I’ve been taking these photos of surfers on Ocean Beach. Pretty much every time it’s sunny enough to spend time on the sand I’ll drag my camera along I’ll take pictures of them. At least once now I took pictures at another beach, the one by Jenner where Russian river flows into the ocean.
I think the photos are pretty boring unless you zoom right up to the person and change them to grey scale with some basic processing to resemble a graphite drawing. Then the image becomes somehow a bit more engaging. Stripping away the color focuses attention on the figure and the pose it has assumed at the time the photo was taken. It is always in some dynamic attempt to balance on the board. Perched above a mass of water that is always in motion.
I think it’s as good of a dedication I can make it to the place I live now, Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco.
I’ve also been mulling over adding a color or two back in by picking a value already present in the original and filling a swath of the image with it.
