Visionary Photographer & Editor
From the New York Times:
Warren Bolster, whose innovative photography helped popularize surfing and skateboarding, died on Sept. 6 at his home in Mokuleia, Hawaii. He was 59.
The cause was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Janet Tramonte, Mr. Bolster’s sister.
For decades, Mr. Bolster remained perhaps the most recognized photographer in surfing and skateboarding. He obsessively sought ways to shoot from unusual and dramatic angles, for example, by mounting a waterproof camera with a gyrostabilizer and a wide-angle lens on a surfboard to shoot the tumbling, tubular interior of a wave’s curl. Using airtight capsules, he managed to take images that showed his subject from both above and below the waterline.
He persuaded top surfers to let him mount cameras on the noses of their boards to photograph them on the waves from out front. He would often paddle or swim into huge surf with a waterproof camera to capture big-wave surfers.
“Even then, he would look out at a surf break and see something special and just work till he got that shot, never thinking about the danger or hurting himself,” Ms. Tramonte said.
Warren Edward Bolster was born on June 11, 1947, in Arlington, Va. His father, Edward Bolster, was an American diplomat assigned to Sydney, Australia, in the early 1960’s. There, a teenage Warren took up surfing and began writing newspaper articles about it, accompanying them with his photographs.
Back in the United States, he enrolled in a Florida junior college and began surfing competitively and photographing surfing. He moved to San Diego and was quickly successful in shooting for surf magazines.
In the mid-1970’s he began documenting a little-known culture of skateboarders riding light, flexible boards with urethane wheels. Those skateboarders could do incredibly graceful things on the street and in empty bowl-shaped swimming pools, and the sport began attracting top surfers.
His photos — showing lithe, long-haired California teenagers, often barefoot and wearing no protective gear while executing daring and graceful moves — helped turn Skateboarder Magazine into the standard-bearer in the industry and helped fuel the mass popularization of skateboarding.
For skateboarding, he managed to convey the sense of thrusting motion by using speed blurs and strobe lights, as well as fisheye lenses and motor-drives. His work helped elevate a hobby for teenagers to a mode of individual expression and a social movement.
Many prominent skateboarders, including Tony Hawk, credit Mr. Bolster’s inspiring photography with opening up new forms of skateboarding style. Mr. Bolster’s images, many of which were featured in the 2001 documentary “Dogtown and Z-Boys,” became studies in line and flowing perspective and balance.
Mr. Bolster would eventually return to the ocean, remaining a staff photographer at Surfer Magazine until 1992. In the ocean he took tremendous risks, shooting extremely close to surfers and sometimes in breaking waves. He survived collisions with surfers and huge walls of wave.
Plagued by years of injuries, surgery and chronic pain, he was most recently afflicted by a faulty hip replacement and a car accident that virtually stopped him from working in big surf.
Mr. Bolster, who was twice divorced, is survived by his teenage sons, Edward and Warren Jr., of Hawaii, and by Ms. Tramonte of Arlington and his mother, Elizabeth Bolster, of Williamsburg, Va. His ashes were scattered yesterday in the Hawaiian surf off of Moanalua Bay in Oahu during a ceremony that included a Hawaiian religious leader and local surfers on their boards.
THE ENDURING LEGACY OF WARREN BOLSTER
By Michael Brooke
Intro by Bud Stratford
Warren Bolster is a name that everybody in skateboarding should know. You can only delve into skateboard history by running across it quickly. He's one of those figures in skateboarding that is omnipresent and timeless. I honestly can't recall when I first heard (or read) his name; my memory's not what it used to be. But I can tell you this: it was so long ago now that, for all practical purposes, it feels like he's always been there. And in some way, somehow, he always will be.
I learned more about him when I started working for Concrete Wave. SkateBoarder Magazine and Warren directly influenced Michael (Brooke) and his work. You almost couldn't even stand in the same room with the guy and not understand Mr. Bolster's impact on skateboarding.
Not long after I started my time at Concrete Wave, Michael published "The Legacy of Warren Bolster: Master of Skateboard Photography" and sent me a copy; it was then that the total weight of the man's legacy hit home. To this day, that book remains one of my most prized possessions. If my house were to burn to the ground tomorrow, that would be one of the first things I'd rush into the inferno to save. Laura has two legs; she can find her way out of a burning inferno just fine.
