At The Beach

First edition of At The Beach by Tod Papageorge (2023)

First impression 

Large format hardback in new condition

Comes with a dust jacket

Published by Stanley / Barker

About 

In 1975 Tod Papageorge made a cross-America trip that ended on the beaches of Los Angeles. There, taken by the blinding light, he produced some of his first medium-format (6 x 9 cm) photographs. In 1978 he returned to Los Angeles to expand on those first pictures and, in 1981 and 1988, on shorter visits, added yet again to this body of work. Here, he writes about “At the Beach”:

“I think that part of what these beach pictures are about is the difference between our preconceptions of a place and what, when we get there, that place turns out to be. In this case (of Los Angeles and its coastline), I think it’s also fair to suggest that those preconceptions are particularly strong, shaped as they irresistibly have been by the movies and popular music. So, as a first point, what I wanted to do on this project was examine those preconceptions (at least as I conjured them) through the descriptive power of photography in order to pin down what two semi-myths - the world of surfers and the life of southern California beaches –‘really’ looked like.