The crowd on the beach at the 1975 Stonesteps Surfing Contest, Encinitas

Encinitas, California · End of summer, 1975

The Stonesteps
Surfing Contest,
1975

I was 18, with a camera, on the beach at the Woodstock of Encinitas. I sat on these photographs for forty years. They are the only surviving record of that day — and every frame is available as an archival print.

Browse the 1975 archive

I was 18, with a camera, on the beach at the Woodstock of Encinitas. I sat on these photographs for forty years. They are the only surviving record of that day — and every frame is available as an archival print.

Browse the 1975 archive
Photographs & story by Kyle Thomas

The archive · Every frame available as a print

Fifty years later,
the frames survive

View the full archive →

Shot on film at eighteen years old, scanned from the original negatives. Signed archival prints on watercolor paper, made to order.

Photos beyond the archive — from any story on this site — are also available as prints on request.

KT-1975-000

The crowd at Stonesteps

KT-1975-008

The chug — a resin bucket before every heat

KT-1975-004

Miss Stonesteps and the judging officials

KT-1975-016

Long live rock & roll

KT-1975-001

About to collapse — too much beer

KT-1975-017

Behind the stage view

Read the full 1975 story

The complete archive — with John Peugh's oral history of the contest.

From the guest book

"Those were the daze — life was all in technicolor back then."

Bob Hayward On the 1975 archive

"Freedom, that's what this makes me thirsty for… They will never have this."

Randy Underwood On the 1975 archive

"Been there, done that, can't remember. Thanks for the great pictures."

L. W. Bill Hughes On the 1975 archive