This is a nicely composed shot that juxtaposes a sillhouette of a male surfer in the foreground with appears to be a string of industrial facilities in the background across some sort of bay. The caption helpfully ties the various elements of the picture together in a manner that seems organic to the image even as it establishes the ethnographers' main themes. The position of the surfer in the shot reinforces that masculinity is the main subject here, but a kind of masculinity that must be constructed and sustained within a world largely beyond the control of any individual man. Here a masculine pursuit, often figured as an immersion of man in the strongest forces of the natural world, is being undertaken in the shadow of human forces that threaten to undermine it.
