Bonfire Jump

For the past 2 years, friends of mine have put together a party to summon snow from mother nature. This year, they had Teton Brewery pro rate some beer and built a bonfire over a jump. Plenty of people showed, and also a few good snowboarders and skiers. I shot this party last year, but was rushed and didn't get the results I truly wanted. This year, with the help of a little information from Strobist, I was able to pull off some pretty cool shots. To make these images, I set up 2 off camera strobes diagonal from each other. Kept walking around and shot the skiers and snowboards from different vantage points around the jump. Here is one image, but I will be posting more here under the winter catagory.

Natural Selection Snowboard Comp

Normally, I am assigned to super boring stories for the paper. My typical subjects are people who don't have time for me and have no interest in looking good. So far I have had a few exceptions and my latest assignment was one of the cooler ones. I traveled over Teton Pass to visit artist Ryan Haworth in Victor, Idaho. Ryan is a long time friend of Travis Rice a local professional snowboarder. Travis asked Ryan to design the trophies for his inaugural Natural Selection snowboard competition that will take place at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort next week. Pictured is Ryan painting one of the buffalo skulls that will be used for the trophies. I had a great time working with Ryan and hope to make it back to shoot the final product. More on the comp and related news in the coming week!

Think snow...

Snowboarding: June 20th

Yep, thats right. Some how I convinced my buddy James Ryder to wake up at 2 a.m., hike 3 and 1/2 hours, snowboard for 5 minutes, lay out in the meadows below the Middle Teton for an hour, then hike 2 hours out.

It's not easy prying yourself out of bed at 2 am for a few snowboard turns in terrible conditions in the middle of the summer. But after a cup of coffee, some cereal, a fruit roll-up and the chance of making one awesome photo in morning light- nothing can bring you down. Right?

We began hiking at 3:30 a.m. in the pitch dark and made it to Garnett Canyon without having a full conversation- just incoherent, groggy comments. I made this photograph here, in the canyon with first light of the morning hitting the Middle Teton. A moment that is well worth the early start.

We then climbed talus, scree, and snow fields and arrived just below the Middle Teton where our decent down the Cave Couloir began. We traded our mountaineering boots for snowboarding boots, strapped into our bindings and boarded for about 5 minutes (you can see the couloir just next to James in the image posted). After boarding we made our way back to the trail, took our shirts off and waited for a few beautiful women to come around the corner. An hour and a few snickers bars later, the women never showed. We packed our bags, and hiked out to the car.

Exhausted, we went home and napped for a few hours before happy hour. Thats when our day began...