It was the shot that left the surfing world abuzz, a stunning image of a surfer looking like a gnat on the meanest, tallest wave that veteran board riders say had ever been ridden by a surfer who paddled into a wave on his own power.
For Taylor Knox, the Carlsbad surfer who managed to conquer the face of the 52-foot wave off the Baja coast in 1998, it meant a cool $50,000 and continuing fame, everything from publicity spots to throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a San Diego Padre game.
For Les Walker, the man who took the photo, it meant a $5,000 prize and a boost to a photographic career that many say will be forever stamped with an asterisk, for "before and after" the big shot.
The photograph of Knox's spectacular ride is credited with pushing big-wave surfing from the back pages of surf magazines into the mainstream as a big-money event with a growing audience. The image, which appeared in newspapers, magazines and prime-time television broadcasts, helped win corporate sponsors for a sport that -- until then -- was considered to be little more than a cult, said Mike Kingsbury, media director for the K2 Big Wave contest.
"It opened up the door to national outlets that prior to that didn't care about surfing," Kingsbury said. "Suddenly, television was broadcasting surfers at Mavericks and later at Cortes Bank."
The next big-wave king will be crowned in April as part of the Billabong XXL Big Wave contest, which offers $60,000 to the surfer who catches a ride on the biggest wave of the year. Surfers, who now are allowed to be towed into waves by personal watercraft for the contest, are on their own to find the beast of choice. They can scour the globe, track weather trends or lay low in Maui and wait for the enormous waves at Jaws to arrive. The only caveat is that the moment has to be captured on film.
Surfing has many indelible images, from the classic movie poster for Bruce Brown's "The Endless Summer" to the jarring shot of big-wave rider Mark Foo tumbling to his death in the froth of a huge swell at Mavericks in Northern California.
Walker's photo of Knox roaring down the face of a wave near a reef off the coast of Todos Santos, a town on the Pacific in southern Baja, is considered just such a lasting image.
There are those who say Walker lucked out. Just another story of being in the right place at the right time. But those brazen few who scout the world for the biggest waves know better.
