Today it is difficult to truly grasp the epoch-making impact of the popular introduction of George Eastman's ''instant camera'' in the 1880s. After all, photography did not just create a new way of seeing the universe, it created an entirely new universe, an infinite expanse of images: lone figures smiling or frowning for unknown reasons, small town storefronts ripped from their surrounding context, road signs and seagulls, monuments and prize fish, celebrities and people close to us, our own selves and people we can't even remember. Summer Vacation/Found Photographs offers a familiar, strange, and moving look at one galaxy of this ''photoverse'' through a collection of found vacation photographs. The images here once resided in photo albums or idled in dusty drawers; now they are collected together, forming a kind of road map of the American imaginary: cars and trailers in front of suburban homes and in the background in shots national parks; exuberant teenagers displaying their bodies on beaches; families in boats, in the ocean, out fishing; highways, zoos, and picnics; hotels, amusement parks, hammocks, ships, and sand castles--Summer Vacation/Found Photographs is a brilliant document of the secret life of the photograph.

Summer Vacation/Found Photographs

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

T. Adler Books

Tom Blake: Surfing 1922-1932, Deluxe Edition

Lynch, Gary

Individual Artists

Thomas Blake--born in rural Wisconsin in 1902--was the most important and essential figure in the history of modern surfing, as a designer, a surfer, a ''water stuntman'' in films, and as a person and persona. In 1922 Blake bought a small travel camera and began what would become an ongoing photographic essay on his life and the surfing world which defined it. Tom Blake: Surfing 1922-1932 beautifully reproduces this photographic series, documenting the seminal world of California and Hawaii surfing in the 1920s and 1930s. The book is available in a hardcover edition as well as a limited edition packaged in a slipcase.

Tom Blake: Surfing 1922-1932

From sepia-toned shots of old Hawaii to sharp focused close-ups of Kelly Slater, Surf Life juxtaposes, pastes, and cuts together a scrapbook of the surfer lifestyle throughout the 20th century. But as even the greatest surfer riding the biggest waves leaves nothing permanent in his or her wake, Surf Life provides much more than one man's stroll down an always sunny, taned, water flooded memory lane. Surf Life captures the fleeting, ephemeral moments that together add up to a visual history of surfing: pre-WWII and post-Gulf War beach boys, winsome surfer girls on long boards, Hawaiian aunties in parasols, and lone surfers on empty beaches. Prize-winning men and women ride waves taller than most of us have ever even seen, including 60s champ Joey Cabell and 90s star Kelly Slater, Kauai waterman Titus Kinimaka and four-time world champion Lisa Andersen, the late rebel Miki Dora and Hawaiian stylist Paul Strauch. Photographs from the last 70 years of surfers in the waves, on the beach, riding around in cars, and just lounging around are shot by the likes of Ron Stoner, Don King, Frank Quirarte, Jeff Hornbaker, Art Brewer, Jeff Devine, Jim Russi, LeRoy Grannis, Dewey Nicks, Don James, Carlos Serrao, Hank, Doc Ball, Aaron Chang, Mark Oblow, Craig Stecyk, Ted Granbeau, David Tsay, Steve Bissel, Dan Merkel, Leo Hetzel, Taki, Eric Aeder, Harold Ward, Eric Baseman, John Severson, Andrew Kidman, and Audrey Adler. From California to Hawaii, Tahiti to Indonesia, Australia to the Maldives, Surf Life follows the endless summer of the surfer's life.

Surf Life 32 To 02 (T. ADLER BOOKS)

James' portfolios chronicle the lazy, golden days of the emerging surf culture on Southern California's coast in the spring and summer of 1936, and form an elegant collection that complements interests in surfing, history, or fine photography. Each of the five deluxe editions contains four different 6.8” x 4.6” archival prints reproduced from the original negatives found in Don James' studio shortly after his death in 1996. The photographs are printed with soy-based UV inks on 100% cotton rag, acid-free paper. Each print is mounted on an acid-free four-ply board with a numbered certificate of authenticity, and enclosed in a glassine sleeve.

Don James: Pre-War Surfing Photographs: Portfolio 2

Don James: Pre-War Surfing Photographs: Portfolio 3

Don James: Pre-War Surfing Photographs: Portfolio 4

Don James: Pre-War Surfing Photographs: Portfolio 5

A strong sense of nostalgia and a yearning for a simpler life are the accompaniments to the images in Don James' Pre-War Surfing Photographs. At the end of the Depression and before the beginning of WWII, James and a small group of friends lived a charmed life in Southern California. When school was out, they roamed the undeveloped Eden-like coast from Malibu to San Onofre, scraping together gas money for their worn jalopies, lugging 90-pound wooden boards to the ocean, sleeping in lifeguard huts and makeshift tent camps in the sand. They lived hand-to-mouth, plucking an endless supply of abalone and lobster from the ocean and raiding nearby orange and avocado orchards at night. What spending money they had came from guiding rumrunners to secluded coves, selling fresh fish to local restaurants, life guarding in posh beach clubs in Santa Monica, or acting as stuntmen and extras for Hollywood films. At that time, there were fewer than 200 surfers in the entire state, and James and his friends were inventing a beach/surf culture that would endure for decades. In 1936, at 16 years old, James began chronicling those days with his father's folding Brownie camera. For water shots, he would place the camera in a homemade semi-waterproof pine box, rest the box atop his board, and paddle out to the calm water adjacent to the surf. Focal range of the Brownie was limited, and James preferred to keep his frame uncluttered, so many of the photographs have a similar weight and balance. The images in Pre-War Surfing Photographs are the result of his preliminary endeavors, the works that mark the beginning of James' career. Throughout his life, James continued to perfect his skills going on to take a multitude of elegant surfing photographs, for which he became famous, until his death in the 1990s.

Don James: Prewar Surfing Photographs

Warshaw, Matt

James, Don

As a teenager taking pictures of fellow surfers in 1960s La Jolla, Jeff Divine got to know the original alternative sport before the X-Games were even a gleam in a producer's eye. Through this rare collection of photographs from the momentous decade that followed, he conveys the feeling of being on the beach in its most creative era, being present at the inception of a subculture too large and photogenic to stay down long. The style, the athleticism and the escapism in these images will be familiar to those with even a lazy eye on pop culture: surfing is on the rise again. Of its first time around, Divine says, "Yes, I had long hair. And Pendletons, Mexican wedding shirts, bell bottoms, Wallabies, Zig Zags and tuna, wheat bread, and sprouts in the fridge. Santana, The Dead, Jesse Colin Young, Steppenwolf, Moby Grape, The Stones, Beatles and Clifton Chenier on the stereo. Hippie seamstresses made us custom shirts with embroidered necks and coconut buttons. I had a beaded curtain through which you entered my den. No, I didn't have any black light posters, but I did have the Juan O. Gorman poster "Flores Imaginarias" and Ortner at 3M's on the wall. Reading material? The Life Photography Series, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, M.C. Escher art books, Zap comics, or the Carlos Castaneda series. But our prize possessions were our garage-made surfboards all lined up in the side yard. They mattered the most."

Surfing Photographs from the Seventies Taken by Jeff Divine (T. ADLER BOOKS)

Hulet, Scott

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