This is Jonathan Hess. I'm the boy with the glasses skating the "Et Motel" pool, or rather, the 61 year old man.
Thank you so much for these amazing photos. Although I lived in the area in 1971/72 (in Santa Monica Shores, those two ugly 17 story towers visible in a lot of your landscapes), I lived in Culver City at the time of the pool shots. My connection to your subjects was having attended Area D Alternative School from 1974 to 1980. Many of the kids in your photos (and some commenters) went there as well: the Friedmans, the Howes, pretty much all the skateboard kids (Rex, "Froggy", Reed, Solo, Kevin McCreedy), "older" kids like Karra, Morgan, Clea, April, Eric Swabeck, Byron, Alan Gordon and quite a few others. And lots of the names of kids I didn't actually know- Polar Bear, Soren, others- were subjects of their conversations and are familiar as well.
It's profoundly poignant and moving to revisit these people and places. Somehow they exist in the present and past at the same time, carrying out a kind of dialogue between the teenager I was and the old man I've become. And it's really rich; if "a picture says a thousand words", then a picture of a time far in the past of people that you knew says many thousands. Again, thank you for this gift. And hello to all of you. I hope you're doing well.
