Derek Dunfee is probably most known for chasing waves that would scare the shit out of you. And us. And with all that chasing comes some incredible imagery and stories that he’s begun to share by printing them on paper in his zine Dekka. Vol. 1 came out last summer and with the release of Vol. 2 a few weeks away, we thought the timing perfect to flip through the pages of the first one for a refresher on what we can only hope to see more of in Vol. 2.

WHAT YOUTH: What is Dekka? What does it mean, whats the idea behind it and why in the hell are you putting things on paper instead of starting a tumblr?
Derek Dunfee: DEKKA is a nickname my aussie friend Gary ‘ruca banda’ gave me. DEKKA is also a zine I recently made that focused on big wave surfing culture from the past 10 years. Decca is latin for 10, so I named the whole project DEKKA, 10 years of big wave photography.

I had a real bad concussion a few years ago surfing big waves, and I was worried I was gonna start losing my memory so I started going through old hard drives and scanning old stuff.

For the most part I photographed a pretty underground scene. I like to shoot photos of big wave guys hanging out before and after surfing; a lot of the photos feel real personal to me , and looking back it was a very important time in big wave surfing. It was an easy decision to print DEKKA instead of putting it online or starting a tumblr. I don’t have a tumblr, and I don’t check that website. I printed the zine in hopes of it lasting longer and not getting lost on the internet. A lot of the photos in the zine haven’t been seen before, and I wanted to show my work in the best media; print. In terms of design, I had my artist friend Sketchytank, help with the layout and logos. He has a incredible artistic vision and we tried to make something different.

Give us some specs. What size is this thing, how many pages, how many did you print etc.
Volume 1 is 52 full color gloss pages, printed a run of 250. Volume 2 will be 60 full color gloss pages.

What differences should we expect, if any, in vol. 2?
Volume one covers North America, California, Hawaii, Cortez Bank, Todos Santos, Baja, The North Pacific. Volume two covers the rest of the world. South Africa, Puerto Escondido, Ireland, Fiji and a few other locations.

You’re also doing a photo show with the launch of the new issue. Tell us about that and were we can check it out.
Yes, I am really excited to launch the new issue in Costa mesa, California august 7th! With the help from WHAT YOUTH and CRAP, the show will be at:

Open House Creative
August 7, 7-10pm

Thanks to Travis, Scott, Tony and Holly for all the help with that.

What other zines, magazines, photographers are you looking to for inspiration for this?
For this project, I was inspired by a lot of surfers and photographers. My twin brother Taylors photo and art stuff, everything what youth does, Ive had a few shows with Julian Martin and brooks sterling recently, Sebastian from Dessillusion, Pete Taras, Thomas Campbell, Ed Templeton, Grant Brittain, Todd Glaser, Ben Grillo, Morgan Maasan, Russel Ord, Sketchytank, Rusty Long and Nolan Hall.

What are the top 5 websites you visit regularly?
Vice, What Youth, Stormsurf wave models, Desillusion, , Vimeo staff favorites, Thrasher. I don’t know, I’m all over the place.

Do you plan to keep going with these, Vol. 3 and so on? What’s the next step for Dekka?
YES! I am working on a few other fun zines, photo projects and videos. Always staying busy.