Michael Dweck
image from Michael Dweck’s Montauk series
Michael Dweck has some gorgeous photography, especially his Montauk series of 50s era surf-culture / americana inspired shots, his book looks amazing.
[via The Year in Pictures]
Through The Ramada
The top shot taken on a surf trip to Ostula Michoacan, in August of ‘07 and the bottom shot, taken at local mainstay Quesadillas. Visual cousins.
On a side note: some jerkwad burned the ramada down at Quesadillas, this past week. The one the bottom picture was taken through. Nothing that can’t be rebuilt with a little hard sweat and a machete, but definitely a random, unnecessary act of destruction. totally bummer.
Tzahui Poo
I love this shot of Tzahui Poo, local Bucerias homie and owner of Mictlan Surf School in Punta Mita. Tzahui is kinda like the Michael Jordan of the area, güey gets serious air. Sometimes he makes it, sometimes he doesn’t. But he always puts on a good show for the rest of us. Now if I could get him to stop stealing my waves, it’d be all good.
This Week’s Swell
Thursday the swell finally hit after solid weeks of small waves. Burros got the heaviest of the lashing, with wave heights topping out at 8 feet. Here’s the best of the bunch of photos Mosbeffers took on Friday. Two sessions: one in the am and one in the pm. During the time that these photos were shot, I was in the water either taking headers over the falls, getting dropped in on or just fighting for position (between the currents and the competition). I managed to get another session in, this morning (Sat) and it was the best of the three days. Not wave height wise, but sheer quality of rides. When it’s firing El Paredon is the shizz.
Local Color
Sometimes the journey is the destination, taken down the way from La Lancha’s trash-strewn parking lot.
Blowout Bummer
Went searchin’, today, for any pre-cursors of the incoming swell. There’s definitely a lot of chop and the bay is looking super worked from all the air. But no real swell and any uptick is blown out in the massive wind. Conversely, the kiteboarders are having a field day. All along the beach in bucerias day-glow parachutes whiz above the tree tops.
Propiedad Privada
I tried to stop in at Pools/Albercas, one of my favorite breaks - that only works with the summer storm systems, to check the access situation (there’s been rumors) and much to my dismay, there is a new security gate that denied me access to the road that passes near the break. I was under the impression that A. The road is built on top of a river bed, what would be designated as “Federal Zone” (hence illegal to put in a gate or deny access without laborious and costly, federal permits - which I highly doubt they have) and B. The road itself was not deeded property of the condominium association that owns the Punta Del Burro property, so it would be illegal for the association to deny access to the road. We’ll have to do some due diligence.
This gets to the heart of a serious problem happening all up and down the coast between La Cruz and Punta Mita and one that I’ve been reticent to write about. Access to our handful of surf breaks is slowly being choked off one by one, as is the access to each of the local swimming beaches. People point fingers and say that it’s the Gringos, but I don’t think it’s that simple.
The past four years has seen an explosion of land development along this coast. Land exchanged hands, plans drawn up, permits filed and now building is starting to happen everywhere. Relatively rapidly, access to sacred surf breaks are being choked off by developers and homeowners associations, who don’t want people accessing the beaches from what usually amounts to lot boundary lines and semi-dry riverbeds.
This is a heavy and laborious subject and requires more than a simple post, so I guess I’m committing myself to a series of posts that will in all likeliness just graze the surface of the unintended problems real estate development is creating, in the bay.
For now, I’ll point you to Vida Cadu Cada, the blog of a recently enacted local civil association whose raison d’etre is to work with local, state and national authorities to secure access for surfers to these sites. I’ve kinda signed on, to help with the english speaking contingent.
Ana and the kitty
Why? cuz kitties are cute. that’s why. that and the fact that Ana can surf a short board better than you. She shreads! Put gnarly surf chicks together with kitties and it’s photo gold, my friend. works every time.
Not Quite Ripe
With impending swell on the way, I went for an 8:30am checkup. not too early to catch the morning session (and accompanying traffic jam of earth moving vehicles, buses and pick up trucks stacked to the gills with albañiles - all on their way out to Punta Mita to make luxury houses for the richie riches). and not too late, before the rays start to bake you alive and the wind whips the water into a blown-out, frothish frenzy.
Assuming there’d be at least some kind of swell, I over-shot and brought the shortboard. Rolled up to “the spot” to find 16 longboarders with occasional two to three footers. With nice, glassy conditions there were some nice waves coming through, an uptick from last week, but nothing chewable for a 6′0″. I surveyed the scene for a while. Some longboarder chick was rockin’ it, inna fine style. Amazing leg work, subtle and steady. Just as a I grabbed the camera, she headed back to shore.
