his own backyard.
“But when we had some friends from France stay with us, they asked if we could go up Mt Tamborine and into the Hinterland,” he said. “I don’t really know my way around. I rarely go past Tallebudgera. Anything east of the highway I’m very familiar with. The beaches are definitely where I’m more familiar.”
Mr Wilson got his hands on his first surfboard at 14 and developed his first image at about the same time.
It wasn’t long before he had made a name for himself.
“I’ve had a good working relationships with surfers,” he said. “I’ve been around Parko (Joel Parkinson) and Mick (Fanning) since they were nine or 10 years old. And Kelly (Slater) I’ve photographed him for his whole career.
“It’s mutually beneficial, the savvier surfers know there’s a very good chance that if their photos are taken by me they will be used in surfing magazines.”
In 1989, he turned freelance with the love of his life Jan, aka ‘Mrs Joli’. The pair celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary on Thursday.
“We got married on Bastille Day ... we love the French lifestyle,” he said.
“In 1989 in France we rented a Fiat (a purple one Jan calls out over the phone), it was a two cylinder motor car and we drove it from France to Lisbon and back. But by November it started to snow so we bolted to Hawaii.
“We’ve been working together since 1988 spending every day together working closely.
“The bank balance isn’t great but it’s more of a lifestyle than a job for us. It’s our passion.”
Some of the most memorable and stunning surf images ever produced are the work of Mr Wilson. He was the man behind the lens of the picture above — an award-winning image at Teahupo’o called Reef Draining.
The image has been described as the “defining image” of Teahupo’o and came second behind the famous Michael Peterson cutback at Kirra in the tracks Magazine reader poll for the Most Influential Surfing Photo of All Time.
He said his nickname Joli comes from his Grandfather’s surname Jolly but with a “French twist” in the spelling, which translates as “pretty”.
The industry has changed with the advent of digital but Mr Wilson said: “A good photograph is still a good photograph no matter on what or how it’s taken. The basics of photography have not changed regardless of the instrument it’s captured on.”
His advice to any aspiring photographers is to be committed as it is getting harder and harder to make a living form surfing photography.
“Learn your craft well, read, study and take lots of photos,” he said. “You have to enjoy what you do and also know that you have to take small steps. ‘Luck’ is spelt ‘hard work.”