Roughly eight years ago, commercial film editor Doug Walker found himself experiencing a crossroads; he was craving a return to his beach culture roots. It was around this time when his wife handed him the gift of a video camera with the simple request to go out and create something he loved. The very next day, Walker traveled to Southern California; unbeknownst to him, the trip would change his life forever. During a random visit to the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena, Walker was lured toward a stall selling surf memorabilia. There, he discovered three file boxes filled with sheet after sheet of photographic film slides, contact prints, and negatives. He held a single slide toward the sun and could see a clear picture, an image that charted the course for the next chapter of his life. Inside those precious boxes were 30,000 missing photos from Surfing Magazine’s 1970s library. The archive had been lost for years yet serendipitously ended up at his feet on that magical Sunday. He arranged to buy the entire archive and, in that one moment, “The Lost and Found Collection” was born, pulling Doug Walker back to the beach.
Walker’s filmmaking background and this incredible find organically led to a new project – a three-year odyssey between the Hawaiian Islands and Mainland to find the people and narratives associated these images. He recorded tales from the great photographers of the ’70s as well as from the pioneering legends who shaped the counterculture sport of surfing. In 2011, Doug released his documentary film, Lost and Found, showcasing his journey of discovery, the stories behind the photographs, and that amazing era of beach lifestyle and surf.
