Sonny Miller raised the level whenever he walked into a room. All the levels. Starting with the volume; Sonny had a big voice. The energy, the buzz, the metabolism of whatever space Sonny was occupying—it all went up a notch or two. It felt great. Somehow, the way Sonny managed this, it wasn't really about him. Lots of people who have that same turn-it-up knack, it's a "look at me!" kind of thing. With Sonny, it was like everybody gets a free shot of espresso. You felt a little brighter, a little snappier in his presence.

Sonny and I both worked at Breakout in 1984. He and Alan Carrasco were the magazine's hot young photographers. But SURFER was already sniffing around, and I think Sonny was on their masthead before the year was out. He made the big leagues. I was jealous. But not really. As much time and effort as Sonny put into having a good time, he put even more into his work, and all the good things that came his way in the years that followed—the movies he did for Rip Curl being the most famous—were well-earned.

I always wondered how Sonny felt about Taylor Steele. The rough DIY video style that Steele made so popular pretty much sucked whatever oxygen was left in surf cinema, and it happened just as Sonny was hitting stride with a movie camera. The market was flooded with low-budget punk-scored vids, while Sonny patiently continued to thread film into his 16mm camera, and that must have been frustrating. Just a few years later, however, as quality in surf movies began to make a comeback,  Sonny was standing by looking aces when Rip Curl pulled out the checkbook, collared team rider and recent world tour retiree Tom Curren, and launched The Search campaign. The Search, or the best parts of it anyway, was a duet between Tom and Sonny, and it worked out very well for the rest of us. With Miller behind the tripod and the atlas open to wherever he and Tom wanted to visit, we finally got to see Curren in breaks worthy of his talent—Jeffreys Bay and Bawa, for starters—as opposed to Huntington Hopping his way to shore during the Op Pro. 

, the final movie in the Search series, earned Miller "Video of the Year" honors at the 1997 SURFER Poll.

Rip Curl and Sonny later got into a hassle over film rights, and as far as I know none of the 

 videos are available for download, or even on DVD. This bothered Sonny. He'd moved on to bigger projects (including second-unit camera work for 

) but still defined himself in large part through his surf work. I emailed him the week before last, to see if I could use some VHS 

 footage for a Curren clip I was working on. Sonny gave me the green light, said he'd more or less buried the hatchet with Rip Curl, and was hopeful that the 

 films would get remastered and re-released. He ended as follows: "My transition from surf filmmaker to Hollywood sharpshooter has been a dream. But the sea is my boss. Always has been."

SONNY MILLER: 1960-2014

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