story

Alan van

gysen

I was at the end of my road, so to speak, and I felt the Lord reach out to me one day when I was on my knees praying and I actually physically felt this hand on my shoulder. I had this incredible, unexplainable, and miraculous sense of relief of the pressure off me and my life. With this hand I felt on my shoulder all of that was banished and I was completely free of this anxiety and depression and all these other horrible things I was feeling. From that moment I didn’t look back.

How did you get into photography?

Film photography was the culmination of the marriage of two big passions I had in my younger years – sport, which I loved, and music, art, and drama which my family instilled in me. 

In high school, around grade 10, I picked up a camera and I went down to Kalk Bay Reef, which was my local bodyboarding spot, and I started taking photographs of school friends, and I just fell in love with the art form. As much as I loved bodyboarding and getting barrelled, I realised quickly how much stoke and happiness it brought others when I took pictures of them and their surfing was immortalised on film. I would then process those rolls of film on weekends and then on a Monday morning, I’d take the process pictures in the album and I’d sell them to the kids at school. And there I quickly realised that there was a bit of money to be made there. It wasn’t easy for people to get a picture of themselves surfing, especially in those days before digital photography.

And I thought, no man, I’ve got to try this. I’m  going to give it my all. In matric, my last year at school, I actually reached out to as many people as I knew (which wasn’t a lot) to figure out how to get a water housing for a more professional setup. And there was one chap in Durban called Justin Saunders, who built a handmade housing for me, which was amazing. It’s quite a sad story though, because the day after he finished making the housing he died in a car accident, so I never got to meet him in person. And also we didn’t really get to see the fruits of all his amazing hand labour. But yeah, the housing was amazing, and it started my career off, and when I left school I was already in love with it. Zigzag was the very first place that published my work, so I fell in love with that too.

What would you consider your first international big break?

Without a doubt, my first international big break was when I met John Callahan on the beach at J-Bay. A lot of the old surf photographers would come to J-Bay every year originally to shoot the Country Feeling Classic and then eventually the Billabong Pro.Jeffreys Bay was a central meeting point for all the international photographers and surfers, and Damian Fahrenfort and Duncan Scott introduced me to John Callahan on the beach. Duncan had been talking about me to John too. Duncan was a professional surfer then, and John was specifically a land photographer and he had dabbled in the water a little bit, but I think having seen the water work that I was doing in Cape Town in the cold water with sharks, and getting these beautiful fisheye shots, he invited me to a job the following year with Vans Europe in the Mentawais. I would do just fisheye, and he would do everything else, the lifestyles, the portraits, the land, the boat. You just swim, AVG.

For a young man of 18 years old, to get invited to Indo to shoot with somebody like John Callahan and Vans was unbelievable for me. That was my first big break – getting to shoot perfect waves, having my work published in Europe, that international exposure.

What would you say was the worst trip you ever went on? Where everything just went wrong.

So, it was still a phenomenal trip and I actually still got some really beautiful photography, but I had two trips back to back in Indonesia once. One was up in the Telo Islands, which is the islands just north of the Mentawais, and straight after that, about two weeks later we went to the West Java Front. We started in Jakarta, and then we went to those famous Padang Islands and I was bitten by a handful of mosquitoes in the Telos, which is notorious for a very weird strain of malaria called vivax malaria. It takes two weeks for the symptoms to appear from the time you are bitten, and on the second trip, in West Java, I fell very ill. I had the most radical dreams, the worst fevers, and I was severely sick. I was hallucinating, felt hot and cold, couldn’t eat and I could barely hold the camera. But we were on a road mission to the island of Panaitan and eventually on a boat – and there was no turning back.

John Callahan luckily had some generic antibiotics which I suppose suppressed the illness a bit, but I was still feeling the effects and I was wearing a full wetsuit in ridiculously hot water because I was so cold and then so hot, and I still managed to swim a couple of sessions and I got a couple of photographs, which I could show you. But most of the trip I can’t remember – it is almost like I was in this black haze and I walked around in the darkness, so to speak, but I managed to finish the trip.

It took numerous years to get clean from the illness because it’s a recurring malaria.

It really was one of the worst trips. We had malaria, and on top of that, while we were shooting in those islands, our boat sank.

What happened was that we were all in the lineup. I had my waterhouse and I was shooting. John was on a little rubber duck (inflatable rescue boat) and the surfers were in the lineup when we see this random Indonesian guy swimming into the lineup. We’re like, Dude! Where are you coming from? And he’s like, No bru, I’m your deckhand from the boat. The boat sank.

So while we were shooting, behind us the boat had sunk. With the air trapped inside, the boat rolled around and we could only see the bottom of the boat, and all of our stuff was trapped inside. Luckily it hadn’t fallen out.

