Written by GLASS founder Lewis Arnold.

Everyone knows the North Sea has its moments, but I’m sure there are far more lay days to get though than say in Cornwall or Ireland. Maybe this inconsistency means the ‘culture’ of surfing becomes important? like some kind of ‘substitute’ for a lot of surfers around the surfing outposts of the North Sea. Immersing yourself in surf culture helps alleviate the long flats spells by keeping you connected to surfing even if you can’t get the actual endeavour itself.

It was during one of these blown-out spells of junk waves that I first began wondering about the surf possibilities beyond the horizons of the North East coast. When the surf was messy and onshore here, would it be a crisp offshore in Holland, Denmark or Norway? The first person I asked about this was Dutch surf photographer Michal Pelka and my question struck a chord, he too had wondered about the possibilities across the North Sea, away from his home breaks. We kept talking, compared our work and discussed some kind of collaboration around the parallels and divergences of our surf photography practice.

I’d been planning a photography show with Vilmos Misota, a deeply artistic photographer exploring surfing around Edinburgh, but Covid lead to several postponements and thinking how to get work out there in the ‘new normal’, the idea of creating an exhibition ‘in print’ eventually took shape. Michal came on board, followed by Vilmos and then I approached other photographers, writers and artists inspired but the North Sea, whose work I respected. The concept grew and has developed into GLASS, a new photobook that connects creatives working in surf culture around the North Sea with a wide and supportive audience.

Often I’ve submitted work to mags I think is really strong but it’s been overlooked as it doesn’t fit the editorial style or the norms of surf media. This was the kind of content I’ve been looking to exhibit in GLASS, so the book can be a platform for diverse ideas that may be challenging or even uncomfortable if that is justified. The positives about surfing are obvious but examining themes like environmental problems, masculinity, competition, mental health, conflict around crowds and secret spots honestly, is difficult and I wanted to retain freedom to try and do that. That is partly why we decided on a book format with no ads for GLASS, to build an ethos of editorial integrity, but no ads means no ad revenue and that is why I did the Kickstarter campaign.

The epic backing we had across surf media allowed us to get the word out to surfers and ultimately helped financed the print run for the book. That’s unreal but more than that, it demonstrated that there is community of surfers out there who want to engage in North Sea surf culture and now all our focus is on delivering a book to justify that support. Despite the crowds in the water this summer, ‘core’ surfing is still pretty small, a nice sport, endeavour, art form, whatever it is? And North Sea surfing is a small niche within that niche. But the community is growing and learning to make the most of the imperfect conditions and fleeting moments of beauty.