Be Ryder may not have been at home in the water when she was young, but that certainly is the case now. Photo: Serena Lutton Beatriz (Be) Ryder has built a career in one of photography's most unforgiving spaces: swimming a heavy camera rig into tumultuous surf while trying to capture photographs of the action.
From Championship Tour stops with the World Surf League to a silver
Along the way, Ryder has made herself known in a space that's long been dominated by men and become a model for others who want to follow her into the water. I recently had an opportunity to sit down with her over video chat to talk about her path into photography, how she works in the water, and what keeps her swimming back out.
Finding the ocean and photography, slowly
Photo: Be Ryder
Given how comfortable Ryder is in the water, you may never guess that she hasn't been spending time in the ocean since she was young. She grew up in Portugal, where the ocean is really strong and cold, so being in the water wasn't a priority. Photography is somewhat of a different story, though. Ryder's dad was a photographer, and the medium was always a part of her life because of him.
"We used to go on little walks and take photos of things and then go back home, edit the photos and even upload to this website where other photographers would give you feedback on your photos and things," she explained. However, as many of us do as teenagers, she drifted away from the medium.
Things changed when she met her partner, who is a surfer. While at the beach watching him surf, she fell in love with the ocean. Eventually, her partner suggested she pick up a camera while hanging out. "Later on, he was like, 'Instead of sitting at the beach, why don't you try and take photos?'" she recalled. "And I'm like, 'Oh, I guess that's better than sitting there. ' So I kind of picked up a camera again then. "
She says it was during this time that she fell in love with photography again. Eventually, he gave her a camera, and later on, also gave her a waterproof housing. However, she still wasn't spending much time in the water at that point, so the housing sat on her shelf for over a year.
This image was from Ryder's first-ever shoot in the water, when she finally decided to take out the underwater housing.
Canon 600D | EF-S 18-55mm f/3. 5-5. 6 IS II | F5. 6 | 1/500 sec | ISO 100
Photo: Be Ryder
A trip down the coast in 2018 changed things, and Ryder finally took the step to try out getting in the water with her camera. "I was like, you know what, maybe I'll just take the housing and try it out. So I did, and to this day, my favorite photo that I ever took was in that session. I completely loved it," Ryder explained. "It was a glassy day, the ocean texture was just beautiful, and everything about it was magical. The water was actually warm, and the sun was out. It was sunset. It was just beautiful. "
That moment marked the beginning of Ryder's surf photography path. "That kind of started things. I was like, 'Wow, well, if I can do this, then maybe I can do something else,'" she said.
Learning the ropes
For competitions, Ryder mostly uses a 70-200mm lens with her Nikon Z9.
Photo: Matt Dunbar
After finishing school, Ryder decided to focus on her surf photography career and moved from Portugal to Australia. She may make shooting from the lineup (the zone where surfers wait for incoming waves) look effortless now, but learning to work in the ocean was a long, selfThe Pass in Byron Bay, working in a cafe and surf shops and jumping into the water before and after every shift to figure things out. She didn't have mentors or formal training to lean on, so she treated each session as an experiment.
Early on, even the gear made things harder. Her first housing didn't allow her to adjust many settings in the water, so Ryder had to decide everything in advance. "I would just really have to think, okay, so this time I will try this, this time I'll try that," she explained. "And so it was basically like trial and error the whole time for maybe two years. " Eventually, she started getting little jobs and meeting other creatives to learn from them. She was also watching heaps of YouTube videos and finding people on Instagram, all with the goal of learning as much as she could and getting information from everywhere.
Photo: Be Ryder
At the same time, Ryder was learning how to exist in the ocean itself. She had to get used to currents, sets and wipeouts, all while holding a camera. She credits living right by the beach with helping her build confidence in the water, since she prioritized getting in the water every single day. "It definitely helped so much moving here and living at the beach because it's literally a matter of the more times you go in the water, the more comfortable you'll feel," she said.
"Literally every time you shoot in the water, you feel vulnerable"
Over time, repetition built confidence, at least at home. But any new break means starting again. "It's like starting not from zero, but learning that spot in specific," she explained. "Literally every time you shoot in the water, you feel vulnerable, and you don't know what to expect, because it's such an unpredictable environment. " She's had to get used to feeling like a beginner over and over as her career expanded, but with repetition, her confidence – and skills – grew.
