random goodies

So here are a couple more shots I like

The aerial ones are just above Squamish near Paradise Valley,

The bride is from a wedding photography seminar I attended in Banff this past april

Good times!

I've decided to get away from using too many words here as I'm not much of a "blogger", but instead post some photos up that I like.

that's my sister paragliding above pemberton

the bridge river glacier near bralorne bc

so sorry!

Well since the time of my last post I've been able to go from barely walking to little jumps on my snowmobile.

It feels so good to be able to walk again.  Still a bit limited in my range but spent a day up at birkenhead lake, and then even venture snowmobiling.

here's a pic from the sled ride yesterday

Follow in T-man's shadows

Today I'm going to feature some night shots of Tadashi Fuse from last winter.  We've talked about a couple conceptual shoots before but this was the first time we acted on it.

The game plan was to head up in the early afternoon and scout stuff that would look good at night and was easy to haul a generator and a bunch of lights to.  It was sort of weird heading up so late compared to every other crew that was heading down as we were coming up.  There were sure some strange stares!

The first thing we ended up shooting was this crail through the trees.  I was getting giddy as a school girl because of the fog, but by the time the riding came the fog had cleared.

Taking some test shots I still thought it would look good.  It's sort of funny though, I'm always super critical of my best shots and often think they're mediocre.  In my previous post about Andrew Burns, I wasn't really confident in the shot until people started saying it was actually pretty good.  The same goes for this shot.  It was supposed to be Future Snowboarding's 4th issue cover but unfortunately their doors closed before they could get any issues out for their 4th volume.

The next shot is of Keiji.  He's one of the nicest little guys from Japan you'll ever meet.  Very friendly and always easy to work with!

For this shot we had some video lighting pretty close to where Tadashi was slashing so I decided to experiment a bit and see if I could get some of the orange to show up on his spray.  After a couple guesstimates of the right shutter speed I found the one I was stoked on.

The last shot is Tadashi in all his glory.  I believe he just biffed this nice pillow line and was a bit upset with himself.  He takes his performance very seriously and sometimes you see the true passion he has.  Never content.

This wraps things up for today, stop by vimeo to take a look at a promo video I made.  Password is: kirby

Follow Marky Mark Sollors

Mark's a real nice guy.  One of the nicer guys and non-egotistical snowboarders out there.  Hungry to make it in the shred world, he'll work hard every chance he gets to log footy and snap photos.

I first met Mark shooting with the Sandbox crew 2 years ago in our beloved Whistler Backcountry.  It was a rare stretch in March where we had about 5 sunny days in a row around here.  So being a bunch of keeners we headed up everyday at 6 am until Mother Nature.

The first couple shots are some nice jumps Mark decided he wanted to hit.  No one else was really into them, but Mark figured they would be worth the effort and ended up building them mostly by himself.

If memory serves me correct he hit each jump twice and landed, Back 5, Back 7, Back 1, and another Back 7.  Not bad if you ask me, 4/4 is pretty good for a single day!  

Anyhow the shot I've decided to feature is one I took of Mark last March after I had returned from a Heart Films trip in Japan.  I was a wee bit jet legged, but looking at the forecast in Sicamous, some adrenaline kicked in and I was ready to hit the road the next day.

We spent this day preparing a couple jumps and scouting some as it was partially cloudy but with some nice windows of light.  While Christopher Columbus-ing around we found this cool section of snow-ghosts.  

Mark did his thing patting down a quick take off and I scouted for some angles.  I tend to shoot more long lens the majority of the time, but was adamant I start mixing up my lens choices on this trip.  So I busted out my trusty fish eye and walked around trying to find a good angle.  The more I walked closer the better it was looking in my mind.  When I brought the camera to my face I knew this was the angle for the shot.  

jk

Follow in Mikey's footsteps

So for today's feature I've decided to feature Mikey Rencz.  

Don't have much to write about this guy other than he's got mad style.  Definitely one of the most stylish riders in the backcountry these days, often opting to throw a lofty front 5 over the ballerina moves.  This type of riding makes for much better photos.

The first two shots are from a trip to Idaho before I busted myself.  We had 4 pretty sunny days with okay snow.  It was a bit shallow, and landings were hard to come by but luckily we found some that made the 12 hour drive worthwhile.

mikey getting ready to strap in

catchin some air time

The shot I've got of Mikey that I really like is this lofty front 5 from a trip last year to Revelstoke with the Burton crew.  Mikey, Sollors, DCP, and Anthony and Benji made for a good week in town.  This shot is closer towards the end of the day of our last actual shooting day.  We dubbed this ridge the Revelstoke hollywood mainly because of it's million possibilities for take-offs and landings.  I'm really stoked on this shot mainly because of how Mikey managed to frame himself between that little hole in the trees and his buttery smooth style.

jk

Tadashi Fuse, Follow in his footsteps

Sorry for the lack of any updates.  I went on a mountain retreat in the far off distant town of Cache Creek BC.  Unfortunately the place I was staying at is pretty much off the grid and has variable dial-up access at best.

The mountain retreat helped with relaxing the ankle and assisted in it's healing.  Below is the x-ray from my most recent check up.  Physio starts in 1 more week, and then hopefully after 6 more weeks I'll be back to walking without crutches.  

This installment features non other than my favourite little man, all the way from Japan..... Tadashi Fuse.  This little guy is a machine.  From sunrise to sunset he goes non stop jumping off and riding anything in sight. 

 

Tadashi is by far my favourite rider to shoot with.  Instead of following the herds of cows off to cheese-wedgeland, he prefers to ride a bit more off the beaten path and ride the terrain as it is presented to him.  

The shot below is from an early Christmas session up the Rutherford valley.  Instead of heading directly up to the alpine, we decided to take advantage of the quality snow at lower elevations and pillage everything in sight as if we were wild powder pillow junkies.  I like this mainly because of its naturalness and also because of Tadashi's ollie style.  More like Nico, less rider-in-a-box.

Anyhow, that's all for now.  Take care and play safe!

jk