Dr. Seuss Re-Visited

Back in 2007 I was lucky enough to have the chance to shoot with Jeremy Jones up in Alaska. While flying around looking for lines that he wanted to ride we stumbled upon this feature, later to be named Dr. Seuss, that had never been riden before. Now we all know that Jeremy is nuts when it comes to the lines that he decides to ride, and I'm fine with that because he truly knows his own ability. What scares me is when he started making decisions of where to drop off the photographer and filmer. Check out the video for what I'm talking about.

Safe in my personal Alaskian IMAX theatre, as long as I don't move.

Jeremy Jones finding his own way down.

They call this a tow in, any gust of wind and all hell breaks loose.

Pioneering a new Canadian wave with Raph Bruhwiler

Canadian professional surfer Raph Bruhwiler discovered what could be the next best wave on the west coast of Canada using Google Earth, but it wasn't until last week when he assembled a group of surfers to find out for sure. With two pickup trucks loaded with all the surf, camping and camera gear needed, we headed to the farthest north west region of Vancouver Island, through heavy rain, snow and hail, miles and miles away from civilization in hopes of coming home with a story of huge perfect surf.

Just a few hours into the 12 hour journey, we had our first minor set back. We just hoped that the heavy rain would only bring down trees and not wash away our access to and from the region leaving us stranded from any kind of assistance.

When searching for the best place to set up base camp, we came across this boot, proving that when you're this far out there, you must respect the locals.

Our base camp which Raph helped to clear, gave us shivering reminders of the Blair Witch Project.

From the logging road we had to find our own way to the beach and there was no easy way down. With a wetsuit and board Raph leads the way.

Almost there, Raph and Jens get first glimpse of what could be a perfect left and right hand point break. Photographed here is the inside section of the right.

Our crew, tired wet and sweaty, watch the ocean for set waves. It didn't take long to realize that the 20 foot swell on the outside was just not making it in to where we were. Next time, we wait for a huge swell from a different direction.

After hours of searching for a route to the beach, finding it along with unsurfable waves, I finally made it back up to base camp. Not all that stoked right now.

With no surf on this trip, our mission quickly took a right turn, leaving Raph excited to blast anything in his sights.

Raph bagged this deer on the way home.

Raph Bruhwiler surfs with Olympic Torch

Hate 'em or love 'em, the 2010 Olympics are almost here and last week the torch relay kicked off on the west coast of Canada. My buddy and professional surfer Raph Bruhwiler from Tofino, BC was asked to run with the torch. He denied, but instead offered to surf with it. At first the Olympic committee said that this would not happen, the torch has never been in the water before and this stunt just didn't seem possible to them. After some time passed, they called him back and said they would like him to do it.

Peter Devries wins O'neill Cold Water Classic

Local Canadian wildcard Peter Devries won the O'neill Cold Water Classic Canada in an energy fuelled final-both in the water and out-against World Tour surfer Jay Thompson in what was a fairytale ending to a week on the wild edges of Canada in Tofino, BC. It was a story that could almost have been a Hollywood script. Pete started the week as one of the Canadian wildcards in this 6 star ASP WQS competition. Thousands of people lined the beach to support Pete-as well as the rest of the surfers-for the final day of this competition-the first professional surf contest in Canada. After being carried up the beach to the award ceremony by hoards of friends and supporters, Pete now walks away with $20,000 and the trophy of a hand-carved paddle.

Kevin Sansalone Photo- TWS December Issue

Kevin Sansalone was one of the first guys I ever took photos of. We worked together for years during his long pro snowboarding career with Santa Cruz and Option snowboards, mostly in the Mt. Seymour backcountry. Kevin faded from professional snowboarding a few years ago to take a bigger role in his production company Sandbox.

This past winter, Vancouver received abnormal amounts of snow, which created new oportunities for snowboarding in downtown Vancouver. Kevin called me up and told me he wanted to shoot a photo. The idea was to build a tiny transition at the bottom an art sculpture in a park downtown. He showed up with a twenty foot ladder, to get on top and video camera for his buddy to use. From the top of this feature, Kevin told me it looked like he would miss the transition all together and crumble in the flats. Even still, he stepped up at knocked it out.

Outside Magazine BG Winter 2010

Outside Magazine just dropped their Buyer's Guide issue on the newstands this month. Inside you will find a photo I took of Mads Jonsson from a Standard Films shoot as well a photo of Kale Stephens playing in his backyard, Whistler BC.