Back to the break at 6:00pm with the wind whipping everything into fine white foam. This time the 6′0″ worked nicely on the slightly larger set waves, but with no real power in ‘em, they’re what I’d call “lazy”. I still had fun and being back out the shortboard was a nice change from the waterlog, good paddle practice for any incoming swell and nice to work out those shortboard legs.
Repairing + Preparing
Last week was spent trimming ankle slappers. But sometimes you just need a taste. Not a local to be seen in the water. A ghost town populated by visiting surf families with multiple surf instructors.
Survey sez: major swell approaching. Depending on who you ask, it’ll arrive here Wed or Fri, I’m betting on Wednesday. Spent this weekend repairing mis cuatro tablas. Each board with varying degrees of dings, bruises and gashes. The fish had a nice run in with a visiting mini super grom whose soccer dad was video taping him, as I ducked the wrong way and his skagg put a nice 6 inch gash into my rail. The super-light ATL 6′0″ had a nice little nose ding, with foam showing, probably from out-of-the-water damage. and the longboard had a year’s worth of gouges and scrapes, it ain’t called the “waterlog” for nothin’. I ran out of catalyst along the way, so funboard repairs are left til next round (the learning board). I’ll have to restock up next time I head to the states. Finding ding repair kits in Mexico is not easy, you can thank homeland security for that one. We guard our kits, here, like our first born.
More pics on the flickrtrim.
I ♥ Small Waves
The past week has been dead, dead, dead. Undeterred, I’ve been slogging my 9-oh log jammy out to various spots. One foot, two foot, three foot. It doesn’t take much to have fun. I’ve been relishing in the small wave action. Maybe not the longest sessions on earth, but perfect for grabbing a few nice rides, heading back to familiar shores and snapping off a few captures in the late afternoon gold.
If it doesn’t pick up soon, a trip to La Michoacan may be in the near future.
It’s getting hot, folks. I mean like, hot hot. Summer is on the way and sitting out on the water for 2 hours, mid-day/afternoon just isn’t so smart. So I’m going to start conditioning myself for the dawn patrol. not necessarily to fight the crowds, rather to fight the heat (and the burn).
It’s All Good | Boogie
On a recent trip back to the homeland (NYC), my sister Mosbef hooked me up with It’s All Good by a syrbian photographer living in New York, that goes by the name Boogie. The book is published by powerHouse:
A gritty, graphic, and gripping exposé of the underworld and its inhabitants, It’s All Good, the first monograph by Boogie, presents the predators and the prey in the drug game today. Shot in New York City’s most notorious neighborhoods—Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Queensbridge—Boogie gained intimate access into a world few dare to venture, a world closed to outsiders, a world of crackheads, junkies, and gangsters. From the cops patrolling the project roofs to the addicts overdosing on the streets, It’s All Good chronicles ghetto life in stark, heart-stopping images and intense testimonials. Boogie brings us to a place few will leave and most will stay, a place where escape is one rock, one shot, one glock away.
The photos are intensely candid and close-up. The people being photographed know and confide in the photographer and you can see it in every image. Boogie spent a lot of time getting to know these people and gaining their trust. The book is really powerful and grim.
In photography books / monographs, the images always stand on their own. In the truest sense, the story is told through the images. Text and image don’t often collide. It’s all about the images and most of the time, rightly so.
In ‘It’s All Good’ the images appear one to a page, with an introductory text to each of the characters every few pages. In the back of the book, there is a glossary of images, each one with a comment, from the photographer, on the person being photographed or context that the photo was taken in.
I really enjoyed Boogie’s comments and although the book kinda takes the middle road (by displaying the images by themselves and then including the glossary), I gotta say that I spent a lot of time in the glossary section looking at the thumbnail images and reading the comments. The full size images are gorgeous and raw, but the comments really open the story up and provide the details and context that the photos sit in. I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t just include the text with the photos.
There’s definitely a conversation there, about the role of the image, versus the roll of image and text together. And the intention of the publisher/author to present the images versus the intent of the viewer to understand the context of the images. I’m not sure if my “art discourse” hat is fully on today, so I’ll leave it at that.
Toward The Great Expanse
Art by Ty Williams (L) and Julie Goldstein (R)
Montanaro Gallery in Newport Rhode Island, is having an art exhibition called Toward The Great Expanse that features the surf/water inspired work of Ty Williams and Julie Goldstein. The pieces are beautiful.
The Montanaro Gallery site has what looks like all of the pieces from the show, up on the site, in nice big jpegs. Very thoughtful of them, for us left-and-down-coasters. the name of the show couldn’t be more perfect for the flavor of art.
