Sonny Miller

Harold Miller was born in 1960 in San Jose, California. His father, Bud, gave him the nickname Sonny and remembers him as “the happiest baby” he’d ever seen. “Even as an infant,” Bud says, “Sonny was always calm, happy, smiling, cheerful. Some people are just born that way.”

He started surfing at 11 on the waves off San Diego and Orange counties, mostly at Cardiff-by-the-Sea in Encinitas, where he also skated the streets until dark and earned a reputation as a hardcore charger.

Before turning to film, Sonny was a still photographer. He got his first Surfer Magazine cover using a flash water housing, and his close-up action shots helped grow snowboarding and skateboarding, first in the US and then around the world. His photo of Damian Sanders became the cover of the first issue of Snowboarder magazine in 1986.

He went on to become one of the most respected cinematographers in surfing, shooting from the beach, a jet ski, a helicopter or right in the lineup. He made Searching for Tom Curren, named Video of the Year by Surfer magazine in 1997, and directed The Search series for Rip Curl, which made him almost as much of a legend as the surfers he filmed.

Hollywood called too. On the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day, Sonny hung harnessed out of a helicopter at Peahi (Jaws) on Maui to film Laird Hamilton, doubling for Pierce Brosnan, surfing toward what was meant to be North Korea.

Sonny loved shooting 16mm and 35mm film. He only used video for lifestyle footage, or for his double-mount camera rig so the surfers could watch their rides after a session.