Dedicated to the Wedge

Andrew Edwards

Forget being interviewed. The photographer’s mind was busy

envisioning the next shot.

“I’m going there after this is all over. It could be excellent,”

Ron Romanosky said as he eyed a feeding frenzy of pelicans and

seagulls in the surf near the Wedge in Newport Beach. “This is an

opportunity you don’t usually get.”

The photographer took out his camera and slowly approached the

flock of birds, resting on the sand after their meal. He suddenly

burst into a run, and a host of birds took flight -- just what he

wanted.

Romanosky pulled up his camera, and a few clicks later, he had

captured the seagulls on film. He refuses to shoot digital.

Romanosky, who refused to reveal his age, is a longtime devotee of

the Wedge, the infamous bodysurfing locale at the tip of Balboa

Peninsula. He rode his first wave at the Wedge back in 1962, and

except for a combat tour in Vietnam, he has remained near the

ferocious break ever since.

“What I do here is I document the whole story,” he said. “It’s a

whole world here when it’s happening.”

Romanosky, who also shapes kneeboards, has been shooting photos of

the Wedge for more than three decades and has had his work published

in surfing magazines.

“He’s pretty much dedicated his life to shooting the Wedge,”

Romanosky’s friend Rick Piani, 36, of Balboa said.

Piani bought two kneeboards from Romanosky and said the boards

feel like they were custom made for the Wedge.

“The fact that he’s been riding here so long, he knows that wave

better than anybody,” Piani said.

Samples of Romanosky’s photos are included among the many surf

pictures that line the walls at TK Burgers in Newport Beach.

The restaurant’s owner, Jim Kalatschan, had heard of Romanosky’s

reputation around the Wedge and discovered his photos while he was

searching for local surf shots.

“I just knew that he was a kneeboarder from the Wedge days, and

little by little, I ran into people who said Ron’s going to have some

stuff,” Kalatschan said.

For Romanosky, riding the waves came before taking pictures of

them. The son of a U.S. Marine, Romanosky was born in Santo Domingo,

Dominican Republic, and his family moved often. But it was in Orange

County where he found his roots, graduating from Costa Mesa High

School and riding the Wedge before the crowds came to Balboa.

He discovered photography on the other side of the Pacific after

he was drafted into the Army and started taking pictures in the

jungles of Vietnam.

“I bought a camera when I was on an R&R; -- a cheap little

viewfinder, 35 millimeter -- in Hong Kong, with the idea that I was

going to record what I saw as a grunt,” he said.

When he returned to the United States, he studied photography at

Orange Coast College but never earned his degree because there were

too many “prima donnas” in the class, he said.

After taking more than 30 years’ worth of pictures at the Wedge,

he can’t pick one as his favorite. He likened it to trying to find a

favorite image of a loved one.

“I could show you 400 shots,” he said. “Say you’re deeply in love

with your wife, which shot do you like best of your wife?”