Photographer and filmmaker Patrick Trefz spent more than two years
wandering country roads, always in search of the best way to the beach.
Thread follows Trefz on his travels from the Basque Country to Steinbeck
country, from New York City to West African island nations, scaling
fences and hunkering down in the dirt to capture his vision of the
visual language of surf culture.
The book is a study in juxtaposition, particularly between the man-made
and the naturally occurring. Freighters in a harbor, arranged like
pieces on a game board, are set against the light ruffle of wind on the
water. Wheels and gears, line running through an installation like belts
in a motor, the extremity of industrial production, are countered by a
man and a wave, two products of natural energies. Seen one way,
everything is natural, and the question becomes one of degrees of
manipulation. Still, the settings in these pictures suggest duality,
differing realms-the road and the beach, the train track and the
lineup-each element evoking its own associations. Patterned yet
non-linear, Thread takes seemingly disparate subjects and gently ties
them into a unified whole, finding commonality in devotion and practice.
