Chris Burkard

How it started.

Growing up on California’s Central Coast, Chris experimented with drawing and art before picking up photography at 19. He quit his magazine-store job, sold photos to local surfers and took on weddings, portraits and interiors. Internships with landscape photographer Michael Fatali and Transworld Surf helped him develop his own approach; during the magazine internship, he commuted for hours and slept in his car.

Finding his direction.

The 2006 Follow the Light Foundation grant helped his early career. In 2010, his photograph of surfer Peter Mendia off Chile’s west coast won the overall Red Bull Illume competition. He went on to work as a senior staff photographer for Surfline, Water and Surfer, and became a Patagonia projects photographer in 2009.

Stories beyond a single frame.

Under an Arctic Sky brought his search for Icelandic waves to Tribeca in 2017, with Chris directing and co-writing. Unnur turns toward fatherhood through Icelandic surfer and photographer Elli Thor’s relationship with his daughter. His books offer other ways into the work: At Glacier’s End follows Iceland’s glacial rivers, while Wayward pairs photographs with the personal stories behind them.