Scotland is blessed with some world-class surf spots and some seriously good surfers. It’s also home to some talented surf photographers, and an exhibition at Staunch Industries in Leith features work by six of the best: Malcolm Anderson, Janeanne Gilchrist, Mike Guest, Sam Howard, Oscar James and Christian Perez. I asked each of them to pick one image from the show and tell the story behind it.

Zach Marritt at Thurso East, by Malcolm Anderson Zach Marritt is one of the local boys up here – he’s one of those characters who just goes out in the water and does his own thing. That’s a longboard he’s holding there with the nose snapped off. I love days like this at Thurso East – you can almost feel the reef moving because it’s so big. You only get certain people turning up on these days – I think Boydie [Mark Boyd] was out this day and there were a couple of other locals. I like this image because you get to see the raw size of it. Obviously Zach’s got to paddle through that to get out the back, so that’s him waiting for a lull, waiting for his moment.

placeholder image — Zach Marritt at Thurso East | Malcolm Anderson

Thurso East at Night, by Janeanne Gilchrist It was a winter swell, we were up at Thurso East camping, and I woke up in the middle of the night because you could hear the roar of the waves. You could see whitewater but you couldn’t really see much else, so I decided to get the camera out, set the tripod up and do some time delays and capture what was out there with no focus. The moon was in the sky, coming through the clouds, so that’s what’s happening in this shot. In the morning the surf was huge. Camping at Thurso East there’s a real feeling of suspense, wondering what you’re going to wake up to in the morning. How big will it be? Where’s the wind coming from? How many people will be out? Who’s in first?

Detail from Thurso East at Night, by Janeanne Gilchrist | Janeanne Gilchrist

Colin Macleod, Isle Of Lewis, by Mike Guest This picture was taken in the middle of winter, so it was absolutely freezing. I’d just come in after a couple of hours of surfing with Colin. I was sitting up the hill in my camper van, literally in my underwear with a cup of tea and some Hobnobs, and shooting through a gap in the window – which is one of those dreams you have, because most of the time as a surf photographer in Scotland you’re absolutely freezing, either bobbing around in the water or standing on some windy hill trying to hide behind a sand dune or a rock. When those sheep just ambled on into the frame, I was like “OK, here we go, surely we’re going to be on for something.”

The Belly of the Beast, Tens, Caithness, by Sam Howard I took The Belly of the Beast in 2021 while I was shooting Ben Larg and Nic von Rupp surfing Tens. Being in the water there is an insane experience when it’s that size – the waves are coming in on your left onto a really dry slab and then on your right it’s just a sheer cliff. After being in the water for a while though, you start getting in tune with it and and those fears of getting caught on the inside maybe drift away with the adrenaline. The Belly of the Beast is an image of one of the bigger waves that came through that day. A couple of sets were just absolutely massive and that’s a shot right into the middle of one of them. I reckon it would’ve been pretty unrideable – you can see how thick the lip is and how large the wave is. That lip is maybe six foot thick.

Jacob Mellish at Wardie Bay, by Oscar James I lived in Edinburgh for five years and this was the only time I ever saw waves at Wardie Bay. This shot was taken during the pandemic – a storm had come up the Forth and just started to hit Wardie, and Jacob Mellish is making it look so much better than it is. It was basically four or five foot wind-chop, a straight onshore 30-knot wind and it was the most grim thing we’d ever seen. I was sat in the van, absolutely not wanting to get out in the rain, but Jacob’s just looking out going “Brah, look at the lefts brah!” I walked out on the pier next to the wave and started shooting across to the flats and he took a left. He did about three turns like that and that one was so critical and off-the-lip and it has the lights behind him and the city behind him – I was just like “I love this photo, because when we post it online, no-one’s going to know where it is. Everyone’s going to go ‘Oh, that’s Edinburgh, but there’s no f***ing waves in Edinburgh.’”

Jacob Mellish, Wardie Bay, Edinburgh | Oscar James

Finn Macdonald, Bagpipes, Caithness, by Christian Perez This was a flash trip for me in the spring – April or May. I had a surf in the morning but then in the afternoon the light was getting really nice. I’d never been in at Bagpipes but one of the guys was saying it was pumping there so I went over. It was pretty big, maybe seven or eight foot faces, and it’s pretty shallow there too. I usually photograph empty waves, but I love photographing Finn MacDonald because he smiles. Even though you can’t see it at that distance, I have a full sequence where he gets barrelled and he gets out and he’s smiling.