Author: timothy_lloyd

 Behind the shot is a new addition to this blog and is something i’m really looking forward to constructing. With a back catalogue full of interesting images, i’m hoping to provide a little visual stimulation in this weekly blog offering.The first image in this series dates back two years ago, to the beginning of the 2012 winter season. For the last three years now i’ve made the trip in October over to Annecy for the IF3 Freeski Film Festival. This year was no different and I was sat with cinematographer Kyle Decker while Swedish skier Niklas Eriksson pitched the idea of a early season trip to Sweden.A few years ago, city big air events were all the rage. They’re a dying breed now but i’ve attended many, including London, Barcelona (where I had all of my camera gear stolen), Zurich, Innsbruck, Denver and Sapporo. A Stockholm event proved to be rather fortuitous for me as I was able to plan to shoot that event for ESPN which would then fund a two week trip on the back of it. Sweden was on.This was a Level 1 Productions trip, so we were joined by two additional skiers: American Will Wesson and Norwegian Sig Tveit. Despite it being absolutely freezing in Stockholm, there wasn’t actually any snow around so we knew that we had to head North. The truth is, there wasn’t really any snow anywhere. Reaching Åre, Niklas’s home town, we knew that we’d have to head higher – much higher.In truth, we ended up 1300kms north of Stockholm in the mining town of Kiruna. If you know your geography then you’ll be aware that Kiruna lies 140km north of the Arctic Circle. A little additional knowledge was handed to us every time we spoke to a resident – literally every time. “You know they’re moving the town” people would say to us. Again and again and again the same sentence would crop up. And they’re right. The town is quite literally being picked up and moved 3kms East of its current location. Building by building it will all be moved until all 18,000 residents have settled in their new, albeit very similar, habitat.Kiruna was a dud. Checking out the Northern lights followed by a kebab and a night out lead to sore heads the following morning as we packed the cars and started to head South. 20 minutes out of the city we passed the sign for the Jukkasjärvi Ice Hotel and drove straight by. A brief conversation followed where we discussed whether we should, “being in The Arctic and all”, actually go and check it out.The decision to turn around was one of the best of the trip (admittedly we should never have driven past in the first place). The Jukkasjärvi Ice Hotel has become a bit of an institution in this part of the world, having now operated for 23 years. Each year a team come together to make this amazing place, with each room based on the vision of individual designers.Luckily for us we arrived about 3 weeks before opening and we were met with open arms by the marketing team there. Having sat down with them and shown them what we’d been photographing throughout the trip, they were more than happy to move ice blocks for us so we could make a scene. “Just don’t shoot any porno” was their only request!The setting of the image itself wasn’t really for filming. Yes it was at a very unique location, but the actual ice block itself was a little on the small side to get too creative on. With us shooting at 5pm (which at this time of the year falls during the middle of the night), i really wanted to focus on Niklas as some of the stuff he was working on. I actually thought that Will Wesson was a bit too tall for this feature and wasn’t convinced that he could make it work. Side note – Will actually went on to get a cover shot from this feature, although it was much doctored by the magazines designers, with the scene being flipped and a certain sponsor logo made more apparent. Not quite how i envisaged it.This shot, on the other hand, embodies the trip for me. The addition of Kyle filming while being pushed by Niklas on a traditional Swedish “Spark” makes the image almost fit into the lifestyle category. Despite the never ending darkness, complete lack of snow and somewhat week terrain options, this trip still sits fondly as one of my most memorable. I’ve got a portfolio documenting this trip over on the projects section of my site. Check it out if you’ve got five minutes to look through.The scene is completely backlit by 4 speedlights. 70-200m lens, f8, 1/200sec, ISO 640.You can view more of my ‘behind the shot’ series here.