Honolulu Weekly

Twenty years ago or so, as surfing was beginning to explode into mainstream culture, Brock and Clark Little were building a reputation as the craziest pair of brothers on the North Shore. Brock gained more acclaim early on for his big-wave exploits, but over time, Clark came into his own as a surfer and, later, a photographer whose dedication to his craft was, as Jack Johnson puts it in the foreword to a new book, “just plain nuts.”

Clark Little’s recently released coffee table book presents a surprising diversity of images–some enchanting, some astounding–taken at breaks along the North Shore. The Shorebreak Art of Clark Little explores the majesty and grace of the ocean, but what’s most intoxicating here is Little’s eye for its power: these waves collapse and contort in ways we’ve rarely seen, at one moment as panes of glass shattering, the next as molten steel.

Shot primarily around Ke Iki and Waimea, the images feel fresh, a departure from the way-too-familiar standard of a guy grabbing the rail as a wave curls above him. Little shows us his waves at the end of their lives, when there’s no more time for surfing, and all that’s left is churning and noise.

The book’s opening section features a charming and nostalgic look at the Little family during their first years on the North Shore in the early 1970s and follows, through family photos, Brock and Clark’s path into surfing.

The limited writing–other than forewords from Jack Johnson and Kelly Slater–is a little, umm, gnarly, but in the end it’s good for a laugh, and Little’s images are poetry enough.