His portfolio of photography of surfing and related sea images from the 1960s enjoys a reputation that led The New York Times to dub him "the godfather of surfphotography.
Soon Grannis made himself a bellyboard from a piece of wood and rode it during vacations in his mother's home state of Florida.
[2] Unable to afford an education at UCLA during the Depression, Grannis dropped out and found work as a carpenter, junkyard de-tinner and spent some years at Standard Oil.
He had already begun to venture into photography, and several of his pictures were featured in photo pioneer and close friend John Heath "Doc" Ball's[2] 1946 book California Surfriders.
In 2006, Taschen published LeRoy Grannis: Birth of a Culture as a limited-edition, signed collector's edition monograph.
[4] In 1971, fed up with increased competition for the perfect angle, Grannis quit shooting surfing and soon found himself involved in hang gliding.
Grannis married Katie LaVerne Tracy in 1939, when she was 20, and the couple had four children- Kit, Frank, Nancy, and John, six grandchildren- Robert, Cindy, Alan, Elizabeth, Alana, and Kaylee, and three great-grandchildren- Casey, Emily, and Dane, and two great-great grandchildren during their 69-year marriage before Katie died on December 3, 2008, at age 89.