Sometimes you interview someone and it makes you wish you could re-wind and do your twenties all over again. In my case it would include far more focus on the outdoor sports I craved (vs. standing on street corners with mates drinking MD 20/20) and leaving all sense of responsibility to travel and chase waves.
Bella epitomises that lifestyle. She is a surf photographer, producer, editor, a multi-lane creative who is now most well known for being the first female editor of Wavelength magazine. Her first issue was in February 2025, putting in six months of hard graft, an uphill learning curve for someone who hadn’t done the role of editor before. She didn’t let her lack of experience deter her from going in hard on the first issue, and she’s continued in the same vein since.
“It needs to have really strong representation of women and nature and issues. I was like, I’m not fussed about just having a magazine about people riding cool waves, that’s not interesting to me. And so I thought I was like, fudge it, I’m just going to go as deep into controversial stuff as I can. And if it doesn’t go well, and I don’t get to do the next magazine, at least I’ve got the creative license of this one.”
Supporting women in the surfing space isn’t new to Bella, she saw the issue of a lack of visibility of women at all levels of surfing early on, and she’s sought to re-address the balance through her photography and beyond (and if you take a listen to the interview, there’s a reveal about a big leap she’s made at the magazine which will become public shortly).
We talk about this inequality and much more in the interview:
Bella’s journey into surfing & finding her people
Getting her break into publishing
Burning out & talking openly about mental health
Developing boundaries as a freelance creative
Living an unconventional life and her future plans
Bella is truly inspirational, but one of the things I like most about this interview is that she shows the counter side of the perfection that we so often see on Instagram:
“Every time someone said to me, you’re living the dream, it was like someone punched me in the stomach. Obviously that’s what it looks like on Instagram. When you’re not feeling like that, you’re just like ‘why? why does someone think I’m living the dream?’ And then you feel guilty, because you feel like you should be grateful that everyone’s allowed to be having a great life and a bad one at the same time. And so I said, you know, I’m just going to be really honest on Instagram. And every time I am honest, I get messages from other people saying ‘thanks so much for putting this up, I’m also feeling really shit about myself, and this really helped”
It’s the kind of honesty and transparency that’s pretty rare in this space, so I respect that. She also talks about the financial compromise working in creative roles in this industry involves (aren’t the most aspirational creative roles often this way?).
I hope you enjoy this one!
Caroline x
Board Women Founder
Presenter: Caroline Keylock
Producer: Selma Chalabi