If and when you ever find a copy of that book for sale, buy it. It might be costly- as it should be. Please take my word on this: buy it anyway. It's worth every single cent of whatever you pay for it.
In much the same way that Mr. Bolster directly influenced Michael, he has also become a direct inspiration for my work here at Everything Skateboarding. In his words and photos, he captured a golden age of skateboarding- an age that will probably never happen again. It was an era of innocence, inclusion, invention, and discovery. But it should happen again; it fully deserves to happen again. My mission is to make that happen. Or at least to make a sincere effort to see that mission through. I can only hope that wherever Mr. Bolster is, and whatever he's doing, I'm making him proud.
The Odyssey Begins
It's hard to believe that almost 17 years have passed since Warren Bolster left this world. When I look back on the extraordinary odyssey of my time with Warren and his work, it seems almost surreal.
Like many of you, I was drawn to Warren's incredible photos that graced the pages of SkateBoarder Magazine. I first encountered the magazine in December of 1976. It sat perched on the magazine rack at Mac's Milk. How the magazine made its way to my (smallish) hometown remains a mystery - but there it was!
The cover featured Jay Adams flying out of a bowl. I was transfixed and beyond excited. I bolted out of the store and pleaded with my parents for $1.25. The fact that it's been 47 years since I experienced this moment is testimony to the power of SkateBoarder Magazine and Warren Bolster.
Thankfully, my parents complied, and I returned to the store with my money. Moments later, I was at my house, pouring over every page. I repeated this process for hours, and the hours morphed into years. You cannot imagine the joy I experienced when the new issue arrived in the mailbox.
SkateBoarder (at least for the few years of its 70s reincarnation) will always remain the bible of skateboarding for a particular generation. Warren's vision and attention to detail resonated with skaters around the globe. Sadly, his drive to create a perfect skateboard magazine almost destroyed him. Warren had an addictive personality, tragically destroying both relationships at work and home.
There were repeated attempts to set Warren on the right path. Many in the magazine pleaded with him to seek treatment, but unfortunately, he would disagree. This is one of the most complex parts of dealing with addiction. His refusal to get sober corroded his world, and sometime in 1978, he was let go from SkateBoarder Magazine. It took four people to replace Warren!
Over the next few decades, Warren's life was a mixture of tragedy and the occasional flash of brilliance. He kept shooting incredible surf shots but lived pretty much a hand-to-mouth existence. I know at one time, he was parking cars to earn some money.
The idea to create a book of some of Warren's work started in 2003. I recently quit the day job to work on Concrete Wave Magazine. There is no doubt that it was Warren who inspired me to become an editor and publisher of a skateboard magazine. I based Concrete Wave on his vision of inclusion, which served me well.
It wasn't me that came up with the idea to create a book on Warren's work. The idea came from 70s skate legend Laura Thornhill. Laura had remained in contact with Warren through the decades. "We would talk every so often," recalls Laura. "At one point, he reached out to me. He was so debilitated with his pain and was at a loss as to how to deal with it."
Tragically, Warren's only relief from the constant pain was Oxycontin. It caused him immense desperation as it was costly, and he was poverty-stricken. "I recognized that one way to help Warren financially was to create a book - and that's when I thought about Concrete Wave Magazine doing something," says Laura.
One of Laura's friends was one of my key advertisers: Dan Gesmer of Seismic Skate Systems. "I originally met Laura at a flatland freestyle competition," recalls Dan. "Bobby "Casper" Boyden produced it, and this would have been the late 90s." Dan flew out to California from his home in Colorado to help judge the competition. Over time, Laura and Dan became friends.
Dan first mentioned he had this connection to Warren via Laura. You can't imagine how excited I was when I heard that Warren was interested in working with Concrete Wave.
I was able to convince Kevin Harris of Ultimate Skateboard Distribution to finance the production of the book. This support was incredibly generous of Kevin. The project would have seen the light of day with Kevin. So, in late 2003, I created a book publishing division called Concrete Wave Editions. Warren's book was going to be the first foray outside of magazines.
When writing about skateboarding and skaters, it's always best to be positive. But the truth is that his life fell apart after Warren departed Skateboarder Magazine. I do not wish to take anything from his brilliant career. Sadly, numerous issues plagued him, impacting his professional life exceptionally negatively.
"Warren suffered a lot of pain," says Dan. "He'd spent decades in the water getting hit by waves and surfers as he searched for the perfect shot." Warren's arthritis was very debilitating, and tragically, he couldn't afford pain medication. "All this trauma and suffering affected his writing ability."
