LeRoy Grannis

Living a beachfront childhood, by the age of five Grannis was taken swimming and bodysurfing by his father. Soon Grannis made himself a bellyboard from a piece of wood and rode it during vacations in his mother's home state of Florida. In 1931, at age 14, his father gave him a 6' x 2' pine board from which he hacked a kneeboard using a drawknife. At Hermosa Pier, stand up surfing was popular, so he began borrowing boards until he could get his own. Later, he struggled to balance surf time with family and work as a member of the Palos Verdes Surf Club, second only in America to the Corona Del Mar Surf Board Club, which was established in the late 1920s.

Unable to afford an education at UCLA during the Depression, Grannis dropped out and found work as a carpenter, junkyard de-tinner and spent some years at Standard Oil. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps (now the Air Force) in 1943, serving as a pilot flying supply lines to troops in combat and remaining on active reserve until retiring as a major in 1977. Several fellow surf club members were employed with Pacific Bell, and Grannis joined them in 1946.

He had already begun to venture into photography, and several of his pictures were featured in photo pioneer and close friend John Heath "Doc" Ball's 1946 book California Surfriders. He surfed the occasional contest during the 1950s, gradually settling into the role of assisting Hoppy Swarts at the controls during the early years of the United States Surfing Association. The telephone company job had given him an ulcer by 1959 and his doctor advised him to take up a hobby, and Ball suggested more serious photography. His work soon appeared in prominent surf culture magazines of the time including Surfer, Reef and Surfing Illustrated. He quickly became one of the sport's most important documentarians. Other photographers were shooting from the water, but they were forced to return to land to reload. Grannis developed a rubber-lined box that enabled him to change film in the lineup. He spent the decade in California and Hawaii, capturing the best surfers in the world riding the best surf. He was a photo editor of Surfing Illustrated and of International Surfing, which he co-founded. He was named Grand Master of the 2007 Hermosa Beach Art Walk "Salute to 100 Summers."

Grannis died on February 3, 2011, at his home on Hermosa Beach, California.