Focused on creating work that captures emotion and tells authentic stories in the outdoors. Specializing in action sports, outdoor adventure, and tourism.

Select clients: Patagonia, Outdoor Research, SR Suntour, Mountain Biking BC, Travel Northern BC, Tourism Comox, and SilverStar Mountain Resort.

Reach out via email and say hello!

Or give me a follow on my socials, linked below.

A smiling young man with a beard and short dark hair wearing a black cap and green t-shirt outdoors with a red rocky background.

Mathew Wanbon

Photographer

For over a decade, I was laser-focused on one goal: becoming a professional snowboarder. I poured everything into it. I filmed self-funded video parts, landed magazine features, and lived and breathed snowboard culture.

Today, I’m a freelance photographer focused on action sports and outdoor adventure, blending my background as an athlete, storytelling instincts, and technical skill to help brands create imagery that resonates deeply with their core audience.

This is how I got here:

In 2019, after creating the best video segment of my snowboarding career, something shifted. I realized that the dream of professional riding wasn’t my true north anymore. What followed was an identity crisis and a creative breakthrough.

I love mountain culture and could never leave it, but I needed to evolve within it.

I went back to university to study Creative Writing, and found a spark in my photography electives. When reviewing banger photos, I felt the same fire of progression I once felt while learning new tricks on a snowboard.

Fast forward to now, I am a full-time freelancer helping outdoor brands, tourism boards, and athletes tell raw, culture-driven stories that build trust and inspire connection.

Because I’ve lived this world, I don’t just show up and shoot. I bring an insider’s eye for timing, detail, and authenticity. Whether I’m pedalling my bike up kilometres of a dusty singletrack climb trail to capture an epic descent, splitboarding into the alpine at sunrise for fresh turns, hiking countless kilometres with a 50lb pack, or capturing the quiet moments around the campfire, I love putting in the effort to deliver images that feel real, gritty, and alive. The kind of images that resonate with core audiences who can smell inauthenticity from a mile away.

If you’re an outdoor brand, athlete, or tourism board looking for a photographer who understands the culture and knows how to tell meaningful stories through imagery, I’d love to connect.

A person riding a mountain bike in mid-air at night against a backdrop of the Northern Lights, with a landscape of trees and a dark sky.
Aerial view of a mountain valley with lush green forests and winding river rivers seen through an airplane window.
Four hikers hiking uphill on rocky terrain in a mountainous landscape with distant mountain ranges and sparse vegetation.
A white Toyota pickup truck parked on a gravel area in a forested mountain landscape with trees and mountains in the background.
A person in black wetsuit surfing on a wave in an overcast ocean with a forested shoreline in the background.