Jim Russi grew up on the beach in southern California and began surfing at the age of 6 years old. He graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography with a B.A. in Fashion & Advertising. In 1978 he moved to the north shore of Oahu after what was planned as only a week-long surf trip to the island.
Surf photography in the 70’s was an up and coming field with less than a dozen photographers in the water. Jim had the good fortune of becoming close friends with a few other young talented photographers at the time, who were influential as Jim began his career, namely Aaron Chang, Jeff Hornbaker and Dan Merkel. He began photographing in the line-up beside these greats and has now been in the water photographing for 40 years.
He has traveled the world serving as Senior Staff Photographer for all the major U.S. surf magazines and has been a great influence in the womens surf and longboarding arena as well. Outside of the U.S. market, Jim’s work is extremely popular in Japan and Europe. In addition to his editorial work, Jim has collaborated closely on numerous advertising campaigns and continues to work primarily on Quiksilver’s Roxy ad campaign, producing images for them for over a decade now.
Jim captures the height of emotion and peak of action while maintaining his classic style. His images convey a balance between the raw power of the ocean and men’s surfing, while displaying both femininity and athleticism for the female ocean enthusiast. His images possess an understated spontaneous energy. He is committed to producing images with a positive message and is able to use his knowledge of natural light to produce vibrant, sophisticated imagery. Spending most of his days in the water, surfing and photographing, Jim is a world-renowned artist, but particularly active & respected within his North Shore community. Jim Russi continues to do what he loves and brings a fresh soulful beauty to his images for others to enjoy.