Customer Rating:  
Summary: The Old Days
Comment: Stoner was an up and coming photographer. Too bad about the drugs and his eventual disappearance and finally declared dead some years ago. Alot of good people were lost to drugs in the early days..time just stopped for many in the surfing business..many just could not adjust to change and older age. So it goes!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wave After Wave (In The Ocean of Emotion)
Comment: There are people in this world...maybe you know a few of them...maybe you are one of them...who don't really seem to fit in with things of this world. They are driven by maddness or inspiration or both and bring forth things to this world that can never be replicated.
Such is the art of Ron Stoner.
I call his photography art because that is exactly what it is. It captures more than a sport that is, for the most part, widely misunderstood by the majority and goes straight into the salty depths of its soul and lets you in on the secret that most surfers understand; that the ocean is just a symbol of something even greater and riding the waves is simply done out of appreciation and respect for that something greater.
And just like you can look at a Van Gogh or a Matisse and feel something within bursting forth, you can look at a Ron Stoner photograph and feel yourself melting into a world that is very, very Real but not too many of us actually frequent. It is the middle-ground...the veil between the seen and the unseen...the bridge between heaven and earth and even if you but receive the tiniest glimpses of its Reality, you will never ever be the same
...and why would you want to be?
Surfers exude a raw kind of spirituality. They seem to have a "knowing" that there is a magic to life...that "walking" on the water is the most normal thing there is...that all limitation comes from a shallow sense of self and begs release. Maybe it's because this group of people literally soak themselves in the primal soup where God Itself stirred the waters with Its Firey Imagination and created Life Itself.
And like the Living Spirit, everything beneath the surface is Forever, Eternal, Infinite, Beautiful. Even now you are breathing in and out bits and pieces of original life. Even now you are aligned with the Mind of Creation who without hesitation spews forth the invincible invisible.
I like to believe Ron Stoner remembered this and took photos as though he was trying to capture not just the sport and the art of surfing, but something that transcends time and space and rises to meet with the Eternal Grace that is forever making all things new, whole, and holy. He saw through a Divine Lense and captured things on film that leave you shaking your head and giggling silently to yourself out of sheer joy. It's too bad that Stoner could not fully grasp the Truth of his art/his life.
Why did Ron Stoner dissappear into the shadows of maddness?
Why did Van Gogh?
Why do any of us?
Why do some people burst forth with so much creativity in a relatively short period of time and then dissappear into the stillness of the night?
I don't know and I don't pretend to know.
Maybe they give the rest of us something to strive for. Not in the outer world, but in the realms of the hidden heart. Maybe they weren't mad or crazy but just frustrated that the world could not understand true passion and authentic love and original innocence which is deep within us all and for the most part, completely forgotten.
The sun goes down on us all- but like the waves of the sea- we all come out of something bigger than ourselves and even though we like to pretend we're separate from this Infinite Source of Power and Beauty, True Art, like the art Ron Stoner left us with, gets us to remember very, very quickly that we aren't.
I love this book.
Peace & Blessings,
john, "the Light Coach"
Customer Rating:
Summary: Surfings best photographer
Comment: Great book with some of the best captured photos that Stoner ever did and I am sure more exist. The narratives and forward were great and not long winded which made for a great reading experience. If you surfed during that era this is a must.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ball and Weights, good combo!
Comment: I bought this for my girlfriend and sent it to her work. I also sit on an exercise ball while at work. Helps with posture and core strength. My girlfriend enjoyed the pink weights she could toss around while at her desk.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book, great photographer, and beautiful/tragic story.
Comment: Wow! Excellent job Matt Warshaw and Jeff Divine.
The Story of Ron Stoner is beautiful and tragic.
What a great time in surfing, 1965-1968, pre shortboard,
pre-leash and pre-Gidget. Perfect waves with just you and your buddy.
Soul surfing. Imagine being silly and having fun in the lineup, with
maneuvers like "Standing Island pullout", and "The coffin".
Stoner had a great eye. His sense of balance and composition is
evident in every photo. I showed the book to my friend who
is a Hollywood Cinematographer, and he called Stoner's photography,
"Top notch".
The reader may be left with many questions;
Why did Stoner take way too much LSD?
Why didn't Stoner's "friends" help him until it was too late?
Why did the mental hospital give him 50,000 volts 20 times?
Maybe everyone was way too naive...
Though the book was well researched, I wanted more info on
the above questions. Warshaw takes the high road and avoids
blaming anyone. Having grown up and surfed in Orange County in the 70's just after behind Stoner, I wonder if his being an inlander made
him dispensable to his group of "friends".
Perhaps this story sat idle for 30 years due to a collective sense of
loss and guilt. Would Ron Stoner have been treated differently if he was from a beach town instead of being an "inlander" from Pasadena?
I don't know, I wasn't there at the time.
I had such visceral reactions from the elegant and empty waves,
that I found myself moaning when I looked at each photograph,
and my wife accused me of looking at porn.
Man, they had it good back then! Those days of discovery and isolation
of perfect waves are very hard to find these days, if not impssible.
Just like Ron Stoner. Great story.
Dave Silva
Sevenhorses@inbox.com
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