Nikon Z9 | Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm F2. 8E FL ED VR | F5. 0 | 1/1600 | ISO 500
Photo: Be Ryder
There are still challenges every time, though. For competitions, Ryder is using a Nikon Z9 with a 70-200mm lens in underwater housing. The setup weighs nearly 5 kilos (11 lbs), which makes maneuvering in the waves to capture the action even more challenging. "You basically need to be kicking vertically so that you're out of the water, not shaking too much because otherwise the photo won't be clear enough, and make sure you're not in [the surfer's] way. It's a lot," she explained.
"It is a lot of pressure because it's a live situation that's happening in front of you. People's careers are at stake. "
At competitions, there's also a careful balance of being close enough to get the action without getting in the way of the surfer. "It is a lot of pressure because it's a live situation that's happening in front of you. People's careers are at stake, and you're in their field. It's like a tennis player having someone on the court," she explained. "We are very lucky because it's a unique angle and it's a privilege to be able to be in their field and capture that, but at the same time, with that comes heaps of responsibility. "
Seeing surfing differently
Ryder took the silver-winning image from the World Sports Photography Awards on a day when conditions weren't great for many reasons, but they decided to play around with some duck dive shots (when you dive under the wave with your board) just to get something. When she looked at the back of the camera after taking this, she knew it was something special.
Nikon Z9 | Nikkor Z 24-70mm F2. 8 S | F3. 2 | 1/5000 sec | ISO 250
Photo: Be Ryder
From the start, Ryder was focused on finding a way to stand out and capture her own vision. She's been less interested in documenting peak action just as everyone else is, and more interested in everything that happens around that moment. "I always try to capture the things that people usually don't look at, like the style or the emotion. . . the in-between moments," she told me. She knew her work would just blend in if she stuck to the status quo. "We get tired of seeing the exact same things, like always an action moment of the surfer in the center of the image, the color really blue and contrasty. You've seen that, so I'm not going to stand out," Ryder said.
Representation is part of that shift as well. Ryder feels that "women surfing we never see enough," so she's intentional about centering women in her work and making pictures that show a different side of the sport. That's a big reason the quiet duckWorld Sports Photography Awards, resonated for her: under the wave, it's not the loud, explosive surf photo audiences expect, but a calm, almost introspective moment that fits exactly with what she's been chasing.
Making space for women in the lineup
Nikon Z9 |Nikkor Z 24-70mm F2. 8 S | F5. 0 | 1/2500 sec | ISO 320
Photo: Be Ryder
When Ryder joined the World Surf League's (WSL) Championship Tour photo team in 2022, she walked into a space still dominated by older men who had been shooting surf professionally for decades. Because she'd been trained directly by the WSL's photography manager in Australia, she suddenly found herself as the person explaining updated workflows to veterans.
"Imagine a 26-year-old, 1. 6m super tiny girl coming in and saying, 'I know you've been doing this for 20 years, but actually, that's not how they want you to do this, and they asked me to teach you,'" she told me. Earning respect in that first year was difficult as a result. Some of her colleagues repeatedly asked, "How did you get here?" and "Where did you come from?" But once they saw her work and spent a season alongside her, then it was okay.
Change has been happening in front of the lens, too. Ryder points to 2022 as the first year the tour offered equal prize money and sent men and women to the same stops, including a historic return of women's competition to Tahiti after more than a decade. Behind the scenes, 2025 quietly delivered another milestone: for the first time, a WSL event was covered by an all
Breathing through fear in Tahiti
Ryder's most high was working specifically on staying calm when held down so she could keep making pictures instead of panicking.
That preparation became the backbone of Breathe, a sixly opened a new door or created a new opportunity. " That quote is a fantastic reminder to all photographers, and extends well beyond photography, too.
Belonging, burnout, and what's next
Nikon Z9 | Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm F2. 8E FL ED VR | F4. 0 | 1/3200 | ISO 200
Photo: Be Ryder
For all the travel and bigbut still enjoys working for the team. "It's really grounding because I have the same team. They're always there, you know? I can travel the world and feel like I'm from everywhere and from nowhere at the same time, but going there kind of makes me feel good, and like I belong somewhere," she explained.
Looking ahead, Ryder wants to keep balancing commercial gigs and WSL work. She also wants to focus on projects that feel personal, folding as much of her own voice as possible into client shoots when she doesn't have the energy for separate passion projects. Workshops, especially women
Whatever comes next, her plan is uncomplicated: keep working hard, stay humble and continue opening the door a little wider for the women who will paddle out after her.
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2026-3-13 16:00