Catherine Opie's "Surfers" (2003)

One of my regrets is never learning how to surf.  But then again, I never like the cold California ocean.  In fact, I can only remember one summer when I went swimming in California -- 1986, in Huntington Beach.  Maybe if cycling didn't take up a lot of my free time, I would have taken up surfing.  I remember riding my bike for years from Santa Monica to Palos Verdes on the bike path through Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo and this image in Catherine Opie's "Surfers" is forever imprinted in my mind.  I bought the print at LACMA last year and almost instantly, I was standing where Opie was clicking away at her camera.  I've seen what she saw when she took the photograph.