I’m becoming very very familiar with the interior of the hotel room in which I’m currently sitting. The front door is a portal to the 1970s, wood paneled walls that creak in the night, vinyl flooring and a selection of electrical appliances that would make an interesting museum exhibit. They call it the “slow roast” here in Haines, Alaska, and nobody knows how long it will last. When I first arrived in town 2 weeks ago the skies were blue for a couple of days and we got right into it. But since then our fortune has changed. We have flown for 1 run in the last 7 days….. and its beginning to drive us insane. The weather patterns seem totally unpredictable, even by the most seasoned of Alaskan forecasters. We have given up even checking on them, the only way to go is to look out of the window.
A few months ago I got a call from Salomon asking if I would like to be part of a trip to Japan in February. The crew would be Sammy Carlson, Dane Tudor and Mike Henitiuk along with filmers from Salomon and also Poorboyz Productions. I was stoked! Japan was right up there on the list of places I wanted to go and I knew the proposed crew for the trip would be a good one….
It’s been a bit quiet on the blog in the last week as I have been hard at work. Winter is in full force here in British Columbia and that means i’m busy every day with one thing or another. Last weekend I headed north to the remote township of Bralorne. Bralorne is an old gold mining town high up in the mountains north of Whistler. At this time of year the best way to get there is with a snowmobile and a 2 hour sled up the Hurley pass from Pemberton meadows. In the middle of the winter the area has some phenomenal skiing but right now it’s not quite deep enough. I haven’t spent a lot of time up there before so this was an exploratory mission to get a feeling for the place and start to learn some of surrounding mountains. I have a love/hate relationship with snowmobiles. They allow you to access incredible terrain, but they are expensive and incredibly unreliable. On the first day of the trip a buddy of mine had a problem that was to plague us for the rest of the trip. Eventually his sled broke down completely at the top of Green Mountain and whilst towing him out in the dark ( it was also about -15 celcius) his foot got stuck in the foot-well as he got bucked from his sled tearing the ligaments in his knee….. not so cool. Eventually we got him back to Bralorne on the front of another sled, and back to civilization in Whistler the following day.
Back at home in Whistler I got a call from Jeff Thomas or Poorboyz. He was just getting into town with Tim Durtchi to go sledding for a few days. The following day was far to stormy to sled so we headed up Whistler Blackcomb with Brandon Kelly and Tim. The snow was DEEP but the weather was stormy so we headed into the trees and hiked around for a few hours. Next day the weather wasn’t much better but we decided to head up Rainbow mountain on our sleds for a few tree laps to find some pillows. Snow was great, bit heavy but Tim got a couple of cool shots. Brandon’s sled broke down in the parking lot so unfortunately he didn’t make it up (remember what I was saying about snowmobiles?). The following day we headed back up to the same area, temperatures had gone up though and throughout the day the snow got heavier and heavier. We spent a couple of hours building a jump but by the time it was finished, the snow on the in-run was so wet and sticky that there wasn’t enough speed to hit it. We were all soaked to the skin and freezing cold from water blowing off the nearby trees so we called it a day. And that’s where i’m at ! A day off the mountains to catch up on some office work. Hopefully next week brings a bit more sunshine!
A couple of quick photography related thoughts:
- My insurance company got me another Canon S90 after mine was stolen in Mexico. I LOVE this thing, there’s a couple of snaps in the gallery below. Something i have noticed though, when shooting in RAW, the embedded JPEG that is displayed on the screen has a heavy noise reduction applied to it. ISO performance is great, but the on screen JPEG tricked me into thinking it was slightly better than it actually was.
- The last few stormy days in Whistler I have been shooting with the Canon 7d. The weather sealing on this camera is clearly very very good, I have drenched this camera all day long covered in rain and snow with nothing covering it and it still keeps ticking. It’s nice to know I don’t have to baby this thing too much.
- It wasn’t really possible to take a laptop to Bralorne so I took my Colorspace UDMA with me for photo backup duty. Despite temperatures getting down to -15 Celsius is worked just fine!
I’ve seen similar post on a couple of other photographers blogs before and always found them to be interesting and useful. When heading off on a long trip it can be tough to figure out how much gear to take and in what combination. On my recent trip I had to do just about every type of ski photography you can imagine. Backcountry skiing, heli skiing, daytime and night time park shooting, product shooting and portraiture. I was trying to accomplish this with only 2 pieces of checked in baggage (32KG each) and one piece of hand baggage and that was a struggle.
