A Thousand and One

In 2017, Thomas Lodin saw Los Angeles play itself. It was his first trip to the United States, and he was immediately captivated by the city that has long stood as the visual centerpiece of so many Hollywood films, not to mention so much surf photography. “I felt every corner could be part of a movie I’d seen as a kid—a traffic light, a palm tree, a sunset, or an actor I recognized from somewhere,” he says.

If you’ve lived or spent enough time in the area, you understand how the sights that Lodin describes have a way of turning so mundane as to become invisible. Only time away from them, or the opportunity to somehow see them through the lens of a tourist, can restore their beauty into view. This may be why Lodin, a 32-year-old French photographer living in Biarritz, has become such a stark chronicler of the contemporary California longboard scene. Where resident photographers may lose eyes for the essence of the place or render it cliché by way of overexposure, Lodin’s images depict it at its most elemental, often to incisive effect. 

Clovis Donizetti, a close friend of Lodin’s from Biarritz and one of the preeminent ambassadors between the southern France and California longboard scenes, notes the artistic advantages of documenting the Golden State as an outsider. “When we go to California, the place is quite intense,” he says. “It turns out it’s not this romantic idea of staying at the beach all day. Everyone is in their car drinking coffee, on their phones, hurrying places. Being French, we are attracted to beauty. We see things from a different perspective, from afar, imagining an ultimate vision of what California could be. We see things from outside the bubble. As a Californian, when you’re part of the place, it can be harder to see these possibilities in a wider way. For me, California is the surfing of David Nuuhiwa and the jazz of Stan Getz. If you live there, you have to scratch through many layers to see that, but to us it’s all in the same place. It’s like how going to Malibu is so much different than the movies, music, and art associated with it.”

To establish some artistic precedent for the advantages of observing America as a newly acquainted French documentarian, one need only compare the lesser-known travelogue of Parisian writer Simone de Beauvoir, America Day by Day, with its canonical US opponent, On the Road by Jack Kerouac. On the Road is a character actor’s speed-addled, overly romantic snapshot of the United States, which seems more passé as time goes on, speaking less and less to the state of the country at present. By contrast, Beauvoir’s account of America, written over the course of four months during her first trip in 1947—a decade before On the Road was published—is filled with the piercing insight that comes with seeing the country as a newcomer. 

Beauvoir may as well have been describing surf photography (but was actually describing American consumerism) when in a January 29 entry she wrote, “There are a thousand possibilities, but they’re all the same. A thousand choices, but all equivalent. In this way, the American citizen can squander his obligatory domestic freedom without perceiving that this life itself is not free.” 

Lodin’s images have a way of escaping the trap of becoming interchangeable commodities. “Thomas understands that the best noseride of the day is still just the best noseride of that day, in that place,” Donizetti says. “The best tube of the day in Hawaii is still just the best tube of that day. Who cares? There have been a million people who can hang ten and more who can post a photo on Instagram to be a ‘photographer.’ But what are they expressing? What are they saying in their work? Thomas isn’t necessarily looking for the most committed maneuver, whether that’s conscious or not. Even photographing great surfers like Robin Kegel, JJ Wessels, or Devon Howard, his work can be more riveting in how it captures their individual personalities and approaches to the wave. There’s a clarity to his view of surfing.”

During his first trip to California, Lodin met LA native and fellow surfer-photographer Dane Peterson. The two became close friends. When the time came for Peterson to hire a staff photographer for his wetsuit brand, July, he could have opted for the convenience of any number of Southern California–based shooters, but he saw something distinct in Lodin’s photography that spoke to a pure experience of surfing that was rarely found among his contemporaries.

“When I came up as a photographer, most stuff was shot super tight and front lit—very much a studio vibe capturing peak action,” Peterson says. “Thomas comes at things completely differently. He lets his images breathe. Even though he came up shooting digital, he approaches things from a softer era of film photography. He’s not just blasting away, frame after frame. He shoots with intention because he wants to create something artistic. His images are not always about the moment or the person. They’re often about creating a feeling and a sensory response. It leaves you to imagine the story surrounding the image. He’s been so influenced by the history of California surf culture, and it’s cool that now he’s contributing to it. Whenever I need photos, he’s the first person I call.” 

