The Shoebox Series was inspired by a friend’s shoebox full of old surf photographs he and his friends had taken of each other over the years. Realizing that almost every lifelong surfer has a stash of photographic evidence of their surfing lives stowed away somewhere, I went to my local surf buddies and heroes alike, asking for a few of their snapshots that capture what surfing here in Humboldt means to them. These became the inspirations for the series, which went on to be published in the Surfer’s Journal in 2008 (Volume 17, #3).

Here’s the caption for this one, as it was printed in the Surfer’s Journal:

“From a photo submitted by James Bavin: James is one of the smoothest surfers I know. He can make the worst waves look fun and he makes good waves look silly. For this project he offered a photo of Eric Nave saluting an unknown rider. This image is about sharing in someone else’s stoke, and that’s what this whole project is all about.”