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“So powerful have the Witzig photographs become in surfing mythology, they have created false memories.”

The Australian surf photographer John Witzig, founder of Tracks magazine and responsible for some of the surfing lifestyle’s most enduring images, has made the bombshell claim that surf photos have the ability to implant false memories in people who weren’t there. 

If you’ve been around surf a while you’ll know Witzig’s most famous shots.

There’s a shirtless Bob McTavish standing in front of an FX Holden in 1966 examining an empty Noosa lineup (Witzig says he was pressured, even then, not to take the photo, “There were various people who didn’t want photographs taken of Noosa,”); Country Soul, new parents with their baby in a groovy kitchen picked high with homegrown vegetables, a photo that came to symbolise the surfer counter culture movement and its back-to-mother-earth ethos; a water shot Mark Richards getting rad at Haleiwa in 1976.

So good they fry your mind? Well, yeah, sorta.

Johnny Witzig, eighty now, made the claim his photos could implant memories in an interview with a Sydney daily’s sports writer on the back of his latest exhibition, which displays twenty four of his most iconic images. 

So powerful have the Witzig photographs become in surfing mythology, they have created false memories. “There’s a lot of people who have told me they were there, or they could remember it, when they were not,” he says.

Ain’t as crazy as it sounds.

Studies have demonstrated that it’s possible to implant false memories through various methods, including showing people doctored or AI-edited photos. For instance, research has shown that participants could be led to believe they experienced events that were actually not real, like being lost in a mall or participating in events like a hot air balloon ride, through suggestive techniques which often involve visual cues like photographs.

Here’s a wild study about it. 

As for real life, surf, you and me, you ever believed you were somewhere you weren’t and how did you find out?

I defs saw the Tom Carroll snap at Pipe; Kelly and Rob high-five, several world champs pouring so much heat up their beaks I thought their precious hearts would explode.

Some other stuff not so sure in hindsight.

Click here if you’re in Sydney and you want to check out Johnny’s mind-altering shots in real life.