— The Tunnelist

Doug Walker’s The Lost & Found Collection has finally made it online, with interviews and great photography by Dan Merkel, Aaron Chang, Bob Barbour, Lance Trout & Larry Moore.

We all know the feeling when something is lost. But what is the feeling we get when something is found after being lost for 30 year’s? This is my journey after discovering roughly 30,000 black and white dupe negatives found at a flea market in California that capture a time in surfing that made the sport as it is today. This is not a film. This is a documented piece of history that will focus on the Photographers & Surfers of the period. It’s about the greats like Dan Merkel aka “Man Mountain”, Aaron Chang who started his career taking photos of tourists in Waikiki. Bernie Baker, Lance Trout to Bob Barbour as well as classic Surfer’s.

This task of this film is capturing the photographers and figuring out whose images are whose. In the 2 years of organizing all the material and creating proof-sheet notebooks is when my journey started. I started by capturing material from guys like, and filmmaker Greg Weaver. This was a start to see the potential of this medium of film unfold. What I found was the most AMAZING stories being told. Some stories being told for the first time and that is where we turn this story to the Photographers. In 2011 we live in a completely different world. It is fast and mean. Surfing was a sport that was built on soul and I’ve been told by many they feel that surfing has lost its soul.

We live in a digital age. I say digital because film is gone. When Photographers were shooting they were sometimes given 5 rolls of film for the month and had to be extremely selective on focusing on their subject using 400mm lenses. They would ship there negative back with surfers or send by boat from the North Shore and could take up to 2 weeks before being delivered. Film was being processed, published and edited by the magazines while photographers continued to live the dream. We are now in a digital world where the RED camera can capture 30 frames per second at 4k resolution which means that you can make a million mistakes for 1 shot when these guys could not.

Being a Film Editor for many years as well as a Surfer since the age of 10. Two days before I discovered this gift I was telling my office for someone to find me a surf project and here it is. Being a Film Editor I have the background for telling a very compelling story as well have become a Director. I feel that I have created a film that we all could be inspired and proud of as it allows us to hear stories for the first time.

This is not just about photos from the 70’s. But it is art and art has a price that is priceless.

I have being told that I didn’t find them. They found me.

This is LOST & FOUND

Via The Lost & Found Collection