Huck Issue 64 - The Collaboration Issue

Adrian Morris left his home in Melbourne at 20 with no grand plan other than a burning urge to travel. He freewheeled around the globe, taking in Asia, South America, Europe and the US, teaching himself how to shoot along the way. “Photography has changed my life by developing the way I interpret and view the world,” says the 29-year-old. “It has exposed me to opportunities and memorable experiences that I have learned a great deal from – experiences that never would have happened otherwise. Travelling is the reason I became interested in photography. Exploring the unknown, interacting and understanding new cultures, people and surroundings is what influences my work.”…

A juvenile humpback whale is captured post-breach just metres away from Michaela Skovranova, a Sydney-based photographer who spends much of her time submerged beneath the ocean. “My underwater work has been an incredibly challenging journey that encourages me to be more in tune with myself and the environment,” she says. “I enjoy the surprising nature of the ocean, the focus it requires and the silence of the mind that comes with it. We don’t often get to experience weightlessness and the limitation of some of our senses, so it truly feels like visiting a different kind of world. How you experience that world is tied to the headspace with which you enter the ocean - for me it generally brings stillness.”…

Bright decided to leave Nigeria to follow her dream of becoming a professional soccer player in Europe. She paid smugglers for the trip after they promised her a professional contract in Europe, but was then left stranded in Libya. Bright worked for 15 months as a cleaner before being able to pay for the boat journey and was one of 726 people rescued off the Libyan coast by MSF rescue vessel Prudence. Photographer Andrew McConnell captured this surreal portrait shortly after the rescue. “The journey from Nigeria to Libya is not easy,” says Bright. “We passed through deserts, struggled and struggled, with little to eat or drink. In Libya everything was bad… On the boat, people were vomiting but I didn’t because I’m a strong person. I was praying a…

BACK IN 1978, WHILE living in Oakland, photographer Ryan Weideman saw Midnight Express, a nerve-wracking film that tells the true story of Billy Hayes – a young American who, after being caught smuggling hashish, escapes from a Turkish jail and lives to tell the tale. “I thought, ‘If this guy can go through that, I am ready for New York!” Weideman says with a laugh. 1970s Manhattan was an outlaw town riddled with violence and crime. It became a magnet for fearless spirits who lived life on their own terms. Although Weideman had taken visual cues from film noir throughout his life, it was the work of photographers William Klein, Diane Arbus, Joel Meyerowitz and Robert Frank that made him aware that something spectacular was happening in New York. “I…

It’s always a good time to make music,” says Lee-Ann Curren. “Just like it’s always a good time to surf. It’s all intertwined and, for me, one doesn’t exist without the other.” The 28-year-old is not the first Curren to think in those terms. Her father Tom is the era-defining three-time World Champion of the 1980s and perhaps the most-loved pro surfer of all time. Her grandfather Pat, meanwhile, was one of the original bohemian pioneers of Hawaii’s North Shore and a living legend. Her uncle Joe is a well-respected photographer and a highly accomplished surfer in his own right. Lee-Ann, however, has blazed her own trail. Growing up in Biarritz to a family of Californians, as well as being a woman in a male-dominated industry, has allowed her to…

Robert Boerleider steps off the plane at San Francisco International Airport looking ecstatic. For decades, the Dutchman has romanticised America as a cultural mecca and the birthplace of skateboarding. Now he’s about to embark on a three-week road trip across the country – a dream he’s held ever since his short-lived career as a skater in the late ’80s. Fast forward three days and Boerleider is staring dumbfounded out of a car passing L.A.’s notorious Skid Row, watching police harass homeless people in makeshift shacks. “So this is the other side of the coin? The ones who didn’t make the cut for the American dream?” You can practically see his image of the country begin to crumble. But that’s what you get when your guide is Maximón Monihan, Thrasher magazine’s…