Surfing, Skateboarding, Music, Photography, Travel, Culture and general antics of the youth on the run.

Who’s that British madman? Collected Thoughts 135: The first time Nate Lawrence saw Tom Lowe paddle past him

Tom Lowe, British Surfer, Nate Lawrence
/ PRV
Photo: Nate Lawrence

Editor’s Note: You know we’re up to something when a dude like Tom Lowe’s name starts coming up. The British surfer smiles in the face of horror, and he’s been on our radar and in our inbox. Here’s some scary info from Nate Lawrence about him. Stay tuned for what we’re up to.—Travis 

This might be the scariest wave I’ve ever seen in person. I had just watched a surfer smash his head into the reef and had half his face ripped off. The power of this spooky Australian wave hadn’t caught my attention, until then.  The next set after all that I see this guy take off way deep and looking way too relaxed as a mountain of water came crashing down over him. He paddled by me afterwards and then it all made sense as soon as I saw his face: It was Tom Lowe. This guy is regularly hucks himself over all those scary Instagram-friendly, real life deadly waves. I was once at a remote Indonesian slab and Tom showed up solo on the day of the year. Down at Todos Santos I see him jumping in boats with the Long brothers (that’s some serious waterman cred). He’s just got a knack for being in the right place at the right time, which is usually somewhere very few humans would paddle out and surf.—Nate Lawrence

Dane Reynolds photographed by Kai Neville In Japan What Youth

Dane Reynolds on Public Transportation Collected Thoughts 003

This is Dane on the train to Osaka, in Japan. Osaka is about an hour from its airport and our exit flight left the next day, and as none of us had been to Osaka we decided to ride in and see the sights. The city turns out to be rad, like a smaller Tokyo,…

Craig Anderson photographed in New York by Kai Neville What Youth

Craig Anderson between the bars Collected Thoughts 002

Photo by Kai Neville Kai took this photo of Craig a little before 1 a.m. in Brooklyn, New York. They’re leaving the strange party they wandered into after a Dirty Beaches show at Williamsburg’s Glasslands Gallery — truly they did, they sauntered all Australian through some odd open side door and into someone’s loft, where…

John John Florence in Barbados

John John in Barbados Collected Thoughts 001

This is John John Florence by the ghost of an Olympic pool at an abandoned resort in the parish of St. Lucy near the northern tip of Barbados, and what a useless cavity in the ground has he got here. The walls are too vertical to skate, there’s no water to ease the heat, there’s…

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