Elizabeth Pepin

San Francisco, California

• visit: www.otwfront.com
• email: otwfront@gmail.com

Surf photographer and filmmaker Elizabeth Pepin was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and grew up playing along California's coastline. She learned to surf in 1986 and has been capturing the women's surf scene with her cameras since 1997. Her unique and realistic images of women surfers have appeared in numerous museums, galleries, newspapers and magazines around the world. Books featuring her photos include Girl in the Curl and Elogio del Surf. She was the principle photographer for Sister Surfer: A Woman's Guide To Surfing With Bliss And Courage by professional surfer Mary Osbourne and Kia Afcari, and On The Shore No More by Linda Chase.

Elizabeth has traveled to Europe, Mexico and Hawaii to surf and photograph both in the water and from the beach. She has also helped produced nearly two dozen documentaries and television programs and has won four Emmy Awards for her work. Her current film, co-produced and directed with fellow surfer/filmmaker Sally Lundburg, is One Winter Story, is an hour-long look at the life of big wave surfer and scientist Sarah Gerhardt. Elizabeth has also written Harlem of the West, a San Francisco jazz history/photography book published by Chronicle Books and soon to be a Smithsonian traveling museum exhibit.

Elizabeth is constantly fascinated by the coast and the people who are attracted to it, which is reflected in her films and photographs. The ever changing light and mood of the water, the unique connection people have to the ocean, the challenges of shooting in such an environment; she could film and photograph at the coast every day for the rest of her life and be very happy. Elizabeth currently lives in San Francisco, with her husband David, their orange dog and cat, and their giant white biodiesel van.