Scott Markewitz

Scott Markewitz is The Cover King--with over 400 covers and growing he is, perhaps, the most decorated photographer in the history of skiing. Now 51, the living legend shows no signs of slowing down.

How do you measure success as a ski photographer? Money is good, of course. And a nice house in a cool place. Two downstream outcomes usually traced to a glut of published photos upstream. Salt Lake City resident Scott Markewitz can certainly claim both, with a swank Immigration Canyon aerie and a name recognized the world over. And while testament both to his prowess and the kind of market penetration today’s young shooters can only dream of (a statistics-minded friend once counted 56 of his photos in a single issue of Powder), Markewitz also occupies another apogee of success as the acknowledged King of Covers. Like any first-time visitor to his home/office over the past two decades, I was bowled over in 1997 by his infamous “Wall of Shame” of newsstand mounts, hundreds strong. When he moved his office downtown in 2011, it meant finally consigning the cover parade to storage and ceasing its tedious enumeration.

“There were over 400 last time I checked — maybe 420 now,” the chiseled, bushy-browed 51-year-old cackles sardonically over the phone.

And while skiers wink knowingly at this auspicious total, few are aware of its ultimate irony. For Scott Markewitz is as pure as the driven snow, a longtime vegetarian who neither drinks nor drugs, whose dedication to French-born wife Veronique and 8 year-old son, Julien, is a model of domestic stability in skiing’s heaving sea of fractured relationships — of which he himself is a product...Subscribe to get your own copy of The Ski Journal.