Where Surf History Meets Fine Art: Alt Fin & Co. Launches Exclusive Limited Edition Print Collection with Photographer Russell Spencer

Five iconic surfboards. Ten prints each. One California artist who captured them like you've never seen before.

Alt Fin & Co. has always been about looking at surf culture differently. So it shouldn't be surprising that when the brand ventured into fine art, they did it with a technique as unconventional as the fins they sell — and the results are genuinely breathtaking.

Introducing The Double Exposure Project, an exclusive fine art photography series created in collaboration with California artist Russell Spencer, published under the imprint Alt Fin Art Editions, Ltd. (AFAE 001–005). This is limited edition surf art unlike anything currently on the market, and for collectors, surfers, and photography enthusiasts alike, it's worth paying close attention.

The Artist: Russell Spencer and the Double Exposure Technique

Russell Spencer is not a photographer who relies on digital tricks. His work is rooted in the analog tradition — and in a process that demands as much mathematical precision as it does artistic vision.

For The Double Exposure Project, Spencer worked exclusively with Kodak and Fuji 120 film at varying speeds, using in-camera multiple exposure techniques to create his images. The process works by advancing the film frame — from one exposure to two, to three — exposing a single frame multiple times to layer images onto one another. No filters. No Photoshop. No digital manipulation of any kind. What you see in the final print is exactly what happened inside the camera.

Each concept begins with a sketch on paper. From there, Spencer uses careful mathematical calculations to compensate for exposure across multiple frames. It's painstaking, precise work — and the payoff is extraordinary. On average, Spencer produces just two usable photographs per roll of 15 shots. That ratio tells you everything about the level of intention behind each image.

The work caught serious industry attention: Spencer made the cover of the June 2020 issue of The Surfer's Journal, one of the most respected publications in surf culture globally.

The Subject: Surfboard Fins and Tails Through History

What Spencer chose to photograph is as important as how he photographed it. Rather than shooting surfers or waves — the default subject matter of most surf photography — Spencer turned his lens on the boards themselves, and specifically on their fins and tails.

The boards featured in this series were provided by the California Surf Museum in Oceanside, CA, lending each image not just visual power but genuine historical weight. These aren't replicas or modern recreations. They are artifacts of the sport's most formative decades, captured through the lens of multiple-exposure film photography in a way that reveals their symmetry, geometry, and color with surreal clarity.

The result is a body of work that sits at the intersection of surf history and contemporary fine art — images that would feel equally at home on the wall of a serious collector or a surf industry CEO's office.

The Five Editions: AFAE 001–005

The inaugural series features five prints, each limited to an edition of just ten signed and numbered pieces. All prints are produced on high-quality professional Fuji paper at 24" x 36" and are personally signed and numbered by Russell Spencer.

1950 Hawaiian Rescue Board — One of the oldest boards in the series, this image captures the raw, utilitarian beauty of early Hawaiian surf craft. The rescue board predates nearly everything we recognize as modern surfboard design, and Spencer's layered exposures give it an almost mythological quality.

1960's Plastic Fantastic — The "Plastic Fantastic" era marked a pivotal shift in board construction, as fiberglass began replacing wood and foam started shaping the future of the sport. Spencer's treatment of the fin and tail geometry from this decade is a study in vintage surf design at its most optimistic.

1970's Plastic Fantastic — As shortboard culture exploded through the 1970s, board shapes became more radical and fins more experimental. This edition captures that restless energy — the sense that anything was possible in surf design — through layers of film and light.

1970's Gerry Lopez Lightning Bolt — Gerry Lopez is a legend. His Lightning Bolt boards are icons. The chance to own a fine art print of one of these historic shapes — rendered through Spencer's signature multiple exposure technique — is the kind of opportunity that doesn't come around often for surf collectors.

1979 Donald Takayama Pintail — Donald Takayama is another name that resonates deeply with anyone who knows surfboard history. A master shaper who bridged the gap between longboard tradition and shortboard innovation, Takayama's pintail from 1979 is a remarkable artifact, and Spencer's photograph honors it as such.

Why This Collection Matters for Collectors

Limited edition fine art prints exist in a peculiar space — they're accessible enough to be purchased, but scarce enough to hold and potentially grow in value. With only ten prints available per edition across five images, the entire run of The Double Exposure Project totals just 50 prints worldwide. For a series featuring boards from a nationally recognized museum, photographed by an artist who has graced the cover of The Surfer's Journal, that scarcity is significant.

Each print is priced at $349 (currently on sale from $495), printed at gallery-worthy 24" x 36" on professional Fuji paper, and arrives signed and numbered directly by Russell Spencer. These are not posters. These are not reproductions. They are original, numbered pieces of a tightly controlled limited edition — the kind of work that belongs under proper framing and good light.

For surfers who have spent their lives surrounded by the ocean and its culture, there is something profoundly satisfying about owning a piece of art that takes the hardware of surfing — its fins, its shapes, its history — and renders it as something worthy of gallery walls.

The Alt Fin & Co. Aesthetic: Everything Connects

It's no accident that a surf fin retailer launched a fine art photography project centered on historic fins and tails. Alt Fin & Co. has always operated with a reverence for surf history and a commitment to celebrating the parts of the culture that mainstream surf retail tends to overlook. Fins are the soul of a surfboard — they determine feel, direction, and character — and Spencer's photographs treat them accordingly: as objects of beauty and historical significance.

The Double Exposure Project is an extension of that same philosophy. It says: there is art in the hardware. There is history in the shapes. And there are stories worth telling in the geometry of a fin template from 1950 or a pintail from 1979.

Where to Buy Russell Spencer's Limited Edition Surf Art Prints

The full Double Exposure Project x Russell Spencer collection is available exclusively through Alt Fin & Co. at altfin.surf/art. With only ten prints per edition and no plans announced for future runs, availability is genuinely limited.

If you're a collector of surf art, a lover of analog photography, or simply someone who wants a piece of surf history on their wall — this is the collection to watch.

Explore all five editions of the Alt Fin Art Editions series at altfin.surf/art. Each print is signed, numbered, and ready to frame.