Capturing the Coast
How one photographer put Ballito on the map
For photographer Karl Liebenberg, Instagram was never going to be enough. After years of photographing along the beaches of Ballito, he knew the images he was capturing deserved something more permanent. Something you could hold in your hands. The result is Ballito: Ocean Arena, a visual love letter to Ballito and the remarkable relationship its people have with the sea.
What started out as a surfing book soon became something much bigger. Karl had spent years photographing surfers along the North Coast, but the more time he spent on the beaches, the more he realised that surfing was only part of the story. He discovered the surf ski community, open-water swimmers, fishermen and a whole range of people who spend their lives in and around the ocean.
“I was like, wow, these people are so much more open about what they do and so helpful,” he says. “There’s so much more going on besides surfing.”And so Ocean Arena was born – a reflection of Ballito’s coastline as a place where an entire community comes together around the ocean.
Capturing the moment
Karl’s photography is about authenticity. Almost every image in the book is unposed, capturing people in the middle of doing what they love. One of his biggest influences is legendary water photographer Chris Van Lennep, whose distinctive fisheye images appeared on surf magazine covers throughout the 1990s.
“He was pretty innovative back in the 90s,” says Karl. “All my credit goes to him.”
There is also a nice twist to the story. Karl himself once appeared in bodyboard magazines after being photographed by Van Lennep. Being on the other side of the camera helped shape his own approach allowing his subjects to get on with what they do rather than directing them.
A town hiding in plain sight
Perhaps the strongest message behind the book is that Ballito and the broader North Coast have been largely overlooked.“You can get like 20 or 30 books on Cape Town, but there’s no book on Ballito,” Karl points out.Making the book opened his eyes to just how much is happening right here. There are world-class athletes who could live anywhere but have chosen Ballito, as well as people who have spent decades making the ocean part of their lives.
One of them is 80-year-old Mark Pingelli, who is credited with helping establish the Ballito Mile open-water swim and who still gets into the water every day. “I’ve travelled the world. I’ve surfed everywhere,” Karl says. “But I’m like, hang on, there’s so much more going on here.” That sense of discovery runs through the book. Its simple slogan, This is what we do, says a lot about the pride Karl feels for the place and its people.
A community story
Putting the book together was a learning curve. Selecting the photographs was probably the easy part. Organising them around Ballito’s various beaches and surf spots, working with a designer, self-publishing and then finding a way to get the book into people’s hands all became part of the process.Rather than relying heavily on traditional retail, Karl is hoping the community itself will spread the word.
His hope is to see Ballito: Ocean Arena sitting on coffee tables in homes around the North Coast, ready to be shown to visiting friends and family. Look. This is where we live. This is what we do. And that is perhaps what makes the book more than just a collection of beautiful photographs. It is a record of a place and its people, from young children discovering the ocean to those who have spent most of their lives in it.
“I’m visually telling a story,” Karl says, “but people can tell their own stories.”
In a world of fleeting social media images, there is something rather special about a beautiful, printed book that allows you to stop, look and remember.
Ballito: Ocean Arena does exactly that.
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