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Dean Wilmot vividly recalls the day he was surfing out at Whale Beach with a mate and Martin Potter came swaggering down the beach with a brightly sprayed Glenn Minami- shaped Blue Hawaii under his wing.
“It was a beautiful day and I sprinted back to my car and grabbed my camera gear and tripod and quickly set up…”
It was 1987 and Wilmot was a 17-year-old kid from Sydney’s Northern Beaches who was hell-bent on carving out a path as a professional photographer. Meanwhile, Martin Potter was pro-surfing’s wild man, a cult figure who blended savage rail turns with radical trajectory and rock star charisma. Occy, Curren and Elkerton had their following, but there were hordes of groms who wanted to surf like Potter.
‘Pottz’ was living on the upper Northern Beaches, so there was always a chance he would paddle out at Whaley between contests, however, unlike now, it wasn’t common for surfers to have half a dozen photographers on speed dial. Surfing at random without answering to anyone went with the rock star brief. Deano’s quick response to Potter’s arrival on the beach was critical.
“On the very first wave Pottz just comes driving off the bottom and smashes this big backside air which was unheard of at the time,” exclaims Deano, obviously still excited by the moment. “As I remember it, no one was coming close to doing anything like that at the time. Especially on your backhand, a big tabletop backside air like what you would do on a skate park.”
When quizzed about the cover shot, Pottz zeroes in on the craft that helped him fly. “I remember the board – 6’0” squash tail, belly channel. I remember how fast I could go and that led to some pretty cool airs.The goal was to get nice and inverted. Minami had a pretty hot hand at the time.”
Pottz and Minami had only just broken away from the Town & Country label to forge their own path together. Town & Country had wanted Potter to ride boards made by all the T & C shapers, but Minami was his go-to- guy. When their synergy created friction within the T & C stable they went their own way. In 1989 it was the alliance with Minami that helped Potter blitz through the opening events of the Tour and claim possibly the most emphatic world Title in pro-surfing history.
In the pre-digital era this photo was taken, there was a quirky, but well-established method for selecting theTracks cover.The lights were turned off in the office and the film slide would be projected on to a wall beneath the Tracks masthead. This would
be repeated with all the shots in contention for the cover. Dean was just a teenager, but he remembers being alongside Nick Carroll (editor) and Tony Nolan (photo editor) as they went through the cover selection process. He was pretty chuffed when, after all the shots had been lit up, they insisted his shot was the clear standout.
The photo ran on the December 1987 cover. Shots of aerial surfing were still a rarity and Pottz had a huge following.The combination of factors made the issue one of Tracks’ all- time best sellers. The cover shot credit helped Wilmot earn a cadetship with the Sydney Morning Herald.Through the 90s he claimed a stack more Tracks and Waves covers, (and international titles) and was recognised as one of the best water photographers in the world. A successful career as a commercial photographer followed. Now 50, he’s happy working as a paramedic on Sydney’s northern beaches, but is toying with the idea of getting back behind the lens.
