Ryan Anderson

@anthropologia

Cultural, environmental, and economic anthropologist. All things coastal. Photography. Some baseball too.

2,406 Following3,479 Followers1,712 Posts

YouTube Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and anthropologia.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· 28d

Here's an image from a tourist website with a somewhat comparable view of the one shown in the 1908 image above. Again, notice all the development on the beach below the bluffs.

Color photograph (undated) showing a recent view of the Oceanside pier, facing south. From this site: https://www.californiabeaches.com/beach/oceanside-pier-view-south-beach/

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· 28d

Here's a view south from the pier in 2018. I need to go rephotograph this from a similar position out on the pier someday. But the thing to note here is how much development has occurred on what is effectively the beach (at the base of those bluffs), and the sand eroding on the beach.

Black and white image from the Oceanside pier in 2018. This image shows sand being quickly eroded from the beach after replenishment. The tide is coming in from the right, the eroding beach is on the left side. Development of the shoreline is shown on the left side of the frame, with trees, a road, and numerous structures.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· 28d

Here's another image I used in the article. This one is from around 1908, so it was taken from the pier that's in the previous image. That pier was damage around 1915 and then rebuilt. The view is facing south, so it shows what the Oceanside coast looked like more than 100 years ago.

Black and white image from around 1908, showing a view of the Oceanside coast facing south. The foreground is mostly ocean waves and tides rolling in from the right side of the frame. There is a beach and then bluffs with a few houses on the left side of the frame. The exposure is not perfect (due to issues in the negative, print, scanning or perhaps all three) so the image is a bit washed out.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· 28d

I have a new article coming out in the Journal of Coastal Research that takes a long-term anthropological and archaeological look at the coastal erosion/retreat issue in California. Here's a photo of the Oceanside coast in 1904 that I used in that piece.

Black and white photo from 1904 showing the early pier in Oceanside, California. The image shows the coastal bluff on the right with a road and few houses, and the pier extending out into the ocean on the left side fo the frame.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· 28d

Brett Weston, dunes in Shoshone, 1934.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· 28d

Strand’s work is really good. Lots of those landscape folks gravitated to Taos and New Mexico from the 20s-40s. Here’s a Laura Gilpin from 1946 in NM:

Black and white storm clouds over landscape. Storm from La Bajada Hill, New Mexico
ARTIST Laura Gilpin (American, 1891 - 1979)
DATE 1946.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· 28d

Paul Strand image from 1932, near Rinconada NM:

Black and white image showing a shadowed landscape and clouds above. Paul Strand: Near Rinconada, New Mexico, 1932.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jul 10

Check out the cover of the 2008 Thomas Guide for CA: more accurate than internet directions!

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jun 26

And the quote from Graeber’s book:

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jun 22

In related news I was going through some old boxes of baseball cards from the 1980s and 90s and found a few that take on a new value. It matters what people do and say. On and off the field.

Photograph showing three of Mike Krukow's cards from the early to mid 1980s (when he was on the Cubs and then the Giants). The three cards are being held in my hand, with the top facing card showing Krukow on the 1982 Fleer card when he was with the Cubs. I have had this card since I was about seven years old!

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jun 13

Love those images by Collier. I love photos of collections of things, like this one from Wright Morris:

Black and white photograph of a dresser drawer, by photographer Wright Morris. The partially open drawer shows matchboxes, notes, flashlights, and other odds and ends. The top of the dresser has a cloth over it, with a watch and photographs of people among other items.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· May 13

Some archaeology of the dead internet today:

Screenshot of a dead link page with text that says "The page you're looking for went extinct" and an image of a dinosaur in a forest behind it.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Feb 24

Hey @nickseaver.website I feel like this could be one more item for your technologies of entrapment class:

Screenshot of the website for the 'Einstein' site, which uses an LLM to log in to Canvas and do the all the homework for students.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jan 25

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jan 22

Chronicle front page reporting he’s been released

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Dec 15

Maybe I'll try something like this next and try to pay closer attention to line work. This is a wood engraving, also from Kent in 1926:

Wood engraving from 1926 by Rockwell Kent. Monochromatic print showing a rocky headland on the right with a beach, boat, and people on the beach in the middle of the frame. One cloud in the sky on the upper left. The ocean and small waves coming in from the right. The foreground is framed by a large, dark rock on the lower right. The sky is made of ink lines that run parallel across the page, only broken up by the one cloud.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Dec 15

From this 1926 piece by Rockwell Kent: "The Irish sea coast. Donegal."

