As winter gets a little closer every day, the ski magazines begin to hit the shelves again. Always an exciting time of year for me as I begin to see the fruits of my labor from last season. The first one I’m posting up here was just published in Powder Magazine (though Australian readers may have seen it a few months ago in some mags over there too). This is the first in a series of ads that I shot in the spring time for the ski resort Whistler Blackcomb. Some of you will recognize Whistler as one of the host resorts for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and many other will be very familiar with WB simply because it is one of the most famous ski resort in the world, and luckily for me also my home mountain.
The first thing that is different about this shot is that it was deliberately not shot on a day with particularly nice weather. Whistler Blackcomb along with their design agency Origin Design had decided that they wanted to achieve a different look this year from the regular bluebird powder day photos that normally fronted their campaigns. They decided to go with a black and white design and so we decided it would be better to shoot on a slightly cloudy day to try and get a bit more character in the sky. On top of the cloudy stipulation we also needed fresh snow on the trees to make the perfect shot. Getting these things to come together was a bit of luck but after a couple of false starts we got some promising looking weather. I shot the image using a Canon 5dMKII. I also had a Canon 1DMKIV with me as backup but the full frame 21MP sensor of the 5DMKII was the best choice for the job for a couple of reasons. Firstly we were shooting at the end of the day so the light levels were quite low and secondly when you are hanging out of the side of a helicopter you need to use a much higher shutter speed than you normally would for a landscape photo due to all the vibrations. The final exposure was 1/2000 , f10, ISO640. 640 is pretty high but necessary to get a fast shutter speed and enough DOF in the low light. The full frame sensor of the 5DMKII produces stunning images even at ISO640. The lens I chose was the Canon 24-105mm f4 L IS because I wanted versatility in my compositions. We had a number of ideas on how we would frame the shot, and when the side of the helicopter has no door, there is no room for messing about trying to change lenses; versatility was key so the 24-105 was perfect and had IS to help with the vibrations from the engine.
Canon 5dMKII , 24-105mm f4 IS, 1/200 f10 ISO640
This is another of my favorite images from the shoot that did not end up getting used.
Poorboyz Productions just dropped the trailer for their new movie REVOLVER. Along with the trailer they also released the DVD box art and I’m happy to say that the main image on the front of the box is one of my shots from my trip to Alaska this past spring time. The skier is Tim Durtchi and the photo was taken near Haines while we were up there with the awesome crew from Alaska Heliskiing. Tim skied a few turns down the face in the background and then launched a huge rodeo 720 off the wind-lip deep down into that shadowy area.
Apologies for the lack of updates in the last couple of week, it’s been busy times here in Whistler. Today I’d like to post some sequences that were shot last year for SBC Skier magazine here in Canada. The first four were to be used for “Trick Tips” , where a pro skier describes how someone would go about performing that trick. The fifth sequence was not shot for that purpose, but it was run as a double page spread so I thought I’d throw it in the mix too. For anyone wanting to know how to create a sequence photo in photoshop I did a video tutorial on this a while back which I will re-post at the bottom of this article. I might re-do this tutorial over the summer to upgrade it to an HD version so if there is anything you want clarification on please leave a comment below so that I can address it in the re-make!
A key rule for shooting a sequence is that you have to be able to see the skier (or snowboarder/biker/skateboarder) ride away cleanly from their trick. This is the first thing that I think about when I want to shoot a sequence. Which angle will allow me to see them ride away? A sequence without the ride away is totally pointless so always think about this first. People often ask if I use a tripod too and the answer is no. You don’t need to if you have a steady hand. Sometimes I will use a monopod if I happen to have one with me but mostly it is all hand held. You will also save yourself hours of photoshopping if you frame the shot to include the start and finish of the riders trick all in one shot. DON’T zoom in on the rider and pan the camera as you will have to spend hours lining up the backgrounds. If you know where the rider is going to take off, and where they are going to land, then frame your shot to include both those points. The advantage of not using a tripod is that if you miss judge the landing point and the rider goes a little bit further than you anticipated you can pan at the last second to make sure you get those landing frames. As I mentioned, you will incur a little extra photoshop time having to line up the backgrounds but at least you will still get the shot.
To make this post a little more interesting I thought I would make a short animation of the sequences using Final Cut. Each frame in the sequence is on a separate layer in the photoshop file so I turned them off in sequence and saved a JPEG of the resulting image and then put them all into Final Cut! CLICK CLICK CLICK!!
Before the 2010 Olympics kicked off in my home town of Whistler, BC, I was commissioned by the local arts council to produce a slideshow of some of my skiing images. The slideshow was played on TVs and giant screens around the Olympics during the breaks between events. Check it out below and click through to Vimeo if you want to watch it in HD.
Back in the spring time I was asked to shoot a campaign for Whistler Blackcomb. The ads were to center around the new Peak to Peak gondola that spans the gap between Whistler and Blackcomb and the first versions have now hit the news stands in Freeskier magazine and Transworld Snowboarding. We had some difficulties with the weather for these shoots and they were postponed multiple times but in the end it turned out really well.
On the left is Max Hill, on the right Mikey Pederson.
Just a quick post today. I did an interview for the skiing website Newschoolers.com. You can read it online HERE to find out how I got into all of this!
I got an e-mail this morning from Frank Raymond to say that I had the cover of the Skieur magazine in France. The photo was shot last winter in the Whistler backcountry with the Theory-3 crew while filming for their movie ” The Journal”. You can see another version of the shot from the magazine scan I posted from the Norweigen magazine yesterday. They are actually 2 different shots, I figured it would be nice to have a portrait and a landscape version of the shot so Joe did this trick a few times. It was a great day for shooting photos, the shot is actually taken shooting almost straight into the sun but there was a thin layer of cloud in front of it. It turned the whole alpine into a giant softbox so the highlights weren’t too harsh and I could still bring out detail in Joe even though he was backlit. Shot with a Canon 1dMKIIN, 70-200 2.8 L IS at 90mm , 1/1000, f8.0 ISO 200.
The annual ski industry trade show, SIA, has been and gone in Las Vegas last week. I wasn’t there myself but here is a few photos of some of my photos that were used at the show in various booths. All the original shots were taken with the 8 megapixel Canon 1DMKIIN. So if you every wandered how big you could blow up these photos , check it out!
A couple of months ago I was interviewed by a writer from the UpDown Magazine. A Canadian magazine available in Montreal,Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary areas that explores the arts and culture of life on the snow.Â
These were the photos that were also featured in the magazine:
Ski And Snow is the largest snow sports magazine in the southern hemisphere and this winter then ran an 8 page article and photo gallery about me and my photography. Check it out! I’m stoked and obviously very flattered, it looked fantastic. As an added bonus I also had the cover of the very same issue with a shot of Jossi Wells at Snowpark in New Zealand.
As winter gets a little closer every day, the ski magazines begin to hit the shelves again. Always an exciting time of year for me as I begin to see the fruits of my labor from last season. The first one I’m posting up here was just published in Powder Magazine (though Australian readers may have seen it a few months ago in some mags over there too). This is the first in a series of ads that I shot in the spring time for the ski resort Whistler Blackcomb. Some of you will recognize Whistler as one of the host resorts for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and many other will be very familiar with WB simply because it is one of the most famous ski resort in the world, and luckily for me also my home mountain.
Recent Comments