Below the Surface
Alan Broder has been through many reincarnations, but it is his latest that makes him as giddy as a teenager.
As the stout man pads along the sidewalk in his black socks, his shoes left behind a few doors away in his Westchester camera store, he fishes for a key lodged somewhere in his worn pants pockets.
Halting in front of a nondescript storefront whose whitened windows obscure any view of the contents inside, he twists the key into a lock, opens the door and strides into the Oceans Gallery and Bookstore, a hidden spot known to only a few aficionados.
Inside, beyond the 1,000 book titles and 200 various videotapes about underwater life, is a huge gallery of fine art photographs depicting a watery world as obscure as the collection itself.
There are amazing photographs of dolphins, whales, orcas, sharks and stingrays--all taken under challenging circumstances by some of the best underwater photographers in the United States. Some are limited edition photographs selling for up to $2,800. Prices for more common photos hover around the $400 mark.
What makes this gallery unusual is not only this specialized collection of underwater photography, but the fact that Broder makes no effort to advertise its location or its contents.
The only indication of its presence is the small blue and white plastic plaque on the front door that in small letters simply says: Oceans Gallery and Bookstore.
And with the windows painted white, no one passing the gallery on Sepulveda Boulevard has a clue to the abundance of material inside.
The doors are open off and on from Monday through Saturday. If they are closed, you just walk next door to the camera shop and look for Broder.
“I have been involved with the ocean since I can remember, and it’s a passion,” said Broder, 57, who has been taking underwater photographs since he was 13 but doesn’t believe they are good enough to show in his own gallery.
Broder, a former boat mechanic, baker and dentist who runs an underwater-camera store and lab called A B Sea Photo, started the gallery three years ago. He never believed he had enough photos in stock to publicize it, even though the walls are covered with photographic works.
“One of the biggest problems I have is getting [the photographers] to go into the darkroom and print some more stuff,” Broder said, a jet screeching overhead as it prepares to land at nearby Los Angeles International Airport. “They’re too busy taking photos off in some far-off location like the Fiji Islands or Tahiti.”
The gallery is probably better known to a small coterie of underwater divers living around the world than to most Southern California residents. Broder has sold more photographs to customers from Indonesia and Switzerland than to anyone in this country.
“A lot of people would wonder why these top photographers would hang [their photos] in this obscure gallery,” said Bob Talbot, a renowned marine photographer and cinematographer from Rancho Palos Verdes whose work occupies a large space in the gallery. “A lot of it is for Alan, and the respect he has for our work.”
Broder, who rarely wears shoes if he can help it, opened his photo store 13 years ago in Hawthorne and then moved near the airport nine years ago to be closer to customers changing planes at LAX.
When a print shop vacated its retail location a few years ago, Broder thought the empty space would be an ideal place to showcase photos taken by some of the underwater photographers who rent and buy his equipment.
A small section of the gallery is reserved for amateur photographers and hard-to-find videos and books related to diving. He stocks specialized publications about sea slugs, Red Sea invertebrates, Micronesian reef fish, Southern California shipwrecks and diving medicine.
In a larger section are the works of professional underwater photographers whose names are often splashed inside glossy publications. There are photographs taken by Talbot, famous for his posters of whales, orcas and dolphins; National Geographic photographer David Doubilet; Ernie Brooks, who runs a well-known photography school in Santa Barbara; and Scott Frier, who was the chief still photographer for the late Jacques Cousteau.
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The images loom as large as some of the subjects. There is a mammoth color photograph Talbot took of a whale’s tail fin emerging from the ocean, water dripping off it like rain in a storm. A Doubilet photo shows a stingray floating magically in a turquoise ocean in a place called Stingray City off the Cayman Islands. And a Tom Campbell photo captures a brief but poignant moment of two rare manatees embracing under water.
Broder loves all kinds of photography, but he believes documenting a world where images happen in fleeting moments is a particularly exacting challenge. He should know. He has been trying to do it for decades.
“I am a big fan of Ansel Adams. You know, he has done a photograph of rocks in Death Valley. Now you can go take 25 rolls today on that, and if you don’t get it you can go back in 100 years and take that photo again because the rocks might have moved an inch,” Broder said, another jet screeching overhead.
“But in underwater photography, you have to notice in a split second what makes a photograph, and you don’t have time to prepare for it. That’s what I like.”