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Dec 15

In the spirit of just making stuff to make the days a little better, here's an unfinished and rough sketch from last Sunday. It's based upon a painting by the great Rockwell Kent. Sometimes it's just fun to draw stuff, even if the details aren't perfect. Just make stuff. #coast #sketch

Pen and ink sketch of a coast in Ireland, based upon a painting by Rockwell Kent. The sketch shows steep bluffs on the right that drop down to the beach and water in the middle of the frame. There are large, isolated sea stacks in the water. Lines of waves come in from the left side. The background is loosely sketched in with pencil, showing headlands in the distance.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Dec 8

Rockwell Kent: when the sun shines. 1926.

Painting showing the sea in the backgrounds and light breaking through clouds. Shadows pull across the hills. Rockwell Kent, 1926.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Nov 6

Reminds me of this 1975 classic from Ted Orland.

Black and white image showing a house with a large front lawn, and a dog with its front legs up on a gate with two posts. The dog and gate are in the foreground and the main subject. The gate has no fences connected to it and is apparently pointless.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Sep 15

Well I think I’m just going to keep posting and reposting this.

Screenshot of the Congress.gov page on the first amendment. Text reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Aug 22

I'm going through and scanning some photos I took about 20 years ago for a coastal photography project I'm working on. Here's Garrapata Beach, along the Big Sur coast, in December 1998. Shot with a 4x5 Wisner probably.

Black and white image showing Garrapata Beach. Incoming tide coming in from the left side of the frame. The tide is and waves are running up against rocks poking out of the sand. In the distance there's Sobranes Point to frame the image. Some soft, grayish clouds in the sky above the point.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Aug 22

This is the first photograph that I remember taking. Big Sur coast, circa 1988-90. I was about 14 or 15. Pentax ME Super with 50mm. #photography #coast #bigsur

View of the Big Sur coast. Greenish-blue water in the foreground. A few large rocks sticking out in the middle of the frame. There's a headland coming in from the right side; you can see the coast highway running along the cliff with the ocean below.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Aug 3

@nuclearanthro.bsky.social check out what we found in the garage this Sunday morning

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jul 25

Point Sur, July 22, 2025. This is part of a coastal repeat photography project I'm working on here and there. #anthropology #coastal

Black and white image showing Point Sur along the Big Sur coast in California. Point Sur is in the background on the right side of the image. The light is sharp and clear. The foreground shows a hillside that drops down into the ocean. The middle of the image shows the beaches and landscape that wind their way to the point. The coast highway is there if you look very closely. The sky is mostly clear, with one grey bank of clouds above the winding landscape on the left of the image, and another distant bank threaded above the horizon.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jul 21

Small photographs forgotten via Savage Minds, 2015: "There’s something to taking the time to learn about the non-professionals, the people who were just taking everyday photos and snapshots of life all around them." savageminds.org/2015/05/08/s... #anthropology #photography

Black and white photograph from around the 1950s-60s. The image has multiple people in the frame. In the center there's a woman holding a baby--both are not sharp. On the right side there's another person on the edge of the frame, also out of focus. On the lower left, there's a young girl, also slightly out of focus, with her hand on her head who seems to be smiling and laughing. There's a car and house in the background and both are in focus. All of the subjects are likely out of focus because of the limits of the equipment at the time and the limits of the photographer's skill with that equipment. It was not easy to capture moving and spontaneous subjects with this kind of camera equipment.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jul 11

“CITIZENS WATCHING THE OCCUPATION OF SAN FRANCISCO'S WATERFRONT BY THE NATIONAL GUARD, GENERAL STRIKE, SAN FRANCISCO.” ccp.collectionspace.org/gateway/ccp/...

Black and white image showing civilians standing on the sidewalk looking at tanks parked alongside the sidewalk during the occupation of the national guard.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jul 11

“NATIONAL GUARD TANKS LINED UP AT THE EMBARCADERO, GENERAL STRIKE, SAN FRANCISCO.” ccp.collectionspace.org/gateway/ccp/...

Black and white image showing two tanks and a truck full of national guard soldiers alongside the sidewalk. A building in the background has a large sign that says “Wellman Coffee.”

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jul 11

“PRODUCE AREA OCCUPIED BY NATIONAL GUARD, GENERAL STRIKE, SAN FRANCISCO.” ccp.collectionspace.org/gateway/ccp/...

Black and white image with two national guard soldiers sitting on a hay bale in the foreground, two more soldiers with bayonets in the mid ground, and a building with a produce stand on the right side.

Ryan Anderson@anthropologia· Jul 11

More photographs by Gutmann from the 1934 strike in SF: “NATIONAL GUARDSMEN ON TRUCK PATROLLING WATERFRONT.”