An artist’s reception for Jeff Divine’s ‘A Surfing Life’ will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, December 15 at gallery 169, 169 W. Channel Rd. in Santa Monica. The public is invited. Divine is considered one of the most insightful surf and surf-culture documentary photographers around. He has one of the largest archives of surf photography worldwide, and has been shooting characters, surfing, environments and places since 1966.’ Divine’s photos landed him a staff position in 1971 with Surfer magazine, where he began his first of ultimately 35 annual trips to the North Shore of Hawaii. In 1981, Divine became the photo editor of the magazine, a position he held for 16 years. Today, Divine he is the photo editor at Surfer’s Journal. The gallery 169 show includes over 100 images and storyboards that offer an intimate look into the surf culture of the 1970s and ’80s. Divine, who grew up in La Jolla, captured this movement in vibrant, saturated colors, up and down the Southern California coast and Hawaii’s North Shore. He documented the transition of surfing from ‘free-form individualism to sponsor-driven commercialization’ of the sport. What has made Divine successful is that his images appeal to a broad audience. ‘I look for a thought behind it all,’ he says about his photographs. ‘Technical application, a different angle, something that in some way captures a bit of the emotion of surfing in the sense that all surfers would be attracted to it. There is always one photo that if you laid it out in a group of 20 on a table, most surfers would agree that that one is the best. What’s interesting is what a real core surfer would pick doesn’t have much to do with technical qualities. It’s all about the moment and surrounding environment of the wave and where the surfer is on the wave.’ Divine’s exhibit will be at gallery 169 through January. Contacts: Call (310) 963-3891( or visit gallery169.com.
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