Although it may have those challenges, being a traveling surf photographer is a pretty amazing gig. “I do think of it as a dream job. It’s not a job for me,” she says, pulling her brown hair back from her face. “I know that sounds clichéd, but it’s just part of who I am and what I do. It doesn’t feel like I’m going to work. As much as some of the travelling and living out of suitcases gets annoying, it’s still an amazing experience and it’s an amazing life to live.”
And she’s been living that life for a long time. When she was offered her current position as lead photographer back in 2008, she packed her bags and hasn’t unpacked since. In that time, she’s been there for almost every single event and all the craziness that goes with them.
Following a tour that hopes for perfect waves inevitably leads to being in the right place at the right time. During the Tahiti Code Red swell, when Teahupoo turned into the heaving monster that worked its way into the history books, Kirstin was there, camera in hand. “My brain couldn’t even comprehend what I was seeing,” she says about the swell that maxed out one of the world’s heaviest waves. “It was like the end of the world – so heavy.” After bribing a Jetski to take her out into the maelstrom, she ended up with a boat driver that was determined to put her closest to the action. “We were the deepest in. I just remember looking at the wave, and there were another four boats above us on this giant wave. It was sickening. That just blew my mind.”
Scholtz doesn’t take anything for granted. She loves her time on Tour and savors every moment, because part of the job is sitting through all the mediocrity that Mother Nature can dish out. “I feel so blessed… we had about five years of small, very average contest surf. I was questioning whether I’d ever see a swell like that in Tahiti.”
It’s not all fun and games, though. It is still a job, albeit an amazing one. During contests, it’s a grind. ASP photographers have global deadlines to meet. They are the ones that get the photos out to the world, and they have to do it quickly in the digital age. “It is intense,” she says during a rare piece of downtime in between Bells and Rio. “We’ve got deadlines we’re trying to meet all over the world. We’re getting photos up after every heat, and then distributing throughout the day, so we’re constantly shooting, editing, shooting, editing. There’s no kicking back – it’s just non-stop. It is pretty exhausting.”
Kirstin Scholtz is one of the world’s leading surf photographers, and she got there by working hard at her craft and never giving up – qualities that show through in the photos she takes. At every event, she manages to get shots that other photographers might wait a lifetime for. Her mentality towards her job can be summed up in something she said back when her early days working as an admin girl in the trenches. “I’m going to get on Tour,” she told herself. “I don’t care what it takes.”
