Ed Grant

Photographer and bon vivant Ed Grant grew up combing the beaches of Southern California, embraced by the sands of Newport, Huntington and Long Beach. Like the kernels of silica that became embedded in his toes and other crevices as a lad, Ed could never imagine life without those gateways to the sea -- piers. These elevated gangplanks that lead from urban sprawl to the vast unknown, piers give city-dwellers the illusion of control over their manifest destinies. Ed had an epiphany late one night that these simultaneously hulking and spindly links to our past had never been documented collectively, outside of their respective brochures of “fun and frolic” in the sun. This book is his love note to the California of his past; land of imagination, perspiration and silicone. It is a tribute to his upbringing, our beach culture and nostalgia for simpler times.