Because it's socked in so often, British Columbia can be difficult to shoot. So when the sun came out for Serfas in the remote backcountry of Terrace, BC, the 36-year-old Vancouver native took full advantage, stretching the four-day shoot as long as the weather held. It paid off. On the tenth and final day of the trip, Serfas caught this image of pro rider Mads Jonsson, 26, pulling a frontside 360 as he raced down pillows of powder-covered, corniced rocks. The best part? Serfas got to go first. "There was a point riding down when I was just laughing at my good luck," he says. -Lisa Lombardi

Kale Stephens, Avoiding the crowds at Whistler-Blackcomb

Westbeach Heritage Book Release Party

2009 marks the 30th year for Westbeach, the Canadian snowboard original, and with that comes the heritage book. Out West, written by Dano Pendygrasse is a look back into the origins of the Canadian snowboard scene. Check out http://30.westbeach.com for some great photos and the heritage video.

Westbeach held a release party and a lot of the old dogs came down to throw a few shakas and talk....um, poker?

Alex Warburton, his wife Shan and Dano Pendygrasse.

"nobody knows the things we've seen." -dano

the entrance lined with pages from the book.

a page from the book on the wall.

the old dogs still get the love they deserve. Sean Johnson and Marc Castonguay.

Alex Warburton and Murray Siple get an earful.

Marc Morriset and Sean Johnson.

Photography for Sale

A lot of people always ask me if my photos are available to purchase for personal use. The answer is always yes. Every photo of mine is available in almost any size and in any format. Send me an email at info@scottserfas.com with your requests. Here are some photos from people you have purchased prints in the past.

Surfer Peter Devries makes 9 foot appearance on a garage door.

Mads Jonsson on a wall in Toronto. 16"x24" Giclee.

A 20"x30" Canvas Giclee of a Whistler Peak hangs in Australia.

Hung in Vancouver, A local hand lines off the coast of Lombok. 20"x30"

Vancouver city scape printed on fine art giclee. 20"x30"

My Early Snowboard Photography Career 1992-1997

Every week I get at least one email from a guy who wants to become a snowboard photographer. They want to know what I did to get where I am now. The answer is simple. Shoot and submit. I used to take photos of my friends on weekends and then send them to the mags. I shot with an old manual camera on cheap print film and processed it in 24 hours at the drug store. Then I would send a self addressed stamped envelope to Jon Foster, TWS photo editor back then, with all my "jems". I had no clue what I was doing, and I'm sure it showed. Here is a photo I took of Devun Walsh on Blackcomb in '92 that I submitted to TWS. It would have been one of my first submissions. Devun and I were just weekend warriors back then.

In 1993 I had been shooting skate and snow photos for about a year and had a few shots published in a local zine that you could pick up at the local skate/snow shop. At this time I had saved up enough extra cash to buy a used fisheye lens. Excited to try it out I took it to Whistler on one of my weekend trips. I remember telling this girl I knew that the closer you hold the lens to something, the bigger it would look. She thought that was great, lifted her shirt and said "make these look bigger then". From that moment I fell in love with the fisheye. The following day I shot this photo of Nova Scotian transplant Scott Doucette at the Camp of Champions. "Douce" is now back in Nova Scotia where he runs a record label with his boy Trevor Andrew and doing quite well.

One day in 1995 I was talking with Kevin Sansalone and told me that some backcountry hikers told him of a zone behind Mt. Seymour that we could hike to and build jumps. Only a few people would go back there each month so most days would be untracked. We woke up one sunny day and decided to check it out along with Devun Walsh. I remember post holing a trail up in knee deep powder for about 30 minutes before stopping to build a jump on a knuckle we found. I set up and starting shooting. Devun yelled for me to come up to where he was dropping in from and have a look. Wow, you can see the city from here! I spent the rest of the session shooting from behind showcasing Vancouver in the background. It was on this day that the "city-booter" was born and from that day on, countless pros and wannabes have hiked this popular zone, turning the Seymour Backcountry into a household name.

In 1997, a group of us built this jump for the first time in the Mt. Seymour Backcountry and had Ross Steffy there to film it for Mack Dawg. Our crew was Rob Dow, Devun Walsh, Graham Clements and visiting pro Joey McGuire. Devun and Joey killed it with all kinds of 3's and 5's while Dow launched picture perfect methods for my camera. He wasn't too concerned about the video shot since he didn't have a spot in the movie. This photo was published as a Vans ad and won the "best ad" award in a Visual Arts magazine. Later that year, a photo I shot of Joey ended up on the cover of Snowboarder Magazine, and ever since the jump has been known as the McGuire hit.

