Black Sand: Surfers in Taiwan
By Anderson & Low, with Simon Barnes
Lucky Panda Press, £35, hardback, 88 pages, ISBN 978-0-95589-974-4
AS HE emerges from the water onto the black volcanic sand that characterises the beaches of Yilan, Taiwan, a surfer is stopped by two photographers who ask for his picture. He acquiesces, but there’s a look behind his eyes as he poses. ‘Why exactly,’ his expression asks, ‘was this deemed worthy of a photograph?’
At least that’s what I thought I saw on many of the subjects’ faces in Black Sand, by acclaimed duo Anderson & Low. Documenting the surfers, but not the surfing (nowhere in the book does anyone ride a wave) of Taiwan, it sweeps away the prevailing Western image of surfing as the province of sun-bleached…