I'm from an area that's just called the region, Northwest Indiana, in the shadows of Chicago on the south end of Lake Michigan. The shoreline here is a mixture of sand dunes and steel mills as big as cities. It's a unique juxtaposition of natural beauty and something else entirely.

Living in Chicago at the age of 24, it hit me like a train, what on earth was I doing with my life? I felt like I had grown up quicker than expected. I decided to buy a longboard and head to Samoa and learn how to surf.

After that experience I decided I wanted to make a surf film. Eight years later and I'm getting near to being done making that film; it’s called Hangs Upon Nothing. My friends and I formed a band called Turbofire to Zenith and we’re recording the original soundtrack back in Indiana. When I'm home I work mostly as a concept artist and traditional animator, and I surf the south end of Lake Michigan.

 

Some views of The Region, NW Indiana.

 

 

Chicago, Illinois. 

 

 

 

Shots from my first surf trip, Samoa, 2003.

I biked around Upolu with my longboard in tow on a trailer. I learned to surf with these young Samoan brothers, Telase and Popo, who had a beat up bodyboard. They also already knew how to stand up surf. They paddled the longboard out first, and we traded boards back and forth in small waves out in front of their village. Later on when I got to the south coast of the island I found out what real waves are like.

 

 

 

This is the upside to spending over seven months as volunteer crew on a boat.  This was both the most trying seven months of my life, and also the greatest adventure I've ever been on. -edge of the world, 2008. photos: Scott Aichner

 

 

 

Shooting time-lapse footage with my Bolex, late 2011. Friend Scott Goldsbury shot this with his phone. 

 

Black and white photo at top of page shot by Mike Killion, January 2012, in Indiana after a good day of waves on the lake. Mike's site: Great Lakes Surfer Magazine

 

additional links

Turbofire to Zenith: http://turbofiretozenith.bandcamp.com/

art portfolio: http://www.jeremyrumas.com/