Carving Nostalgia

The week before Jay Adams passed away, I watched Dogtown and Z Boys for the umpteenth time. K, my partner always gets sad at the Jay Adams section, and as always I assured her that he is actually doing okay. In that I have seen photos of him surfing, gouging big turns, skating with style and absolute gusto, as well as clips of him being interviewed in which he is looking really healthy and well.  All in all he always seemed to a doing lot better than at the time when the Z-Boys film was shot in 2001. So we watched the film and K did not get sad at the Jay part. Some six days after this latest viewing of the film, I heard the sad news that he had died. So many people have said so much in honour of him already, there is a lot of love for him, that's for sure. For one individual guy to connect to so many people the world over, is a real accomplishment, I did not know him as a person, and yet he touched my life to such a degree that I felt as though a friend had...

I have had a deep fascination with surf photography for a number of years. A really great shot which captures a moment perfectly will spark my imagination and take me to a different place, or an entirely different time. There are a number of photographers, past and present, who's work I really admire and never tire of looking at.  But I thought I would note my appreciation of the photography of Ron Stoner , Ron Church and Leroy Grannis .  Each of these guys were responsible for capturing the surfing experience so perfectly, both in and out of the water. Many of their photographs are so incredibly simple and yet they manage to portray surf culture in such a way that it is if the photographs were staged. Although, on close inspection you can see that this was not the case, rather they all had an incredible eye for photography, knew surfing, had a deep understanding of the ocean, and a love for all of these things.  These incredible attributes ensured that the...

In light of the sad news of James Garner's recent death, I thought I would write a few words on  The Rockford Files , and how this seventies show provided me one of my first tastes of California.  I believe it was this show, and others like it from the same era that instilled the fascination with California which has remained with me for all these years. To begin with, the show was shot in such a way that it created a kind of sun drenched effect, everything was bathed in this orange glow, the sea shimmered with a gold sparkle, the beaches were pure white stretches of sand and palm trees grew everywhere. The whole show pretty much summed up the quintessential California experience.  LA itself was depicted in a manner that really struck a chord with me.  On the one hand it was a wash with criminals and low life hoods, but looking past these elements, as I did, I became enchanted with it from a very young age. But a large part of the fascina...