Laura recalls him being suicidal during the early 2000s. His financial woes certainly added to his state of mind. Sadly, Warren struggled with depression for decades. Twenty or thirty years ago, mental illness was viewed differently than today. Unfortunately, Warren's struggles led to some heart-breaking results.
Take, for example, the thousands of slides Warren collected over the years. I was genuinely excited by the prospect of doing a book with Warren. I had visions of publishing dozens of his world-famous photos. Several spectacular images made the cover and double-page spreads. Many skaters, including me, happily ripped these photos from the magazine and plastered them to our bedroom walls.
Tragically, by 2003, Warren had very few famous slides left. As he explained, many of his slides had gone missing or stolen. It was truly gut-wrenching to hear this, and I wondered what exactly was left.
Miraculously, Warren had managed to salvage two boxes worth of his slides. He Fed Ex'd them up to me in Toronto. When I opened the boxes, they reeked of cigarette smoke. But as I started to pour over this treasure trove of what he'd managed to keep, I began to experience the same feeling I had back in December of 1976. Only this time, I wasn't 12 years old - I was almost 40. That's why skateboarding, for me, is the fountain of youth!
The truth is that there were several genuinely captivating and gorgeous photos, but there were many outtakes. At one point, Warren had used a high-speed camera to catch Ty Page and his blistering footwork. But this camera generated a vast amount of duplicates - and there were piles of many similar photos. I realized the two boxes of slides were a gold mine. I would sift through a lot to find the genuinely worthwhile nuggets.
I am pleased to say that eventually, we settled on about 175 photos - whittled down from what must have been thousands of slides. Thankfully, on most images, Warren had jotted down the skater, the place and the date. But not every shot was labelled correctly. I was to find this out years later when a departed skater's brother brought it to my attention during a Skateboarding Hall of Fame event. "That's not my brother in the Boslter photo!" he yelled. I apologized profusely and tried to explain that Warren had labelled the slide, and that's what I went within the book.
While I took the role of the publisher, Dan took on the role of editor. We both faced a large number of challenges in putting the book together. Dan recalls, "This was, by far, the most difficult editing job I have ever had to deal with." Even at best times, Warren's emails describing each photo were rambling. I am forever indebted to Dan for his tireless commitment to the book. I am still determining how he brought Warren's sprawling thoughts to some cohesive structure, but he did. "Fortunately, the draft captions that Warren composed for the book had a lot of content," explains Dan. "His writing was rich but was very disorganized." Dan captured Warren's voice in a truly remarkable way.
Thankfully, this remains my only major issue with the book. Well, it's the only issue I've had from an editorial standpoint. Regarding the financial side of things, the legacy of this book has been decidedly in the red.
Scanning slides, designing, printing, and shipping the book was extremely expensive. The book's list price of $39.95 is equivalent to about $60.00 in today's dollars. Ironically, many people thought the book was too expensive when it first came out. A quick search over at eBay indicates it's for sale for double and quadruple the original price!
It was my father who was curious about the book title. I distinctly remember him asking me why I had chosen the word 'legacy' in the title. "Isn't legacy something connected with someone who has died," he inquired. I replied that Warren was a living legacy to my way of thinking. But I also knew the painful truth. His addiction and the excruciating pain that fuelled it often brought him near death.
From what I understand, Warren's father died in the summer of 2004, and he wound up inheriting some money. I recall that he took this money and booked himself into rehab. His departure from rehab coincided with the start of the Action Sports Retailer show in San Diego. Laura and her son Sage picked him up and drove him to San Diego directly to start the Action Sports Retailer show.
"Warren fell in love with my son Sage," says Laura. "He was just a kid then, but the two really hit off. I remember Waren leaving a long voicemail for Sage. He wanted my son to be the one to handle his entire catalog of slides. He felt Sage was the right person, despite his young age."
When I first met Warren face to face, it was at our hotel in San Diego. I was pleased to see that Warren had found the experience in rehab beneficial. The four days I spent with Warren during the convention remain a purely positive experience. I fondly recall a dinner that Dan, Warren and I shared. Dan remembers that Warren had great difficulty walking. Recalls Dan, 'His hips and back caused him great pain." When I mentioned that Warren was only 57 then, Dan seemed skeptical. The wear and tear on Warren's body had sadly added decades to his physique.
