I feel lucky to have an association with the Freeride World Tour. This season has been my third year working alongside the team, with a number of great relationships being formed along the way. Over the past year my workload has switched over to the junior Freeride Tour which runs parallel to the main event. Don’t be fooled by the name though. Despite them being classed as juniors, some of the skiing i’ve witnessed by them simply blows my mind.Verbier is the final showdown on the tour and like almost every event this season it was disrupted due to the weather. The juniors event went off without a hitch just over a week ago, freeing up my schedule for the main event that was postponed until this Saturday. I’d received an interesting commission from ESPN to shoot finish line portraits, keeping my back firmly turned to the action that was unrolling. With some of the riders crashing out and others elated with their results, there was a mixed bag of emotions shown in the above images.This marks the start of the end in terms of the 2013/2014 winter. Maybe it will be remembered as the winter of discontent by many. Sure it was a challenging one but productive nonetheless. With the changing of the clocks and the lengthening days i really can’t wait now for summer.
Tag: Freeride World Tour
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Freeride World Tour Portraits
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Behind The Shot: Backcountry Hikers
Just before the Christmas break I spent a lot of time working with this image of backcountry hikers having received a commission to produce it into a large format, aluminium mounted print. A whole day was spent fretting about the quality of the shot, with any Photoshop imperfections ready to jump out and ruin the effect. The photo features in an experimental series that i hadn’t envisioned printing when i originally constructed them. Having carefully worked my way inch by inch across the image, I then paired myself with a very talented Geneva based printer who brought this abstract piece to life.
And now onto behind the shot:
One of the great things about working as a photographer on the Freeride World Tour is having the ability to witness the unique changes in the surrounding landscape as the tour comes through a resort. When watching the live stream of the event, or admiring a great action image it’s easy to assume that these skiers and snowboarders are simply dropped off by helicopter before getting ready to start their run. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course, some events are exceptions that feature helicopters taxiing the athletes, but hiking is the expected norm. It’s worth considering that for a second: these athletes have to hike with all of their gear across some precarious looking terrain for up to 2 hours before starting their event. There’s not many sports where this would ever happen, although it’s fun to imagine professional footballers walking 10km to the stadium already in their boots ready for the game.
I’ve always wanted to work on an image where the action is removed from its context, although a ski related image can prove to be a risky move. The ski industry has a steadfast belief that context is king. In most ski images the surrounding landscape is what gives the viewer the perception of a scene. For example, if a skier hits a jump then its common practice to include both the takeoff and the landing in the image, allowing us to get a sense of size. This is why i love removing these hikers from their context. Even though the landscape has been peeled back, the viewer can still paint a picture of what it’s like around them. There’s a sense of uniformity amongst the hikers as they all follow a boot pack towards the summit, creating a pattern that worked its way across my viewfinder. On this particular day the athletes were hiking up the infamous face of the Bec des Rosses, but removing them from context places them wherever the viewer wants them to be.
Capturing the image was only one part of the finished article. A large amount of time was also spent removing the background whilst trying to remain faithful to the original photograph including trying to keep the finer details such as ski poles. Album after album filtered through my iTunes library whilst i refined the work until it was ready to be sent to the printers. I breathed a huge sense of relief upon seeing the finished print happy in the fact that while context may still be king, this looks pretty damn cool too.
You can view more of my ‘behind the shot’ series [lobo_button url=”http://spine-chilling-clown.flywheelsites.com/category/behind-the-shot/” bgcolor=”#fff85f” color=”#000000″ target=”_self” label=”here”].
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Behind The Shot: Double Ejection
I always enjoy watching how people interact with my work, discussing what they like and don’t like about individual images. This week I was showing a potential customer my snow related portfolio with the aim of them choosing an image to purchase as a large format print. Making images that cater to all tastes is an impossible endeavour. When a person is critiquing your work, with a view to purchase a print, then this becomes even more apparent.”No, no, not this one, umm maybe this one, this is on the shortlist, too safe, next…, wait there, this one!”The image above is the image they chose (they actually bought two). With many of my images focusing on the beauty of the sport when everything goes right, it’s great to see that both the images they chose originate from when everything goes wrong. I can’t wait to see the finished result and i’ll post a shot up on my Facebook Page once they’ve arrived at the office. Update – here they are.In terms of dissecting this image for this ‘behind the shot’ series, this image optimises two things to me: when things go wrong and the exuberance of youth.It’s plain to see that something’s gone wrong here. A cliff drop is the culprit on this occasion, sending the skier crashing to the ground and ejecting both skis in the process. On a list of things that you really don’t want to happen whilst skiing, this has to be right up there at the top. The youth element revolves around the context this image was shot in. For the last two years i’ve worked alongside the Freeride World Tour (FWT), photographing the athletes as they tour across some of the great freeriding resorts of Europe: Chamonix, Courmayeur, Fieberbrunn and Verbier. Running parallel to the FWT is the Junior Freeride Tour (JFT), with this image being from the Verbier stop on the tour.I’ll be the first to admit that I thought that shooting the juniors was a raw deal. It was far to easy to make assumptions on their level of ability and aesthetic quality of their skiing. All of these assumptions were completely levelled once i first saw them ski. These kids rock! The process of capturing images during the JFT fits in well to my style, as i’m able to work my way up and down the face, find a shooting angle and try to get some solid images before moving on.This Particular cliff appeared to be in the eyes of a few of the juniors, and they were all getting pretty roughed up by it. Committing to the line was an all or nothing move, with the winner of the event landing this drop, while others fell by the wayside. I look forward to working with the juniors again this season and can’t wait to see some of their antics on drops like this.You can view more of my ‘behind the shot’ series here.