Summer

Summer is pretty sweet and I’ve been fly fishing a lot. A friends old man gave me a camper for the back of my truck and its great to have a bedroom and propane stove with me when i go camping. I managed to rip the bottom of my truck out trying to hook power up to it. Duh! But it’s all good now.

That said, I’m sort of missing winter. Here’s a couple random snaps i got this past winter and spring. Click on em and they get bigger (i think)

denny reed dropping an early-bird line at gorman.

darcy keller dropping a scary huge early-bird cliff at gorman

hiking at lake louise with hardingham, jonas and clay.

ditto

then this happened. clayton triggered a little avy but i watched him get dragged about 100m facedown.

leanne pelosi with a heavy, high speed pow slash. leanne is dope. so glad i got to tag along for a few days. too bad the shots horribly out of focus.

jonas guinn

randomly ran into karl jost and the society crew while we were filming in the middle of nowhere.

charles morin dropping some pillows somewhere in southern BC

‘whatdya think? should we try this shortcut? we’ll miss the ferry if we stay on the highway’
4 hours later we were back on solid ground. we missed the ferry.

me and andrew eating chips, drinking rummies and watching modern family in the van.

forgot my sleeping bag and had to improvise so i didn’t freeze to death

alex morris is fucking dope

RIP Carter. Filming at the banff centre for nolan adams short shred submission.

spring powder hunt with jordan mendelman, andrew hardingham and potato.

ditto

hardingham and potato eyeing up a sweet chute

Dancing Sasquatch Posters

Its almost been a year since the opening of the Dancing Sasquatch in Banff. I’ve been bartending a few nights a week and its been a stellar year. So many great DJ’s week after week. I’ve also been filling most of their graphic design needs and whipping up posters for headlining DJ’s etc. I love the freedom I’m given in the design process and it’s always fun to get a txt msg from my pals Stavros and Jordan full of ‘hahaha’s’ or ‘man you’re weird’

Here’s a few of my favorites from the past year.

Short Shred Submission

So way back in late March I took part in a short film competition at the Dancing Sasquatch in Banff. They organized a few local shred filmmakers together and everyone submitted a 5 minute video of their work. Pretty fun night.

The competition was fierce but in the end I came out on top. It felt good and all the Golden homies were super pumped to see our work catch us some rec. All of the videos were deadly (except Jon Chews….hahah kidding) and my good friend Mark Rose showed some awesome editing skills.

Anyway, for those of you who missed it, here’s my submission. Lemme know what you think.

Soul

Wow, winter was amazing. For the past 5 or 6 seasons, I’ve spent the majority of my time hiding behind my camera watching other people snowboard and hoping that I manage to hit the shutter during that split second when everything looks just perfect. This season was a little different. I still had my 50 pound camera bag on almost every day. I still spent a few hours sitting in the cold waiting for my 2 way radio to spark to life with the words ‘dropping in 10′. I still got excited moments before I slid my memory card into the card reader to edit a days work. I still got annoyed with mother nature when she’d send in a sky full of clouds just as I needed it to be sunny. I still did it because I love photography and more specifically, I love snowboard photography.

Anyone living in western Canada will tell you that this has been the best snow season in 3 decades. Every ski town on the map claimed record snowfalls. In January, I watched 2 meters pile up in Donald, BC in less than 48 hours. I had awesome fresh lines every single time I strapped in. Even 3 days ago (April 17th) we were shredding knee deep, fresh, blower snow. At this rate I’ll be sledding well into July.

With such crazy good conditions, I found myself battling……myself. Im sure every sports photographer has the internal dialogue that tries to decide between shoot or shred, but this was different. All I wanted to do was snowboard. After a great day riding with amazing friends in the backcountry, I begged for more. It felt like, this sport that I’ve been doing pretty heavily for 24 years, was brand new. It felt good. It felt revitalizing.

Warmer weather means its time to hustle for the freelance snowboard photographer. Magazines are starting to accept submissions. Snowboard companies are asking for shots of their riders. Oops. I don’t have nearly as much as past seasons and I really could care less. This was the season I found snowboarding again.

To kickstart many hours of editing ahead, I’ll share a few shots with you guys.
I hope your season was as fun as mine.

Luke Barios is awesome. He makes his own beer and always has at least a 2 litre pop bottle handy when we shred.

Denny Reed giggling like a little girl riding pow.

Denny again with a big pow slash

Darcy Keller gets into some serious terrain.

Darcy on a nice jump at Quartz Creek

Murray Hodgson on the set of LOST

Clayton and I hiked into Purple Bowl with Hardingham and Jonas and this happened.

Ave Perry won the NOBOARD race this year. He’s sick and is deadly with a go pro.

Denny hitting a jump in Golden.

Darcy on some hairy line thru the trees.

BANFF PHOTO SHOOTOUT

The 1st annual Banff Photographer Showdown was dope. The week was gnarly and the weather was ridiculous. So much snow fell in Donald and the highways were closed etc. I got trapped in Banff for a bit which was lame.
The main event was sweet. Super stoked to see all the support from our local ski and snowboard community. Pumped on Reuben Krabbe’s slideshow which got 1st.

I ended up with 3rd place.
Here’s my slideshow

oldies but goodies

I was putting together a little photo package for a bud this morning and stumbled upon a bunch of photos that I thought had been lost to the hard drive demons. Super stoked to look through this stuff from years and years ago.