The next day we found that some Indonesian pirates (who do a lot of dodgy trading) had claimed the boat and pulled it to the beach, and we were allowed to purchase back some of our very wet bags and belongings, if we had the right money, of course. So we got some of our gear back.

But what with malaria, our boat sinking, and missioning for food and water, it was a nightmare.

And with you being sick this whole time, wasn’t it dangerous? Weren’t you worried?

It is a serious concern, if you don’t treat malaria you can become cerebral, but I think those antibiotics John had were good enough to just keep that at bay. When I got home I got treated, but it was a severe two, three weeks that I was sweating in bed and I didn’t know who I was. It was unpleasant. But at the same time I’m very grateful to have experienced what it feels like.

You know, I’ve never had a trip to Africa where something hasn’t gone wrong, but it’s really how you look at those things in life that makes a huge difference. It’s not what happens to you, but it’s what you do with it, like they say. Every experience I’ve had has taught me something new and it’s been beneficial in some way or another. I wouldn’t change any of those things. I’ve been detained by military police in Equatorial Guinea, having all my passports and cameras confiscated, and I’ve had other weird bugs and bacterias, and had big car accidents. There’s always been something, but you just take a breath, take a bit of a timeout, and you pray a lot about those kinds of things. You just give it a bit of time.

It’s amazing what you discover through those things. So I’m always very grateful for the discoveries I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to know Jesus and to follow him?

It’s an interesting story. I was brought up in a Roman Catholic family. My grandmother was Roman Catholic, from an old Dutch family, and my dad was practicing enough that he would take us to church every Sunday in Lansdowne. 

I went to Sunday School and learnt about who God was and what the Bible was, but I never really felt the Spirit or the Presence. It was more of a theoretical kind of education, but I never had any personal relationship with Him.

Let me take a step back. One of the things that really affected us all was that my father had multiple sclerosis. He was diagnosed when he was 21 and it was a primary progressive disease. From the onset of the disease, you get exponentially worse until you die one day.

He died very young, in his mid-fifties. But from the onset until then it was a deep struggle – our family life was very broken and there was a lot of trauma. He walked his own path and I think because of that I grew up very quickly. As the oldest sibling with three younger sisters I kind of assumed a parental role in our family.

It might be a strange thing to say, but I hope and pray that there was some benefit to his disease. I learnt so much through it. I  became who I am today and discovered the Lord, so I am very grateful to be in my position. But it wasn’t easy.

During the course of high school, and matric especially, I felt quite alone. While my dad was struggling, and my parents had split, I was pretty much on my own. Even as a teenage boy, you’re already going through your own emotions, your own hormones, and with all these pressures and the struggles therein, I went through a phase of about three months praying very, very fervently to the Lord every single day for some kind of support and some help. I felt at the end of my wits.

Can I ask you, what led you to prayer?

Loneliness and isolation. I felt very alone. I felt like I didn’t have anybody, and I felt like I was at the end of the road. I felt very depressed, and darkness was all around. The only person that I had been taught that was there, even though it was theoretical, was the Lord, and I just reached out to the Lord and I just prayed to him every single day. If you’re real, I need you to help me here. I need you to step into my life. I need you.

“I felt very depressed, and darkness was all around. The only person that I had been taught that was there, even though it was theoretical, was the Lord, and I just reached out to the Lord and I just prayed to him every single day. If you’re real, I need you to help me here. I need you to step into my life. I need you.”

I think it was the sense of surrender. He was probably always there, but I had been trying to do life on my own. And when you properly surrender everything to him and you’re on your knees physically, and emotionally and spiritually as well…

I was at the end of my road, so to speak, and I felt the Lord reach out to me one day when I was on my knees praying and I actually physically felt this hand on my shoulder. I had this incredible, unexplainable, and miraculous sense of relief of the pressure off me and my life. With this hand I felt on my shoulder all of that was banished and I was completely free of this anxiety and depression and all these other horrible things I was feeling. From that moment I didn’t look back. From that moment he was as real as you could possibly imagine. I committed my life to him at that time, knowing that there was somebody physically and spiritually with me. My life took an incredible turn.

“I was at the end of my road, so to speak, and I felt the Lord reach out to me one day when I was on my knees praying and I actually physically felt this hand on my shoulder. I had this incredible, unexplainable, and miraculous sense of relief of the pressure off me and my life.”

I felt that he was really there for me, and through that I felt like I could be there more for my father, I could be there more for others.

So my life took a fantastic turn, but it wasn’t instant. It’s like the start of a journey, once that happens you start to grow and you start to become more and more connected and in relationship with the Lord. It’s like with a spouse or a best friend. You meet them and it’s powerful and it’s incredible – and there are all these new discoveries and butterflies, and the honeymoon phase. But then the relationship matures and you walk this walk, and you get to know them in a deeper way and more richly, and the relationship becomes more and more meaningful to you as time goes by. I was 18 when that happened and I’m 40 now, so it’s been 22 years.