[via Foam]
Foam Re-Design | Vincent Skeltis
A American Family Man: Re-Design: A Reader Poll
Vincent Skeltis was asked, informally, to re-design Foam (a surfing mag for girls). Skeltis has posted the brief, current/projected readers, the latest cover and a few of the covers from his re-design process. He’s asking people to comment on what he’s done so far (with the disclaimer that the logo is still very rough). Skeltis is letting us all in on his process, which is awesome. It can also be a double-edged sword, so in that sense he’s being very brave (and silently hoping no one skewers him, anonymously, in the comments).
Skeltis has some amazing photography and art-direction over at his portfolio site. I’m sure that whatever designs he ends up presenting, regardless of how they’re eventually implented (or not), his art-direction will be top-notch.
[via APE]
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Update: It seems that Foam had Skeltis pull down the blog entry. understandable. well, I guess i’ll leave this up for posterity sake.
All Colors Together
The Year in Pictures hips us to these awesome posters created by Brazilian graphic designer Daniel Molin. The Google Machine™ has never heard of Molin (unless he’s the same guy creating massive amounts of sci-fi fantasy art - which i doubt). That’s a shame. Regardless of your political leanings, these are beautiful pieces of design.
Simplicity works so well.
Zoo York Artist Series
I’m really diggin’ on Zoo York’s new artist series boards done by Mark and Matt Owens (Matt of VolumeOne fame). The art-direction is pure 70s NY mashup. Equal parts Massimo Vignelli, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand and Lance Weyman mixed with a slight case of Monty Python. Great designs! Having grown up in NY in the 70s-80s my childhood is filled with the kind of iconography that this is derived from. Athletics. has the lickable larger versions.
btw - nice Athletics site, right?! talk about clean and beautiful layout and typography. gorgeous stuff. i’m taking notes. Athletics is Matt and Mark Owen, Samia Saleem, James Ellis, Jason Gnewikow, David Ahuja and Wes Duvall. wow, very cool.
Where Has All The Plastic Gone?
I’ve been meaning to link to this for awhile, but since it’s Earth Day, there’s no better time than the now (not now, but right now). My dad has a wicked photographic essay called Where Has All The Plastic Gone? The photographs feature trash found at the beach here in Mexico. Trash is a common sight on the beaches and along the roads, so much so that it begins to become invisible to the people that live here. The essay feels like a visual archaelogical survey, recorded for whoever might inhabit earth, long after we’re gone and all that’s left are bits of oddly shaped, brightly colored plastic.
flickr set | fullscreen slideshow
On a similar tangent: there’s been an awful lot of talk about plastic building up in the environment and being around forever. My hope is that long after we’re gone (assumably the plastic by-products killed us off), maybe there’s some kind of bacteria that somehow evolves or makes it to earth aboard some large meteor and uses the plastic (and toxic chemicals it amasses), as a food source. Similar to the way bacteria feed off the toxic chemicals emitted from deep-ocean vents. The dinosaurs gave us oil to drive our vehicles, maybe our gift to future inhabitants is, well, food. Or more likely we’ll just decompose and become oil for future inhabitants’ automobile equivalents.
Just a thought.
Punta Mita
Photos from an afternoon excursion up to Punta Mita. waves were knee-high to a grasshopper, but this thirty-something buck managed to grab a nice long ride or two. I had a great conversation with Joe Doggett and his buddies, a rag tag crew of inveterate surf junkies who make an annual pilgrimage to Mita. They completely schooled me on Punta Mita surf history and for that I am grateful. You can look forward to a post on Punta Mita surf lore in the not to distant future. Thanks Joe!
Toxic: Garbage Island
VBS.TV has a new 12 part series called Toxic: Garbage Island, a long-form (for web standards anyway) documentary on the North Pacific Garbage Patch.
I’ve posted about floating garbage island before and i’m sure if you ask any politician, they’d say it’s an urban myth hyped by Boing! Boing! conspiracy theorists. But it’s not! The folks at Vice sent a crew of people with video cameras out to the patch. Their verdict? Not only are the reports true, but it’s worse than they expected. There’s no patch and no island. Nothing that can be cleaned up easily. It’s a galactic mess of floating pieces slowly photodegrading into even tinier toxic, digestible pieces. everywhere and nowhere. a gigantic floating toxic stew. and it’s twice the size of Texas.
Stevey originally turned me on to the series a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to repost. With Earth Day tomorrow (Apr22), I thought I put the word out. The documentary is intense, horrifying and urgent. Special props to the Vice team for such engaging content. When watching it, you get the feeling that they didn’t quite know what they were getting in to and the narrator/host Thomas Morton keeps it interesting with an increasing use of curse words as they get further in to the garbage patch. Justifiable considering the horror show they encounter.
Relatedly: Check out this interview, Thomas Morton’s take on traditional (read: neo-hippy) environmentalism as he interviews the authors of Break Through, a book that calls for the “Death of Environmentalism” (or at least its current 60s era mentality). Morton can be a bit harsh and irreverent, but he makes some valid points.
