Bill Andrews

Bill Andrews (1944 to 2017) was a surfer, documentary photographer and videographer, and archivist from La Jolla, California. He caught his first wave at La Jolla Shores Beach in 1957, joined the line-up at Windansea Beach by the early 1960s, and with other local surfers helped establish Black's Beach as a world class break. The Surfer's Journal called him the first Black's local, and in 1965 he appeared on the cover of Surfer magazine in a photograph by Ron Stoner. Through his daily reportage of modern surf culture he archived more than 20,000 surf related photographs and videos, some of which have been preserved online. He became a respected voice on surf history, was diagnosed with ALS in 2016, kept visiting his favorite beaches with equipment he designed himself, and died on 26 October 2017.