SAN DIEGO BEACHES DOCUMENTARY

color shots from my first year taking still photographs

Professional still documentary photography of the San Diego beach scene in the early 1980s when I first came to San Diego right out of navy boot camp and photo school.

FULL FRAME IMAGE: I filmed the young blonde haired female above on 35mm Kodachrome transparency film with my Canon F1 camera, and the navy's Canon 300mm 2.8 telephoto lens -- I was probably 10 ft away when I snapped the shutter. She definitely was aware I was taking her photo and was posing a bit as I waited for this moment.

She is quite the young American beach beauty and self-styled with her leopard skin bikini top, straw hat, red sunglasses. Naturally blonde and perfectly tanned, freckled and a great example of a Southern California beach girl in the '80s.

TECHNICAL:

The above informal environmental beach portrait was included in my first printed color portfolio -- the image is a real stunner on Cibachrome (Ilfochrome) and metallic inkjet prints.

I scanned all of these original 35mm films on my Nikon Coolscan 8000 ED film scanner at its optical resolution (4,000 spi/ppi) in RAW .NEF digital format, opened them in Adobe Camera RAW, 16-bit ProPhotoRGB, edited (and archived) the master .psd in my professional Photoshop Adjustment Layers workflow.

YOUNG BIKINI GIRL (contest participant):

This is how some of the young Southern California girls were wearing their skimpiest string bikinis in the early '80s -- with a safety pin custom fit -- pictured standing with her girlfriends at a San Diego bikini contest on the beach.

I was about 12 feet away pointing my Canon 2.8 300mm lens and this is about the full top to bottom frame -- I remember there were about four girls standing together and they all started posing for a group photo when they saw me pointing the camera, but I had the wrong lens on for that picture (thank goodness).

SAN DIEGO Big Wave Surfing:

Top big wave image: Occasionally, the surf gets big in San Diego. A boy cautiously drops in on a solid "perfect form" 8-foot wave breaking at Windansea Beach in La Jolla. These rolled in big lazy sets wave after wave -- a rare epic day!

Windansea is one of the most competitive surfing spots in San Diego.

With waves breaking over four feet -- you really need to know what you are doing (or the locals will suggest you to leave before someone gets hurt). The surfer in the bottom photo was ripping up some fast-breaking perfect four footers on a different day at Windansea.

CAMERA INFO: The above surfers were photographed with a 35mm Nikon, and Nikkor 800mm telephoto lens -- the navy has great gear and all the film and processing for its photographers to practice.

Both of the surfing photographs are also posted full frame -- when you shoot 35mm film and make 16x20 exhibition prints -- you learn to do cropping in the camera when you capture the image.

SELF PROMOTION IN THE 1980s: When I was starting out in the '80s -- you had to enter contests, mail out your portfolios, or get your photos published to get noticed.

Now days you just create a website and it goes around the world (with a little effort linking it in for search engines).

MISSION BEACH in the '80s when drinking beer on the beach was legal:

I was shooting these types of street photography right out of Photo school -- I seemed to have a super power for photographing people -- I was confident and fearless in my pursuit and used to tell people "I stick cameras in people's faces" when they asked what I do for a living.

If you want to find out what "people" skills a photographer has -- give them a wide angle still camera and have them go take pictures of people -- you will see their relatability because they need to get close to fill the frame and their eye for handling composition and lens distortion.

The above biker giving me a one-finger salute is a good example of what should come back ... nice and tight on the face, and the graphic composition supports the creative to fill the frame.

The biker series exhibits my original creative style.

PS: I wanted to meet the breasty girl in the purple tank top -- but I needed to work my way to her through the guys (or risk a stiff rebuke from the drunk bikers) -- it turned out well, they were all in good moods and respectful.

BLACK'S BEACH Surfing Contest:

Young girls seemed a little different out here in Southern California from the Midwest where I grew up ... pictured a topless young female watching a surfing contest on Black's Beach, c.1980. Shot with a 300mm 2.8 Canon lens about 18 feet away -- she was aware I was pointing the long telephoto lens at her and I waited for the look before clicking this frame off.

In this series -- I was a 6'3" 175lb 24-year-old guy with a fresh military look -- working an expensive looking long telephoto sports-style lens. Those were the days....

Photos by G. Ballard, San Diego.