OC In Profile: Tim Bonython (OC 1977)
A Super 8 camera gathering dust at the home of John Laws and a passion for surfing led
to a lifelong love and career for Old Cranbrookian Tim Bonython. He has shot some of the
biggest waves in the world and the surfers who are brave enough to ride them, Barton
Lynch, Mark Occhilupo and Cheyne Horan to name just a few.
It was during his schooling at Cranbrook that Tim’s passion for videography ignited.
He was also from a very creative family, father Kym Bonython opened the famed Kym Bonython Art Galleries in Paddington in the sixties and sister Nicole Bonython-Hines is a famous fashion editor and stylist to the stars.
“John Laws was a good friend and client of my fathers, through his art gallery in Paddington, so we were at the Laws’ place a fair bit. I started seeing his daughter so it was one day when I was there with her and I said to John, see that camera over there gathering dust, can I borrow it? He said to me, you can have that camera as long as you make something out of it.”
Tim did make something of it and forty-four years later he is one of the best known and most fearless big wave and surf documentary makers.
“I started shooting down at Bondi Beach with Cheyne Horan and of course that was at a time when the Webber brothers were very much part of the Bondi fraternity – Greg, John and Monty. I noticed that Monty was into shooting with Super 8 as well, so we were checking each other out in terms of how we were shooting.”
1981 was the turning point for Tim, who had since moved back to Adelaide, he asked a local surf shop to fund a trip to Sydney to shoot the Coca Cola Surfabout at Narrabeen and then the 1981 Bells Beach Surf contest. The Bells Beach Easter Classic contest of 1981 was particularly significant due to the size of the waves, it came to be known as “Big Saturday”, one of the biggest swells in surfing competition history.
“The whole idea was to shoot these two events and then edit the footage back in Adelaide and make a film. Back in those days, editing was literally hands on splicing and dicing from tape to tape.”
Tim then put an ad in the local newspaper to promote the film showing, and then set off to pubs and clubs around Australia’s East Coast to start showing some of the most amazing surfing footage ever produced. The Australian Surf Film Festival was born. Punters were lined up around the block to view Tim’s films while enjoying a beer, and he thought to himself, “Okay, this is my career now.”
Tim has to be where the action is, he closely monitors weather patterns on his trusty Mac, specifically using a program that indicates where the most fearsome swells will be. Then, it is a quick scramble to make travel arrangements, call his connections on the ground in Hawaii, Indonesia or Portugal and alert the surfers.
For Tim, the ocean is the star of his film and the surfers enhance its beauty. His entrepreneurial spirit and love of the ocean will continue to take him on the most amazing journeys across the globe. This isn’t a job per se, this is his love.