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If documenting California as an outsider can be considered one of Lodin’s advantages as a photographer, the same can be said of his upbringing on the periphery of French surf culture. Lodin grew up in Nantes, a city in northwestern France, about an hour’s drive to the beach. He got into the thriving local BMX scene as a kid. By 13, he had his first camera, which he used to publish his first photos in BMX magazines throughout his early teens. Red Bull took notice of his work and hired him to cover events in France before he graduated high school. “They started asking me to go shoot during my classes. I’d be in math, telling my professor I had to go shoot photos for Red Bull the next day,” Lodin says. “I knew at that point I wanted to take a path in photography and design.” 

Around the same time, Lodin’s older brother started taking him surfing at the beachbreaks within driving distance of Nantes. Lodin’s first board was a broken shortboard that his brother put back together and gave to him for his 16th birthday. “We have really poor waves on that part of the coast,” Lodin says. “When I got my driver’s license, I would go an hour or an hour and a half to the closest spots, and the waves were usually awful, but I’d still get in the water because I had already done the drive.”

With money from his photography gigs, Lodin replaced the broken shortboard with his first longboard, a 9’6″ single-fin. “Getting that longboard was a revelatory moment: This is it. I never really went back,” he says. “I was slowly losing interest in BMX as I got into surfing. I loved the glide and the feeling of freedom and momentum—not needing to do anything to glide. It was the thing I was looking for all along.”

Lodin naturally turned toward documenting his newfound interest in surfing, and he quickly discovered his love of water photography. “I started shooting with disposable waterproof cameras at our local beachbreaks because I didn’t want to be stuck on the sand. Shooting photos from the water, it never felt like I was missing out on anything the way I did on land.”

After graduating from design school in Nantes, Lodin relocated to Biarritz when he was 21 and has lived there ever since. “I moved without any plan. I just knew I wanted to be near the beach to surf a lot and take photos,” he remembers. “I fell in love with the scenery, the mountains, and the waves, of course. The light is always amazing, and for photography that’s the one thing you need.” 

The work Lodin does to support himself as a commercial photographer grew organically as brands took note of his ability to craft images with a distinct point of view. Work from Levi’s, Vans, and Patagonia has followed. Lodin became friends with Donizetti through his time as a staff photographer for Oxbow. When Donizetti was first asked to work with Lodin, he remembered being skeptical. “I said, ‘Really? He’s a bit green.’ Within the first session, Thomas had 50 good shots, and the waves weren’t that great. Oxbow used a lot of those photos. We got along really well and kept shooting together after that.”

Lodin cites the classic surf photography of earlier eras—by Ron Stoner, LeRoy Grannis, and Jeff Divine—as his primary influences. “Those photographers captured the essence of what surfing can be,” he says. “Most of their images are shot from land on a larger scale, but their work feels timeless.”

The composition of Lodin’s photos achieves a sense of timelessness through distinct approach. His images are often backlit, tightly framed, and shot from the water. “Taking photos from the water, you never just get the same moment over again,” he explains. “It allows me to show details that people who don’t surf would never get to see if they’re just standing on the beach—the movement of the water, a surfer’s hand, the placement of feet on a board, a cross-step or trim line.” 

This close view from the water, combined with Lodin’s preferred backlighting, draws subtle details into higher relief. “I would rather shoot backlit all the time, even though I can’t do that working for most of my clients. It comes back to wanting photos to be timeless,” he says. “With backlighting, you can’t recognize the face of the surfer, logos, colored wetsuits, or anything to distract your eye. I’m really into minimalism and stripping things down to be super simple in order to place your focus on the details of the foreground. I hope it helps people project themselves into the image—or even into the role of the surfer in the image.”

Lodin remains filled with ambition to continue refining his craft as a photographer. The next swell, trip, or assignment always holds promise of being the best one yet. “Sometimes it’s hard to choose what photos I love because I’m changing my mind all the time. I’m always thinking about what I could have done better,” he says. “At some point, I have to step back and say, ‘Okay, this work is done. It’s time to move on to the next thing.’”

[Feature image: Tom Morat, Mexi Log Fest, La Saladita, Mexico. The crowd was hectic, and he raced by me in the haze. I was lucky to have snapped this photo with no one else in the frame.]