From Santa Monica Close Up:

"Members of the indigenous community offer a Dia de Los Muertos blessing at the end of the Santa Monica Pier on Wednesday, November 2, 2022. Aztec dancers lead a vibrant and colorful procession from the west end of the Santa Monica Pier to the Merry Go-Round building."

Santa Monica Close Up is a photo blog by Santa Monica based Photojournalist/Press photographer Fabian Lewkowicz. Fabian is the former staff photographer for the Santa Monica Daily Observer Press, Santa Monica Mirror, Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Corsair.

Support Santa Monica Closeup/Fabian Lewkowicz with Venmo or PayPal to help earn money to make these videos:

https://venmo.com/u/santamonicacloseup

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/fabianlewkowicz

Here's our photo coverage of the Haunted Heats Surf COntest.

This set of surf photos was shot by Six12 Media.

These are just a few of the 300+ photos from the contest. If you were in it, you probably got some shots, probably multiple photos, they will be in the complete contest photo gallery, check them out, the link to the complete gallery is down below.

As always wijth the Haunted Heats. the costume performance portion is first. Every contestant has 30 seconds to act out their costume.









Then comes the surfing portion of the contest.














You can find all the photos from the contest, all full size and in high-resolution, in this photo gallery:

ZJ Boarding House Haunted Heats 2022 Photo Gallery


If you were out there, we probably got some cool surfing shots of you, go check them out!

Wanna see photos from previous days at this and other local surf spots from this photographer?
Click Surf Spot Galleries and look for the spot and then the date.

The fate of the Venice Surf-A-Thon is now unknown.

Contest founder & organizer, Ger-I Lewis, made two announcements this morning via his social media accounts. Both announcements statimng he has decided not to produce the contest anymore, and the second announcement was the same as the first but he added in a sentence about gifting the contest to "the Venice neighborhood" , which he called aa "a strong and responsible group".

This news comes just 12 days after Ger-I had announced the 2022 Venice Surf-A-Thon date.

His full announcement:



"Family, friends and supporters of Venice Surf-A-Thon Surf Contest, I have decided to not to produce the Venice Surf-A-Thon Surf Contest any longer. Thank you for the support and a wonderful 28 years of fun and surfing! I decided to gift the contest to the Venice neighborhood and a strong and responsible group that is considering keeping the 'Thon going into the next 3 decades.
Sincerely, Ger-I"

Is the Venice Surfing Association the group Gert-I is talking about?

And does that mean the 2022 contest is still on?

Here's our photo coverage of the surfing from the Breakwater Open.

This set of surf photos was shot by Six12 Media and brought to you by XCEL Wetsuits.

These are just a few of the 1200+ photos from the contest. If you surfed in it, you probably got some surfing shots, probably multiple photos, they will be in the complete contest photo gallery, check them out, the link to the complete gallery is down below.





















You can find all the photos from the contest, all full size and in high-resolution, in this photo gallery:

Breakwater Open Photo Gallery


If you were out there, we probably got some cool surfing shots of you, go check them out!

Wanna see photos from previous days at this and other local surf spots from this photographer?
Click Surf Spot Galleries and look for the spot and then the date.