Who is Garrett James?
Garrett James is a twenty-nine year old photographer born and raised in Surrey, British Columbia.
Garrett was introduced to the world of media arts when he was in Grade 6 after attending a South Surrey Eagles game vs. the Prince George Spruce Kings. His brother, Damon (who was in Grade 8 at the time) suggested that the two of them should try videoing the games and creating highlight packages. This kept the two of them busy for the next four years, until the 2007 BCHL Season where they produced the BCHL All-Star game highlight package, which featured current NHL players such as : Tyler Bozak, Matt Irwin, Kyle Turris & Riley Nash.
That same year, Garrett began his venture into the world of photography. He started off with his family's Canon 30D and an old used Canon 80-200. Garrett started off shooting at the South Surrey Arena (Home of the Surrey Eagles) and eventually progressed to the George Preston Recreation Centre (Home of the former Langley Hornets & Chiefs), and the occasional trip out to Bill Copeland to see the Burnaby Express play.
After a little while, Garrett began shooting for the British Columbia Hockey League, and supplying the league with photos from each game he attended. This slowly progressed into supplying the local Surrey Eagles & Langley Chiefs with promotional images and eventually the player card pictures for the Langley Chiefs.
In the winter of 2008, Garrett was fortunate enough to travel to Port Alberni for the U-17 Hockey Championship which took place at the Weyerhauser Arena and featured young stars like : Russia's Evgeny Kuznetsov, Canada's Kevin Sundher & Finland's Sami Aittokallo.
After that great experience, Garrett went on to photograph the Women's U-18 at South Surrey Arena that November which eventually lead him to the RBC Cup in Victoria the following Spring.
Prior to the 2010 Olympics, Garrett had the tremendous opportuntity to capture an Olympic Exhibition game between the Russian & Slovak Women's National Hockey teams. However, during the two weeks of the 2010 Olympics, Garrett photographed the Surrey Celebration Site for one of the Local Newspapers and photographed some up and coming bands like :
Mother Mother
Hey Ocean
The Arkellis
Dan Mangan
Marianas Trench
Since then, Garrett has been the team photographer for :
The Vancouver Stealth (National Lacrosse League)
Burnaby Lakers (Western Lacrosse Association)
Coquitlam Adanacs (Western Lacrosse Association)
Coquitlam Express (BCHL)
Langley Rivermen (BCHL)
Surrey Eagles (BCHL)
Major Sporting Events Garrett has photographed are :
2012 Western Canada Cup - Nanaimo
2016 CJHL Prospects Game - Surrey
2017 Western Canada Cup - Penticton
2019 World Lacrosse Championship
2022 World U-17 Championship Langey
2018-2022 BC High School Basketball Championship
He has continued photographing the BCHL to this day, and is currently heading in his 17th season shooting the British Columbia Hockey League.
