Review

WL Rating

As a stoked young kid, “Photo: Divine” was a credit I saw all the time as I flipped through my collection of surf magazines. The time was the 1970’s and there were a handful of great photographers documenting the decade’s revolutionary new approach to surfing. Guys like Larry “Flame” Moore, Ron Stoner, and Jeff Divine were at the peak of their powers as the previous decade’s photo gods (folks like Leroy Grannis) passed the torch. Surfing Photographs From The Seventies By Jeff Divine collects some of the best images from Divine’s prolific cache of photos. Unfortunately, while there are many great photos in the book, there isn’t much in the way of story or narrative to help the reader navigate and engage with the images. In fact, descriptions of the photos themselves, e.g. Buttons at OTW, aren’t included with the pictures in the book. Rather, they are provided at the end of the book along with thumbnails of every photo. Every time an editor decides to put the shot’s corresponding title 50 pages away from the image, I get an unpleasant, disjointed feeling. Let’s get real, there are no surf photos so precious that they can’t be “marred” by a photo credit and/or shot title. As a result a book that could have been, like the photos themselves, great or very good, turned out to be merely fine instead.  (January 2012)

Surfing Photographs From the 70’s - Jeff Divine

Details

Category: Non-Fiction

Reading Style: Easy

Pages: 96

Pub Date: 2006

Tags: History, Surfing