Intro By David Wong | Photos By John Hook | Edit Project for The Surfer’s Journal

John Hook’s after dark photos of Waikiki sort of acted as a tentpole for this issue. Not only did we run one on the cover, we also paired the feature with another photo essay later in the well, which covered a group of skaters in the 1970s, who were riding abandoned aqueduct piping in the desert in Arizona. To me, Hook’s use of the ambient light coming from the Honolulu cityscape and the skaters’ repurposing of public-works seemed to resonate against each other. I felt like as a diptych the two pieces said something about the how industrialization, urban growth, and other serious undertakings of modern human progress can be leveraged for more frivolous purposes.