Breaking Barriers & Pioneering Pursuits

On the latest episode of Rising Tide, bodysurfer David Helvarg and board surfer Natasha Benjamin sit down with photographer, filmmaker, and journalist Sachi Cunningham — a woman who has spent more than two decades pointing her lens at the pioneers rewriting what's possible in big wave surfing.

Cunningham helped build the LA Times video team from the ground up, producing the award-winning Chasing the Swell series and documenting the historic first women's heats at Mavericks, the legendary big wave break that rises from the deep-water canyon just south of San Francisco. Now living within earshot of Ocean Beach, she's putting the finishing touches on her first major documentary, Big Wave Women — a film tracking the hard-won fight for pay equity among the elite athletes drawn, or perhaps driven, to ride some of the most dangerous walls of water on the planet.

The conversation ranges wide: the cameras she trusts in the impact zone, the technical and physical demands of shooting from inside the surf, and a recent piece she wrote examining the geology and marine ecosystems that make Mavericks not just a spectacle, but a living seascape. It's a session that goes well below the surface.

Additional Resources

Seasachi.com — Photographer and ocean swimmer Sachi Cunningham has spent two decades hurling herself into the savage, churning waters of Ocean Beach and Mavericks, camera strapped to her wrist, chasing the beauty buried inside the chaos — and emerging with images she hopes will make the rest of us remember that the sea doesn't just surround us, it lives inside us.

Blue Frontier / Substack — Building the solution-based citizen movement needed to protect our ocean, coasts and communities, both human and wild.

Inland Ocean Coalition — Building land-to-sea stewardship - the inland voice for ocean protection

Fluid Studios — Thinking radically different about the collective good, our planet, & the future.