Predictably I took too much with me. Some of the gear stayed unused in my bag so here is a few notes in no particular order:
Think Tank Airport International: This is the bag I used to take my cameras and lenses on the plane. You can fit a huge amount of gear in this. Fully loaded with 8 lenses, 2 cameras and other miscellaneous trinkets it weighed in at 20kg but its dimensions are designed to make it legal carry on size. Unfortunately the weigh limit for carry on on air New Zealand was 7kg. My carry on is always over the limit so that’s no surprise. I just do the old trick of taking it all out and hanging cameras round your neck with lenses in your pocket. What did become a problem though is that this bag weighs 6KG when its empty….. leaving you with only 1 solitary KG of gear to be allowed in the bag should it get weighed by the “jobsworths” at the gate. Certainly worth consideration. Rolling cases are great for your back but I hadn’t appreciated how much the empty bag weighed until it was pointed out to me by my friendly gate agent.
Canon 45mm T/S: A new purchase just before I left and first impressions are great. It’s a little softer at f2.8 but by f3.5 is nice and sharp as long as you nail the focus, which is manual only. This thing was absolutely awesome for some of the product photography I had to do for a catalog. Total control of the plane of focus allowed me to control exactly which elements of the product you were drawn to in the photos. Manual focus was not a problem when combined with live view on the 5dMKII. I also found myself reaching for this lens for full length portraits too instead of my 50mm lens. In fact my 50mm lens did not get touched once on the whole trip. Played with the lens a little bit for action shots too, novelty value is there but could get old pretty quickly.
Elinchrom Ranger: Apart from the traveling problems I experienced with this, it worked flawlessly as usual and I used it nearly every day for product shots , portraits or action. Taking this with me on a trip is a no-brainer. One decision that I did make before I left was to only take metallic reflectors with me and leave other light modifiers behind such as softboxes. I had no problems with this, the light quality from the ranger with a bare bulb is beautiful and it did the job admirably. I took the huge sports reflector with me but found that I could have easily coped with the smaller standard reflector and the medium sized one with a 20 degree grid.
Support: 1 tripod, 1 monopod, large 12ft lightstand, 4ft lightstand and a manfrotto magic arm. I could have left the monopod at home, only used it a couple of times. I took it to use shooting some pipe but in the end i could have accomplished the same thing with the 4ft lightstand. The magic arm didn’t get used more than once but i’d still take that with me. I find that when i need that thing, there is nothing else that will do the job and it’s saved me a few times in the past. I ditched the regular sized super clamp this time and just took the new nano clamp to go on the end of it but this was a mistake. It is not strong enough to support a 1 series camera and I snapped off the end of a spigot inside one of the threaded holes on the clamp. Next time I will take the super clamp too and just keep the nano for holding small flashes.
Long lenses: I had my 300mm lens with me but I was surprised how little I actually used it. When sledding in the BC backcountry I use it all the time but I could probably have left it behind this time. To save a little weight one day I took my 1.4 teleconverter with me and my 70-200 f4 L IS. I had never used this combination before, not since I sold my 70-200 f2.8IS. With the 2.8 version of the lens I was never happy with the 1.4x, in fact I hated it. However this time, with the 70-200 f4 IS I was amazed at the quality! With the old 2.8 lens you could tell from a mile off which shots had been taken with the teleconverter, but this time, with the f4 lens I actually had to check the EXIF data most times to figure it out!! You need to stop it down a tiny bit, but overall I was very impressed by it and wouldn’t hesitate to use it again.
Small Flashes: I took 4 Nikon SB-80DXs with me. I could have easily managed with just 2 of them
Pockewizards: I gave the TT1 transmitter one last try but the only time i tried to use it, it failed to learn the channel I needed it to and then I couldn’t get it to transmit at all. Still total junk. All my old plus IIs and multimaxes were just fine though.
Pelican 1610: This is the case that I pack my flash gear into. Before I bought the case I studied the specs on several cases. The trick is to get a case that gives you a good volume to weight ratio. Some of the larger cases are so heavy even when they are empty that it leaves you very little allowance to put gear in before you max out at the 32KG limit enforced by airlines. The 1610, packed with a ranger system including a spare battery, 4 pocketwizards, 4 small flashes, and a couple of small light stands weighs in at exactly 32KG. The Ranger head and the battery pack are packed into modular inserts made by F-Stop.
Eventually winter comes to an end in Whistler. Last day of summer camps on Blackcomb glacier were mid way through July and with temperatures in the mid 30s every day I needed to get back to a cooler climate.