Did you find community or go to a church? How did it affect your life in a practical sense?

Well, in a practical sense like I said, it was really a physical sense in my body and in my mental state. So I immediately felt that support and that presence. Practically it was a huge turnaround. But it took me a bit longer to find a community. Because in the Catholic church they never felt that feeling. Then I started to join friends and other people in Common Ground and Rondebosch Church – I started to attend different churches and I started to experience the power of the Spirit at these places, and I was really drawn to that. I started to realise that there was really even more to it than just my personal relationship with the Lord – there was a community aspect too.

I started spending time in Kommetjie with the surfers. Shane Catrall’s father Kurt Catrall had just started Calvary Chapel in Kommetjie and he had started Son Surf. Son Surf was the place where the surf thing and the faith thing came together, and it became real as a community thing. We would attend Son Surf every week on a Wednesday or Thursday, and it was just this incredible body of young believers with a newfound faith who were surfers. We would for instance watch a surf movie and pray about it and then we would delve into the Word.

Son Surf really became a vehicle through which I discovered this all a lot more, and of course my own personal walk and my walk with my wife and I, and then eventually Kommetjie Christian Church where I am an elder at the moment. But it all really started to unravel for me with Surf Connect and Son Surf.

You are quite open about your faith on Instagram and different social platforms. What inspires you to do that?

I feel a sense of responsibility, but I am a bit of a romantic. You know, I really want to celebrate the beauty and the joy of life. So when the Lord has done something in my life and he continues to do it, I want to celebrate that fact and I want to share it with others. I definitely try not to Bible bash people. I don’t throw it out onto social media haphazardly. I’m very intentional with my word choice and the choice of what I post. For instance, I won’t post a picture of somebody else surfing then write something religious or Christian about it, because that person might not have the same beliefs that I have. But if there’s a beautiful empty wave or an amazing interaction with somebody, I would want to talk about that and celebrate it.

It is very counterintuitive because on social media, and in the world we live in today, you want to get likes and views and followers, right? Every time I’ve posted something Christian, I lose followers and I can see a negative trend, but that’s not why I do it. For me it’s about the few people who do need inspiration. There are a few people who do need encouragement, and that’s who I’m actually posting for. I don’t need to post stuff for me; I don’t really care if I have a following or not. God blesses me with work regardless of my place of influence. So I’m very grateful for that. I’ve had so many positive messages from like-minded Christians who have reached out to me and said that Scripture really helped me today or that post really meant something to me. Even if I only get five of those messages every other month, I’d rather do it for those people than worry about all the others who want to unfollow me.

I also just want to be honest. I think we are living in a world where so many people are pretending to be people that they are not. So I just want to be genuine and honest with who I am. Looking back now, I also realise that one of the most important things as Christians is to be consistent. So I really want to show people that consistency throughout my career, that I am who I say I am. I also want to encourage young people that have a fear of sharing their faith with others. There are times when you have to be cautious with who you share with, but I want young people to feel like they can be Christians and they can talk to people if they want to. They mustn’t hide it, you know?

You’ve gone on trips with various high-profile surfers. Have any of them ever inquired about your faith?

Yes, definitely. Usually, it is when they’re going through some hardship or trial in their life. Many high-profile surfers hit big crises in their life, and we’ll be on a trip somewhere. When you’re on these trips, you get really connected really quickly because you’re in remote parts of Africa, you’re travelling, there is a lot of downtime and then they will often start to engage me on those matters. It’s been incredibly rewarding to engage people in those spaces with my faith and the Lord’s Word.

“Somebody said, Aren’t you a Christian, Alan? The whole table went quiet and they all looked at me. I said Yes, I am.”

I was in Portugal a few years ago at a meal with a high-profile surfer and a couple of other people, and all of them were unbelievers. Somebody said, Aren’t you a Christian, Alan? The whole table went quiet and they all looked at me. I said Yes, I am. I expected that they would grill me on it, but they were all super inquiring about it. They wanted to know more, and it was hard to engage that many people, in a raw way, but it was such a rewarding time and the Holy Spirit just spoke through me. There have been many moments of that kind. It’s great to be able to share one’s faith in the Word with people. The bottom line is, when people are struggling and you have a helpful word and the Spirit speaks through you, it’s such an amazing experience.

Imagine you’re on your deathbed and you have the chance to leave the world with one last piece of wisdom. What do you say?

Invest in relationships. Life is relational and relationships with the Father and with each other are everything. We come into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing, but one of the things we have an impact on is the relationships with others. The ultimate relationship goes through death and goes through the other side into mortality. There are relationships you will have for all eternity. So commit to people and relationships, make time for people and engage others. We live so hectically for ourselves. We need to be with others.