Jeremy Koreski is a professional photographer based on the west coast of Canada. Working extensively in editorial, advertising, stock, and fine arts, Koreski's work has appeared in Outside, Surfer, The Surfer's Path, enRoute, Westworld, and numerous other periodicals.
A Vancouver Island local, Koreski was born and raised in the outpost town of Tofino. Now 26, he began his career at age 16 with ventures into surf, skateboard, and snowboard photography. Trained at Vancouver's Langara College, Koreski's style blends the visual influences of an upbringing surrounded by ocean, mountains and rainforest with the urban, artistic, and aggressive values of his contemporaries.
“I like the elements,” Koreski says, “shooting outdoors in the water an in the rain. I'm kinda tired of static outdoor photography. I like taking conservative ideas and shooting them radically, unconservatively. I don't mind if the shot's out of focus or unexpected, as long as people are being moved and showing emotion - good or bad - towards my work.”
Koreski's singular images have made him one of the most prominent recorders of the west coast's current environmental and cultural milieu. Shooting from the water, in boats and on land in the Clayoquot backcountry, his compositions are a tableau of the Earth's most intense landscapes and the people who inhabit it.
Koreski is also a videographer and editor of Numb, an acclaimed Canadian surf video that documents the surfing and snowboarding of his core group of friends - Ralph and Sepp Bruhwiler, Peter Devries, Ryan Erickson, and Paul Henderson.
Along with further photographic projects, he is currently at work on the sequel Shrink, an in-depth look at Canadian surf and the lives of Tofino's professional surfers. To be released in 2004 and distributed worldwide, Shrink features water and land footage from Canada, Hawaii, and Mexico.
~ Malcom Johnson