I flew direct from Vancouver to Auckland on a new service from Air New Zealand and I have to say that they are just about the best airline I have ever flown with. Though it does help the that booking agent was an action sports photo fan and kindly hooked me up with a bulkhead seat so I could stretch out.
Of course I went through all the usual problems trying to get my bags within the weight limits but eventually after I had tossed a ton of non-essential items (clothes) out at the check in desk I sneaked everything into 2 bags at 32KG each. One pelican 1610 hard case full of flash equipment and F-stop bags and my huge DaKine ski roller bag which held a pair of skis, ski boots, light stands and a small amount of clothing.
The rest of my camera equipment travels with me as carry on in a Think Tank Airport International roller case. I think the weight limit for carry on was about 7kg but my bag weighed at least 25kg. No questions asked on the first flight but I did hear the dreaded words ” excuse me sir, can you just put that bag on the scales for me” when I was boarding my connection from Auckland to Queenstown. Busted.
Always have a backup plan! No matter what the weather is I always fly with my ski jacket under my arm. It has HUGE pockets and if the worst happens, I can put a lot of lenses in the pockets. I slung my 300mm and my 1dMKIIN around my neck, my 70-200 on my 5dMKII over my shoulder and the rest of my lenses went in my jacket pockets. The flight attendants were scratching their heads as I did this and they still made me check the Think Tank roller into the aircraft hold, but at least all the important stuff was with me. Of course I looked rediculous boarding the plane, especially as I was the last one on by this time and it opened the floodgates to the usual questions….. ohhhhh how much does that lens cost, can you see the moon with that thing, your job must be very easy with such a nice camera etc etc C’est la vie.
Once arrived I took a couple of days to chill out in Wanaka. Every time I go to that town I am stunned by it’s beauty. Simply breathtaking scenery but I didnt have much time to spare. A quick day catching up with friends and then on the road north to Christchurch to meet up with the Atomic ski team for a 10 day shoot for their 2011 catalog….. stay tuned for chapter 2 later in the week.
The lack of updates over the last few weeks might lead you to believe that I have been off adventuring round the world chasing snow storms….not quite.
It’s been a strange winter here in British Columbia. The snow didn’t really come in November and December leaving the mountains still looking like mountain bike resorts. A lot of my plans went down the plughole and I was left twiddling my thumbs for a few 
weeks. Then on December 26th Vancouver received nearly 60cm of snow (though nearby Whistler got only a couple of inches). With more snow than Vancouver had ever seen I quickly organized a trip down there to meet up with the Poorboyz crew and we hit some rails for a few days with Mike Henitiuk, Matt Margetts and Leigh Powis. When a city that normally doesnt get any snow, receives nearly 2 feet, the place comes to a standstill. Jeff Thomas met me at his house in North Vancouver by coming down his road on his snowmobile…..
As soon as that trip was done I headed back to Whistler for the Deep Winter photo challenge that I wrote about last week. After the Deep Winter I headed back down to Vancouver for a shoot at Grouse Mountain which saw the beginning of another strage weather pattern. As we arrived at Grouse it looked like the day was going to be foggy and overcast but a quick trip up the gondola quickly showed that the temperatures were inverted and the top of the mountain was bathed in a beautiful orange glow as the sun rose above the cloud layer. This inverted weather pattern stayed around for the next 10 days though bringing unseasonally high temperatures to the alpine regions while the valleys hovered around 0. Up in whistler the temperature in the alpine shot up to a high of 10 degrees and stayed there for the week. The already thin snowpack was melting away…….
Booter shooting in whistler from Dan Carr on Vimeo.
With no real powder to ski anywhere I spent the week building backcountry jumps with the PBP crew. We discovered that the snow on some West facing aspects was still soft enough to land on once you punched through a thin crust so we built a collections of step downs, hips and gap jumps with Anthony Boronowski, Charley Ager, Brandon Kelly, 
Dane Tudor and Riley Leboe as they work on the new Poorboyz movie to be called………. well I cant tell you that yet but wait until the SIA trade show in Las Vegas next week and all will be revealed. For now though the inversion has dispersed and the slush has turned to Ice but at least that finally gave me some time to do an update!
The day that this town has been waiting for finally arrived. I’m going to keep this post short, it speaks for itself. Were the conditions great up there? No , far from it. Was it great to be back on skis? Ohhhhh yes. Judging by the height of the snow pack , we are still a couple or three weeks from being ready to get go filming and shooting round here but it’s on its way. The new Peak to Peak gondola system is an incredible feat of engineering and I will be attending the official opening on December 12th. The new gondola station for it on Whistler is almost as large as the restaurant complex!
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