All Photos © Derek Dunfee. Above: Fiji, tail camera.

Derek Dunfee, a 29-year-old professional surfer and photographer from La Jolla, California, provides an intimate, behind-the-scenes view of the lifestyle of big wave surfers, and the excitement of surfing in exotic locations. “Chasing big surf almost always involves wild weather and high emotions which is always good for photos and video,” he says. “I do like to give the viewer a glimpse into what its like to be in these places. For example, for my Tail Camera series, I paddle into a wave with a pocket wizard in a water housing duct taped to my shoulder and snap the photo when I’m in the tube. That gives the viewer the feeling they are getting barreled.”

Dunfee learned photography from his twin brother, who studied at the Brooks Institute. Other photographers, including Pete Taras, Todd Glaser and Steve Sherman, provided Dunfee with encouragement and shooting tips. Dunfee’s stories and photos have been published in Surfer, Surfing and Transworld surf magazines. He has  also made a few short films.

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© Stephen Hilyard, Dougal, Leysin, 1977.  Light jet print, 2009.

Fantasy and reality come to a head in landscape photographers Stephen Hilyard, Simen Johan, and Lydia Anne McCarthy new exhibition, Unnatural Formations. The exhibit, showing at the Scandinavia House, in New York, focuses on enchanting viewers in a world that straddles the line between fantasy and reality. The photographers used photographs shot in remote areas located throughout Iceland and northern Sweden. They later grafted images of humans, animals and atmospheric effects to create new, hybrid places, leaving the viewer to wonder if the artist is responding to a brave new world of genetically-modified species and ecologically-altered habitats. The exhibition is on view until July 28, 2012.

-courtesy Scandinavia House, New York.

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All Photos @Thomas Hoeffgen/212 Artists.

Thomas Hoeffgen braved the waters off Santander, Spain, to capture the insatiable drive of the Pre-Olympic Spanish Sailing Team. The three-day shoot for Timberland, the 2012 London Olympic Games official technical supplier of footwear and apparel, combined equal parts grace and determination. Hoeffgen’s prowess as a photographer matches the athletes’ dreams. The future looks bright as Olympic gold. Cue the “La Marcha Real.”

—Courtesy 212 Artists.

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© Finn O'Hara

Photographer and director Finn O’Hara is based in Toronto. O’Hara says, “Smokers just can’t seem to catch a break anymore. Over the past ten years, Toronto smokers have gone from smoking at the bar, to being forced into city alleyways. This cover shot, for Toronto’s The Grid, accompanied a confessional tale of the stigmas faced by smokers every day in Toronto, and what it takes to finally kick the habit. To illustrate the commitment of a winter smoker, we enlisted a hardened smoker and slapped them with a fictitious sub-zero blizzard.”

See a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot.

All photos © Giulio Di Sturco.

Despite being home to the world’s largest breakwater, the port city of Kamaishi, Japan, was partially destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami last March 11. This former capital of Samurai steel production was bombarded by the US navy during WWII, and has survived several tsunamis in the past.  Now, the surviving residents are attempting to pick up the pieces, and start life again.  Yumi Goto, a curator, discovered Giulio Di Sturco’s images of the city when he contributed to the  “3/11 Tsunami Photo Project,” an iPad/iPhone photography book app that Goto edited. “When he attempted to photograph certain areas, he was told that there was no need as there was nothing newsworthy to be found,” Goto says. “Believing that he would find people stranded there, he ignored the advice [and] reached places beyond where other photographers stopped. The enormous challenges that he faced are apparent in the photographs.” Giulio Di Sturco’s Tsunami project will be on view in the exhibition, “11-3″  at Galleria Openmind in Milano, Italy, from Nov. 24 – Jan. 20, 2012.

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