Samurai were the military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in the 1870s during the Meiji era. While most depictions of samurai are either drawn, painted, or left up to the imagination, there was a brief period of time during the spread of western influence in Japan, when the last of the samurai had portraits taken of themselves. I’ve taken these real-life photographs and used them to reimagine the legendary samurai as stoic, beach going warriors. What if they were as bound to the swell as they were to their code of honor?