Backlit Slide

Devon caught this in the late afternoon at Malibu, when the sun drops low enough to backlight the wave face and scatter off the surface. The surfer is mid-turn — silhouetted, almost dissolved into the glare. Malibu's coast faces south, so the afternoon sun tracks behind the lineup rather than across it, and for a narrow window the light punches straight through each wave as it stands up. Shot on film, the highlights bloom instead of clipping — those starburst reflections on the water are the emulsion reacting to direct sunlight, not a lens filter.