In Talk Story, I turn my camera to Oahu’s North Shore. Looking back from the waves and the beach, the series is intended to turn our attention instead to the people and places that constitute the day-to-day of the famed locale. Keeping a keen eye to the still lifes of America’s “hidden” communities, I documented the vibrant life and subtle oddities of a culture rarely seen beyond the glint of the international sport that dominates the region.
From gas stations and skate parks to the residents and their homes, you are invited to experience the North Shore as a series of intimate, and at times gritty, portraits of its lived reality. While executed as a 92 page monograph book, Talk Story the exhibition also incorporates an additional series of handmade prints suspended in a frame of wood and acrylic resin — paying homage to the look and feel of surfing on the North Shore. Many of the images focus on prodigy John John Florence, pulling you into the private life of one our most famous and celebrated athletes. Passing through his yard and kitchen, we see JJF with his family cooking macaroni, we enter his bedroom and find his belongs; and when we walk with him down a dirt road near his home, we ultimately discover John John himself, not just the icon, but the man who is an icon.
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