But of all the memories of my times in San Diego, the book signing at the Video Action Sports booth remains one of the most extraordinary experiences of my time as a publisher in skateboarding.
Jack Smith was a VP at Video Action Sports and graciously allowed us to host the book signing. I recall the lineup to meet with Warren was astonishing. It was a Who's Who of surf and skate legends lined up patiently to pay their respects to Warren. Many hugs were given, and a lot of tears were shed. It was a truly cathartic experience for everyone. Warren dutifully signed dozens of books. There was both a heaviness and joy in the air. Warren's presence at the booth stirred up so many memories. I just stood back in awe.
After the ASR show, things started to stall. While the book met with great approval at the trade show, it gained little traction. Warren and I slowly drifted apart from the fall of 2004 to 2006. He was disappointed in the book sales. He felt it would sell a million copies. He was disappointed with the photos in the book. But as I previously mentioned, most of his fantastic shots were lost or stolen.
I occasionally got an email from Warren stating how angry he was with the situation. He didn't understand why the book wasn't selling. I could sense his frustration. We tried to publicize the book, but nothing resonated. Over time, I moved on to other books and focused on being a magazine publisher. Warren moved to Hawaii from California.
Exactly two years after he'd caused a sensation at ASR, Warren decided to exit this world. I distinctly remember coming off the plane from Toronto and being picked up at San Diego Airport by Gravity's Michael Bream. It was Michael who told me the news. Tragically, Warren had found himself involved in a severe car accident, and the pain was excruciating. "When I got the news about Warren, I was devastated," says Laura. "He had threatened to take his life for years, and to find out that he had actually done it made me wish I had done more to help," Laura tells me that she beat herself up pretty badly over Warren's suicide. I reminded her that 20 years ago, society had a different view of addiction. We had yet to fully understand the real problems caused by painkillers like Oxycontin.
The ASR in September of 2006 was a harrowing experience. It was an emotional time, and I walked the trade show with a sense of "what if?" I look back on this time and recognize that Warren needed more than 30 days in rehab. He needed to change his life drastically and remove himself from any temptation. Warren needed 24 hours a day supervision to get better. You can blame the system or Warren or whatever you want. The fact is that after years of suicidal thoughts, Warren finally took his own life.
About seven years after Warren's suicide, I was in Long Beach at the Agenda Trade Show. ASR had imploded, and in its place, a new show had taken over. I always found these shows exhausting, and on a Sunday night, I sat in a restaurant relaxing with two friends from Toronto. Rob Sydia and Smooth Chicken ran a shop called Longboard Haven. It was their first trade show, and they were having the time of their life.
From the corner of my eye, I could see an older gentleman with a stack of skateboards near a pool table. He also had wheels and a whole bunch of skate swag. I was tired, but there was something about this guy that got me intrigued. I casually went up to him and explained who I was. We started talking, and he told me his name was Comanche (or something like that). He knew a lot of folks from Dogtown. Usually, at the end of tradeshows, I am drained, and it is infrequent for me to approach someone like this and start talking. Yet here I was, making plans.
I explained that my friends had enjoyed the show, but they needed to get a sense of the real California. So Comanche offered to take us on a tour the following day. Rob and Chicken agreed this would be a great idea and told Comanche we'd pick him up around 10 AM from his hotel.
Where would things wind up that particular day? I just went with my gut. We met Dennis Rodman (who was day drinking at some local dive) and visited the Black Flies store. But the craziest and unbelievably insane thing that happened had nothing to do with celebrities or a skate spot. We were sitting at a red light when the subject of Warren Bolster came up. Comanche said that he knew Warren and that he'd stayed with him in Hawaii. I explained how I published the book and how sad I was that he'd killed himself.
At this point, Comanche told me that Warren had found his gun while staying with him in Hawaii. I was dumbfounded. I had to repeat it: "Warren stayed with you? In Hawaii? And he found your gun?" Comanche confirmed it all. Rob and Chicken were speechless, just like me.
I turned 59 in 2023. This is the same age that Warren left our world. I have so much more to see and do in my life. But as I reflect on the legacy of Warren Bolster, I realize that in those 59 years, Warren accomplished a tremendous amount. His vision has stayed with skateboarding for almost five decades. It will be there for many centuries to come.
I will always be grateful to Warren Bolster for sharing his vision with the world. Without him, who knows where skateboarding would be?