August 27, 2008 @ 9:06 AM
See the amazing work of Jeff Divine at the Crane Kalman Gallery, Brighton. The exhibition, entitled ‘Jeff Divine: Surfing’s Golden Age – The Seventies Kodachromes’ runs until 31st August.
Growing up in La Jolla, Jeff Divine began taking pictures of fellow surfers in his hometown during the 1960s and got to know the original alternative sport before the mainstream media blew it into the commercial kingdom it has now come to be.
His images capture the decade of Hippies, long hair, Mexican wedding shirts and bell-bottoms. Santana, The Dead, Steppenwolf and the Stones were on the stereo, hallucinogenic drugs and free love were everywhere and Vietnam had left an entire generation of disillusioned youth. And for those surfers making (or non-making) a life for themselves on the swells on the North Shore, that culture was apparent, but with one distinguishing factor: their prized possessions were their garage-made surfboards all lined up in the side yard. That was what mattered most.
According to Divine, “It was all about the karma you had, that and going with the flow. We really believed that when the surf was on that’s what it was all about: good vibes actually caused good waves to happen. I surfed first and then shot photos. As things got more serious, I shot first and surfed later.” Photographing the second generation of surfers, Divine impressively captures the feeling of being on the beach during its most creative era and at the inception of a subculture too large and photogenic to stay down long.
