Cracks in the Lens

The most-influential surf photographer the world has ever known vanished from the face of the earth sometime in the mid-1970s, near the peak of his talents. Ron Stoner, legend and pioneer, slipped away from the sport and vanished into oblivion. It happened somewhere in Hawaii, maybe—through the ’70s, there were rumors of Stoner wandering along the Kam Highway rimming the North Shore of Oahu. Some claimed they saw him sitting on lava rocks in Maui, staring at the surf. Or maybe he made his way to Mexico, down to a surf break named after him, Stoner’s Point, to sit beneath a palm tree. Nobody knows where he went, or when, or what happened to him, or his presumed final resting place. It’s one of the surf world’s enduring mysteries.

Stoner’s disappearance was tragic because he was a human being with a family and friends who loved him, but it was tragic also because he was an unparalleled wizard with a