Agustin Muñoz Captures Costa Rica’s Heart Living Behind The Lens

On a balmy Saturday morning in Playa Hermosa just north of “the Tree” or “El Arbol,” on a glassy day with head high waves you can spot Agustin Muñoz just inside the break. He isn’t one of the surfers and you might miss him, but he is capturing high performance shots of Carlos Muñoz, perhaps Costa Rica’s finest and most well known competitor. Back from a trip to Asia and Europe, where he attended the prestigious Photokina exhibition, then a quick adventure to the crater of Volcano Turrialba, Agustin is stoked to get back in the water.

(On Volcano Turrialba)

“I feel it’s like the ocean, because sets come. You feel them a lot. There will be a very strong explosion, and then there’s a calm.”

Agustin Muñoz drove to Costa Rica eighteen years ago with two friends in an ‘86 4 x 4 from Asheville, North Carolina, a place where he worked as an arborist and learned English for almost two years. They stopped at surfing spots all the way down. “I used to live and work in Buenos Aires where surfing would be for fifteen days on vacation, then back to work. I thought ‘I want to live next to the waves and I can vacation in the city. And that’s what I’ve been doing,’” he says with a smile. Once in Costa Rica, he never left. Pursuing a dual passion for the ocean and photography, Agustin hustled with his energy and talents from the ground up, learning and earning respect within the surf industry from the beginning.

Today, Agustin is considered by many to be the best photographer in Costa Rica. He works for Red Bull and has done photos for Rip curl, Volcom, Adidas among others, and videos for the musical group Ojo de Buey.  He has been called a drone wizard.  Constantly seeking out new trends and the best photographers in the world to improve his own level, Agustin’s talent has transported him all over the globe.

Ultimately, it is Costa Rica where he makes his home in Playa Hermosa, which is also his favorite surf spot. “When it gets big, big there is not many people out. Maybe five surfers.” Equally stoked to be underneath the ocean, the energetic Agustin recently joined Sharkwater’s mission fueled by Costa Rica’s non profit organization Crema, to help save sharks and turtles. He spent a week traveling from Puntarenas to Nicaragua along the coast for seven days with other supporters, making three dives a day.

Here are excerpts from our interview at Vida Hermosa.

I learned photography basically from my father. He used to be a reporter for two years, before I was born and was a real aficionado of photography. There was always four or five different manual cameras in the house. I used those cameras to learn photography at a young age. I got my first film camera, a Nikon, when I went to the United States.

In Costa Rica I wanted to work with film and took photos for Neil of Kayak Jaco. When digital photography started I got my first digital camera which was a Vivitar, 1.3 megapixels and 2X zoom, imagine that. I started surf lessons with that camera. Then, I switched to a 2.5 megapixel with a 3X zoom; with that I could only shoot up to my knees, jumping the waves. I would make cds from my photos at the old copy center in town, called “Mexican Joes.” Then I’d go back to the clients, to the hotels where they were staying. They always bought the CDs. (Smiles)

I was the first one shooting lessons here. It’s a business now.

Eventually, I was invited to Isla Uvita to shoot Nino Myrie and the Caribbean boys. I had to bring my own equipment. I used all my savings to buy a $300 lens, it was all I had at that moment. We were out in the boat, just me and a surfer who was sleeping. Suddenly I spotted a ghost wave coming, a very big wave. I had no water housing then. I woke him up and we cranked the boat, going up, up, up the face of the wave. We went over the other side, the boat landed, and my body was separated from the boat. When I landed, my lens smashed the edge of the boat and fell in the water. That was the end of the trip, first day. (Laughs)  But I got two shots that they published on Surfos (the local surf magazine at that time.)

So at the beginning it was tough, it was so tough.

Consequently, Agustin’s photos got noticed more and more. He started getting assignments that took him to Europe and was working hard for Red Bull. Eventually, FujiFilm became a sponsor, allowing Agustin to have the best equipment.

“The thing with Extreme Sports Photography, they only do it once. One jump, for example. You either get it or you don’t. I love it! It’s so stressful.”

“The wave is coming for miles and miles and at the end when it bends and it’s going to finish, i get it. I just freeze that moment. Every wave is unique; that’s one of the things I admire most about the sport of surfing”

It was about eight years ago in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. It wasn’t that big, the day I almost drowned. I was shooting a surfer for Red Bull. The thing about that place, it’s a solid wave and has a lot of current that always goes to the inside of the bay. There’s a spot where it gets heavy close to the sand that they call rompecocos.  The sand going down to the water is very vertical, more than Hermosa. If you want to get out of the water, you get sucked back in and the waves break on your head. Non stop. Sometimes it moves you along the coast until you get a big reef. The big sets started hitting me, not three or four waves sets, like here, but twelve wave sets one after the other. I started getting water in my lungs. I would stick my head up and breathe or cough and another big set was coming.  I remember trying to duck dive in and got hit in my kidneys, which released all my air out. I couldn’t breathe. At that moment I totally surrendered. I actually started to relax. I felt a very hot sensation in my head and burning through my face. That was the moment I believed I was done. Somehow I woke up in the sand.  My friend, the other Land photographer, was looking for me and saw me from 500 meters away, through his telephoto lens. He saw people dragging me up the beach. I woke up so tired. It was a body boarder who took me from the water who saw me floating, not breathing. He said I coughed up water and right after that I started snoring (laughs). They let me sleep. Then my friend woke me up. That was the gnarliest experience I ever had.

Through photography, I open other people’s eyes. I love when people tell me that I put them somewhere. So many people write me, friends and just people that know me through social media. People send me screenshots and say you dragged me

 to that place with your images. Sometimes I know who is going to like what kind of images, and I know which person it’s going to appeal to.