The story goes, Stew Varley, Murray Hodgson, Darcy Keller and myself entered a photography/snowboard competition in Fernie, BC at Island Lake Lodge. Pretty sick to say the least. It had snowed like crazy for the 3 days prior to our arrival and no one could access the upper bowls and alpine, which for us meant 100cm or so of fresh pow and 3 bluebird days to play around in it. To our suprise, we ended up winning a grand prize for best overall team effort or whatever.

Here’s a couple pics:

chilling in our own cat

murray hodgson drops a cliff in the upper bowls

darcy keller finds himself in some pretty iffy terrain

murray gets some…the elk valley in the background

little people

murray hodgson lays one out

darcy keller

darcy dropping

murray goes upside down

murray hodgson

ryland nelson gets some

murray hodgson

Dancing Sasquatch

As if I didn’t have enough stuff to do, I’ve somehow slid back into doing graphic design on a regular basis. My latest string of work has been a series of posters for the newest nightclub in Banff, which coincidentally, I bartend at on Sundays and Thursdays….holla if you’re coming in, I’ll guestlist you. Im also doing some pretty interesting photography in support of the design.

Im super excited about the direction the advertising for the place has gone. A mix of woodsy/cabin party with a touch of weird/funny. Right up my alley.

Here’s a few.

So busy!

Holy smokes! September has been a busy month. Between working 2 jobs, trying to get my graphic design on, shooting weddings on my days off and keeping up with magazine submissions and stuff, its starting to feel like I work 24 hours a day!

Can’t complain though I guess, keeping busy is a good thing. Soon it’ll be winter and I’ll be able to chill out a little. Speaking of winter, I started up my skidoo the other day and watched as a thick cloud of blue smoke swept over the playground across the street from my house. I, of course, danced around in the exhaust trying to savour every last breath of 2stroke. The children ran for cover….haha….kidding obviously.

Anyway, I shot a few weddings this month.
Dave and Marna got hitched, Scottish style at Jasper Park Lodge. Beautiful location and a very small wedding. Everyone was so nice. Here’s a few pics from their day. Dave and Marna were fun to shoot despite the weather messing with us all day. It was nice for 5 minutes, then rainy for 10. All in all, a very nice wedding.

My good friends Cam and Steph tied the knot here in Banff. So many familiar faces in the large crowd of family and friends. Gorgeous bridesmaids to boot! Shooting Steph and Cam was too easy. They had a super cool reception up at Mt. Norquay which was by far the best party I’ve been to this year.

random pic post

There are some complications between American and Canadian Copyright laws and long story short, I can’t afford to go to court with even a remote possibility of losing. Case closed.

On the brighter side, it snowed here in Banff the other day. I know right? It’s still August. Walking around downtown, you could see the winter stress in peoples faces. No one wants to let go of the warmth of summer, albeit a very brief one here in the Bow Valley. Digging out gloves and winter jackets when it should be summer freaks out most people. I however miss winter. Dearly. and I welcome it with open arms.

I was browsing through some shots from last season that will likely never see the light of day unless I blog them. So here goes. Hopefully it gets some of you stoked for the snow.

darcy keller ripping down a nice chute in the golden backcountry.

denny reed is the friendliest dude i know. i think he has a crush on me.

guillaume fortin is under-rated. and french.

karen mcnab gettin’ some in the sunset.

timmy nelson making the best of a cloudy day.

i’m andrew fucking hardingham!

murray hodgson is strong as 5 guys!

stephen burchill killing the super-hip with a greasy method. golden backcountry.

logan fulmer on the miniramp in the day..

guillaume on the mini around sunset

and again

jon chew thinks im old.

andrew foxcroft bangs one out over the snowghosts

denny reed…you cant tell cause of all the snow, but he’s got a massive shit eating grin on.

aaron lavoie gets some

tim nelson. i love the shadows in this shot.

this look fun? tim nelson sprays a nice wake.

this shot might have worked out if i didn’t mistakenly ruin my angle by crashing into the fresh landing…oops….stupid photographer….tyler lightfoot goes for it anyway.

me and darcy set out super early, drank four beers before 9am, groomed the sled trail and waited for the sun.
pillows in golden.

stephen burchill, powslash in my favorite zone in golden.

my steed. check out knightriderracks.com if you’re looking for board racks for your sled.

someone spends too much time drilling oil and not enough time shredding the gnar….ahem..
murray hodgson

guillaume fortin out at bankhead

tim nelson dropping a chute in golden

andrew foxcroft + superhip = sweet

tim nelson

guillaume fortin

since then

Thanks for all the comments. Even the ones that make me look like an asshole are valuable to me.

Some of you have been emailing Mr. Condorelli to express your feelings on the matter. Sweet. The support I’m getting on this makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. I guess he’s been writing back telling people that I’ve been paid and that all I wanted was to have the photo removed etc. To date, I have not been paid and I never asked them to take the photo down. All I wanted was to be paid for my work. I’ve been following the posts on newschoolers.com and TGR and taking into account everything thats been said.

For the record, the emails I posted have not been edited whatsoever. I will admit that I omitted 2 emails I sent Jordan in the early days of this battle because he didn’t reply and they just added length to an already lengthy blog post. Anyone Interested in the entire gmail thread is free to ask me for it.

I wasn’t asking for a huge amount of money. The photo cost me more to take than I was asking when you factor in gas to Revelstoke, sled gas, Tim Hortons, beer etc.

I didn’t really expect this to blow up like it did. Now that it has, I’m not quitting.