Hey Legends,
my name is Simon Fitz. I am a 36 year old ocean and surf photographer from Germany. I spend most of my time traveling through Portugal, France, Indonesia and California to capture the classic surf scene around these countries. I feel a deep rooted connection to certain moments, people and experiences in my life. That’s when my artistic approach is converting into a photograph! Photography is the language that I communicate best with and a tool to transform these moments in an artistic approach! My goal is to place my inner vision in the intersection between the classic surf culture and modernist interpretations!
The feelings of seeing things in individual ways and with a wide range of emotions is my highest priority! I try to give every subject I shoot the same amount of energy so I can start to see things from different perspectives and bring everything back to myself!
The Alchemist of Waves: Simon Fitz, Through a Friend’s Eyes
By Vovô Balian, for Pacific Longboarder Magazine
A Note to the Reader
Simon Fitz is precision meets intuition, German discipline blending with artistic freedom.
His images are love letters to the instant, where water and light transform into dreams.
Few people are as dedicated. For him, photographing isn’t easy. It comes from the soul,
consuming time and energy in a search to eternalize something he’s fallen in love with. He
doesn’t simply shoot waves, he captures what the waves sing to him. And we, the lucky
ones, get to hear the melody through his eyes.
First Impressions
Imagine the scene: Gliding Barnacles 2019, a festival melting pot of accents, vintage
boards, and stories that start with “I remember once when…” That’s where I first spotted a
quiet guy, tucked in with a group of French people, always with a camera in hand,
struggling equally with English and Portuguese.
“Another Frenchman,” I thought.
My mistake.
That was Simon Fitz, a Saxon from East Germany, a future teacher and model citizen. Little
did I know that years later we’d be in my living room in Lisbon, sipping machine-made
coffee. Coffee that a sommelier might wrinkle their nose at, but which becomes nectar in a
conversation like ours, while we laughed about my first impression.
Why Portugal? The Call of the Tribe
His answer is simple, from the heart:
“Because that’s where my people are. My friends. My little chosen family, my girlfriend, my
dog. I get to surf, I get to create, I’m surrounded by amazing landscapes and world-class
waves. It just feels right. I don’t overthink it. I don’t sit around asking, ‘Is this where I’m
supposed to be?’ I just wake up and think, ‘Alright, tomorrow I’ll surf Caparica, weekend’s
for Peniche.’ That flow, it works.”
The Winter That Became Home
The pandemic squeezed the world in 2020, but in Baleal it gave us something rare: time.
That year’s Gliding Barnacles was small, intimate, almost like family. When winter came,
Simon, instead of returning to France, stayed.
“I’d rather have you out in the water, sharing waves with me, than behind the lens,” I told
him.
It was about friendship, not surfer and photographer roles. That winter changed
everything. A Brazilian and a German, finding in the cold Peniche sea a common language
that even English couldn’t embrace.
He’s returned every winter since.
Today we share Lisbon, waves at Caparica, and a shelf of stories and memories that only
grows.
How About Gliding Barnacles
(And here I must confess I smiled.)
“Gliding Barnacles means everything to me, and not because it’s a surf festival. It’s way
more than that. It’s the people, the energy, the whole spirit behind it. That’s where I met my
community, the people I live with, surf with, grow with. That’s where the shift happened.
I met some of the most important people in my life through Gliding.
People like Vovô, Filipe, the whole Baleal/Wavegliders Crew and of course Eurico and his
Family, people who believed in me, who pushed me to take my work seriously, who kept
calling me back when I wasn’t sure of anything.
They took me in after the event, gave me places to stay, talked to me about surfing, about
what it really means to them. And that made me think about it for myself.
Funny enough, one of those people is writing this text with me right now :)”
Photography Was Never the Point
“The whole thing with photography and surfing kind of happened all at once, and a bit by
accident, to be honest. Right after I finished my studies, I knew I had to get out. Like urgently.
I’d taken a few photos before that, with a crappy old camera I found somewhere. No real
focus, just raw, moody, melancholic stuff. But there was something in it I liked. Something
honest and raw.
Then I landed a spot at a surf camp in France. I kind of lied my way in, said I was a
photographer, even though I really wasn’t. But they didn’t call me out. They believed in me.
Helped me. Taught me. Gave me gear and space to try. That’s where it started to click.
But the thing is, I realized pretty fast that photography itself wasn’t the point. It never was.
It’s about expression. It’s about freezing a feeling, turning a moment into something you
can pass on. Not to make it last forever, but to let someone else feel it too. Like a kind
Gesture. And for me, it was never about showing things exactly as they are. That’s not how I see the
world. Same with music. If I play a Chat Atkins tune, I’m not trying to copy it. I want to twist it into
something mine. That’s how I see photography too. I’m not chasing some perfect blue wave for a magazine
cover. I want the perfect wave, with sick surfing, but filtered through how I felt in that moment.
The tones, the atmosphere, the soul.”
The Alchemy of Simon: Where Music Becomes Image
This is where Simon’s magic shows itself. Talking with him is understanding that every
photograph is a song translated into light. He doesn’t chase technical perfection. He wants
raw emotion, that “scrape” on a guitar that gives you goosebumps.
As he says:
“My biggest influence has always been music. I’m obsessed with how music hits you
emotionally without saying a word. That’s the kind of feeling I try to translate into my
photos.
I love imperfections, like when a jazz note bends off just a little, or a groove slips behind
the beat but still feels right.
That tension. That looseness. That’s the energy I try to bring into every frame.”
That’s why his photos look like paintings.
He edits like a composer. Thousands of shots become three or four final images, worked
on for hours, layer by layer, until the soul of the moment emerges.
“Editing gives the image a second life,” he explains.
“It’s where I can go deep, add meaning, shape the atmosphere. No outside pressure, no
noise. Just me, the photo, and time to feel it out.
And always, always with music on in the background. That’s a must.”
A Frankness Born of Friendship
(My truest thoughts about someone I now call my brother)
I’ve known Simon nearly as long as he’s been dancing with waves and chasing light.
Our friendship grew in those wordless spaces where silence isn’t awkward, it’s trust.
I watched him listen, really listen, to the quiet rhythms of our culture. He absorbed its
stories, its textures, its unsaid codes, and then distilled it all into tone poems.
His images don’t need signatures.
The lens he sees through is so unmistakably his, so singular in feel and tone, that it only
takes a glance to know: this is Simon.
And yet, in those wild, joy-saturated luminograms, I always see something more.
I see the way I, too, look at surfing.
Playful, honest, with the eyes of a child who still believes the ocean is magic.
That’s the gift.
His lens mirrors what we love most.
With love ( Or “your dear”)
Vovo