September 28th, 2011

locals only – California Skateboarding 1975 – 1978, Photographs by Hugh Holland

Posted in bücher by Dolf

Ammo Books, 300 S. Raymond Ave, Suite 3, Pasadena, CA 91105, Usa, www.ammobooks.com

Love the cover, it says so much about california and the „beginning“ of skateboarding… but first there is the format of this photobook – 30 x 40 (!) cm, that is big – Hardcover. Hollands photos where first shown at a gallery in Los Angeles in 2006 and are now available in this 84 page book. If you are a friend of big photos, you will be satisfied here, since alot of the shots are spreads! Almost real! Being no skater himself, Hugh Holland was fascinated by the skating kids in the mid seventies skating the streets, pools and parks of the greater Los Angeles area.

At first I was a bit disturbed by some of the photos showing only young naked boys in shorts… but that was the way the kids back then looked like (lots of headbands) and that was how they skated, sometimes even barefoot (like on a surfboard). It is great to see this sequenze of skateboarding, the simple boards and the kids just skating for fun and trying to impress one another or some of the bystanders.

The covershot is also as a spread in the book, unfortunally the only thing missing is a blue sky, otherwise it is the perfect scene of a Huntington Beach sidewalk surfer: young kid, shredded jeans, bare upper part of the body, tanned, doing a turn in front of two young girls walking down the sidewalk, perfect body shape in bikini, long hair – tanned. Not all the photos show skaters in action, sometimes they just stand around and stare in the camera – or shred a pool barfoot, downhill skate into the sunset, do a handstand on the board on the boulevard, lots of pool and park action and at least one shot of a young girl skating.

In the end you have an index of the photos, that could have used some more info than it has, but I’m sure it was not available anymore….. There is also a short interview in different languages with the photographer. If you want to know how and where it all started (actually, there have been skateboards since the early sixties, so it began a bit earlier…), this book will show you! Now I wish there would be photos (or at least one) when I started skating a little bit later when the first (?) wave of skateboarding hit Europe…. but that is another story. 39,95 $ (dolf)

Isbn 9781934429471

[Trust # 149 August 2011]

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