For a few years around 1998 Rob Dow and Devun Walsh shared a basement suite of a house. Upstairs lived Dave Cashen and Graham Clements. This house, on Chesterfield Avenue in North Vancouver was known in the local snowboard community as the Chesterfield House. These guys didn't hold parties at the Chesterfield house, parties found the Chesterfield house. Every night was a new adventure, you just never knew who was gonna show up and what was gonna be lit on fire, stolen, broken or flipped upside down. One night we were all hanging out drinking and cabbed it downtown for the last 2 hours of the hip hop night at the Red Lounge. When we returned to the house all the doors downstairs were broken off the hinges and laying in the front yard. The kitchen floor was covered in broken glass and no one had any idea what happened. Just another weird night at the Chesterfield house. The next morning we woke up to sunny skies and headed to Whistler to shoot photos. I remember riding up the peak chair with Dev and he told me that he was still pretty drunk and not down to shoot. Until he got off the chair that is, and saw this cliff waiting for him on the backside. This was a pretty big cliff to stomp when your cross eyed.

Lucas Debari Photo - TWS October Issue

This photo of Lucas Debari was shot in one of Whistler's best backcountry spots. It has almost every type of terrain all easily accessible by snowmoblie.

This particular day in March started from the Mohawk gas station in the Whistler Creekside at 5 am. After stocking up on the days gas and food we rode about 10 km into the backcountry. We were the first crew up and had our pick of all the best jumps and cliffs. We started off with a few easy pat-down cliffs that took only a few minutes to shoot before heading to a spot where the crew wanted to build a huge jump. That was also very successful. While sitting on the lake having lunch, I looked over and started thinking of how this line of spines could be ridden. The angle to shoot was right from where my sled was parked. I thought maybe someone could come in from the left and make a few turns down the main spine. I brought it up with the crew and they were down. Lucas got to the top and said fuck it, I'm just gonna point it from here! Music to any photographers ears. He dropped in, straight lined it and air'd out at the bottom. Wow. He was so pumped that he went back up and air'd into the pocket and then air'd back out. That's that shot you will see in the People Creative movie this year, however the first photo without any tracks happens to be much better and is the photo here that was published in the October issue of TWS.

Endeavor Snowboards Pop-Up Shop

Recently Max Jenke, Rob Dow and I built an Endeavor Snowboards pop-up shop inside of Canada's number one retail store, The Boardroom in Vancouver, BC. Come on down and check it out.

Story Behind The Shoot Out Photos

This is a video that Joe Carlino made with me about some of my photos that won the TWS Team Shoot Out. You can view the feature on TWS.

Transworld Snowboarding Cover Shoot

This season the editors at Transworld Snowboarding Magazine have decided that a photo of the latest and greatest product will be showcased on the cover, instead of your typical action photo that you saw for the past 20 or so years. With weeks of debates on how the product was going to be shot, the photo was now past due and needed to be shot now. I assisted photo editor Nick Hamilton on the job along with TWS art director Dustin Koop and associate art dude John Antoski. The original idea was to shoot all the product together highlighting specific features of the product with antique magnifying glasses. After hours of "try this and try that, no move it here no move it there" we had to give up on the idea and move on. It just didn't feel right, and sometimes ideas work better on paper than in the studio. In the end we decided on a completely different look. The photos were shot and sent back to the art department for layout. Checkout this cover photo and all the latest in snowboard gear in the 2010 TWS buyers guide hitting newsstands August 18th.

Koop and Antoski.

It just doesn't feel right, does it?

Collecting ideas back on the computer.

I stand in as the extremely talented boot holder.

The old flying goggle technique. Is that a beer toque?

ESPN photo

Here is a photo of Sam Zuegner, published by ESPN in there July Zoom photo gallery. The photo was shot in Nicaragua during the Ripzone catalogue photo shoot I did back in June.

Benji Ritchie Photo - TWS September Issue

This photo of Benji was published in the first issue of Transworld Snowboarding this season in the framed section. Its one of my favorites from this season.

Whistler had a lot less snow this year and a lot more sun. It made for a pretty good season since I was able to shoot more (more sun = more photos) and due to the lack of snow we ended up shooting new features, creating more variety from years past.

This new jump was surprisingly a quick build and the riders (Rencz, Ritchie, Lyall and White) were amped to hit it. I spent at least an hour searching for a spot to shoot from (there was no obvious angle for it) before I decided to hike down the steep face on the side for a look. It was a little sketchy going down since the face was in full sun and starting to bake, and with me stomping around there was a chance of it sliding. It didn't.

Mikey Rencz hit it first and tried a cab 9. Holy shit he went big, I thought he was aiming for a landing spot a bit higher. I guess it rolls over so much that landing higher is almost impossible. With a bit of a hand drag, the crew agreed to let him hit it one more time before the others would start in. Again, huge and no land. Benji was up next and threw this cab 9 (the mag says 7 but its a misprint) and stomped it! I think Mikey stomped his next try.

In reality, you spend 10 days in less than ideal light, snow and location in order to get a day like this. The thing is, it's always worth it.