These are actually iPhone shots from the top of the sky chair from on of the few times i hit the slopes last winter. I just feel like talking about snow.
Archive for Snowboarding
August Is A Great Time To Talk About Snow.
Big White Snowboard Trek
Over the last weekend me & 50 people climbed aboard a bus & meandered on over mountains and though valleys to Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna. Shouts out to Vancityallie for setting this all up :) It was a good trek and with the exception of Vancityallie and her Boy (Whom I only met briefly at their party) I really knew no one else that was going. Its kinda fun to just say yes & hop on a bus with 50 other strangers and drive into the mountains.
Being that this was only the third time I have hit the snow this year I was a little apprehensive about firing off onto a bigger unknown mountain alone, however the awesome snow (especially in comparison to local mountains) made it all ok :)
I took the new 5D Mark II with me as well. While a nice lightweight camera I am often apprehensive about taking prosumer cameras though the rigors that I tend to take my pro bodies though. Experience has taught me that they are simply not to be trusted like my canon 1D mark II for example. If there is a nasty dirty wet place to take a photo you can bet its the camera taking it. The 5D was fine all nuzzled up in my backpack and the cold didn’t instantly kill the batteries like the original 5D’s do.
Being that I brought this camera/video camera I shot a tonne of video. Anything hand held was nearly unusable due to camera shake but my new small manfroto tripod was stellar to stick into my backpack.
so busy for so long
It has been a super crazy couple of weeks filled with good times and much music!
Monday the 9th
After an early morning meeting with some clients I decided that I should spend some quality time with Andy (my snowboard) & Cypress Mountain. So I took to the hills! The snow was swell and there weren’t many people about. Most of the Eagle chair runs were still groomed for the world cup and thus not available to be ridden, but the raven chair runs were awesome as per usual. I wish that chair wasn’t so long :)
Tuesday the 10th
we started the day with an awesome headshot session followed by working Mexican lunches with Trevor Jansen
Wednesday the 11th
Did some photo wandering and out and about errands
Thursday the 12th
Thursday was this jerk’s birthday, so with the exception of a mid day meeting I didn’t do much of anything work related. I played my guitar for the better part of the day and collected my Mac from the Mac doctor. While I was at the Apple store I also grabbed a little 25 key midi controller that I have been eying up for a long time. I called it a birthday gift for me!
It is quite swell it recognizes how hard I am pressing the keys and they are weighted much like a real piano, so it and garage band are the awesome!! I will be learning to play the piano via YouTube. Don’t laugh, seriously there are some decent lessons on the You Tubes.
My Friend Lisa also had a Jam session at Rockspace that evening which was a little sketchy at first until we found our way around the PA system and what not. Shan & I both sang on what will be an awesome version of the Communist Daughter which needs some works so you don’t get to hear it yet. Typical Frog beer after and then an evening of playing guitar/piano/garage band. All in all an awesome birthday.
Friday the 13th
Friday was regular work and such, no scary unexplainable phenomenon that I was aware of but that’s not to say that it didn’t happen. :) There was a chunk of awesome on Friday though Tracey that awesome gal that she is came by and gave me the perfect b-day gift ever….
The Crate Acoustic-60 Amp!!!!
It has two channels so I can plug in a Mic or a Guitar or both at the same time!! It is the only amp that we would really need for an acoustic show! It has lowZ outs to tie it into house sound and the like. :) Tracey You really really really really rock!!!! Thank You!
Saturday the 14th Valentines Day
We had a party at the studio where we met some new people and somehow managed at our tame party to scandalize a number of other people. Kimli tells it best.
Sunday the 15th
Sunday was a take it easy day. We had a photo shoot in the middle of the day but outside of that it was a hang at home day. We watched Revolutionary Road. Not a great movie really… It was well made and well acted but nothing really remarkable about it other than its predictable build up to a un-climactic ending.
Monday the 16th
As Mondays often are we had kind of a busy day with work and what not. That evening we were invited to speak for the PPABC. For those not in the know PPABC is the original photographers association in BC. It is the true definition of old school. We were invited to discuss what we do and marketing and such. Being that most of our marketing has an online component we discussed things like Facebook and twitter and I got the impression that most of what we said was complete gibberish to the vast majority of people. It was good though I enjoy talking to groups of people like I am an authority in subjects, and they are talking about bringing us back for a full day session. Good times!
Tuesday the 17th
Tuesday was another busy day but somehow in the middle I found time to hit Long & McQuade for a bit of awesome shopping. I was there to get some better guitar pics and possibly a mic stand but I ended up finding a used/returned bass for very cheap!! It is not going to win any awards for spectacular sound or anything but it serves my functions. I have been playing with the four track a little playing guitar and then laying down some simple bass tracks its really fun. It is a short scale Bass so it is smaller and easier to handle. It is perfect to try out different bass line ideas and junk and as I said before it was super cheap :)
Later there was some Third Tuesday action, but other than that, this has been a busy week and a bit with The Jerk. I will try and keep up with the actual posting of things when they happen so I don’t have a crazy week in review thing going on :)
Snowboarding = Awesome
Yup playing on all sorts of new snow. At least it is awesome until it freezes.
Snowboarding Kicked My Ass Tonight
It was super icy at Cypress tonight and while I expected it to be less then ideal conditions i wasn’t really prepared for this! Its funny because I was getting to that cocky stage of my snowboard education where i thought that I was an awesome boarder and that nothing could phase me. well tonight I was knocked down a few pegs while it was icy it was rideable on some of the more tame runs but even on green runs i was taking it really easy. I thought that I could ride anything as long as I wasn’t in a hurry but today was on the very edge of my comfort/experience for sure!
Crazy all day shoot is tomorrow I should sleep but I will leave you with some buried cars on the mountain
I Am Really Behind On All Things Photography Related.
I am so behind that I am finally getting around to looking at some 2700 (that number is a little high because there is a bunch of coaxial in Stop motion in there) photos that I took on our scooter camping trek to Salt Spring Island way back in July 2007 (and yes I am aware that it is 2009)
These two stuck out so I will blog them.
This is a long exposure of our beer fridge
This field ruined all our shoes and socks
In other news Snowboarding was the Suck today as there was all sorts of crazy rain coming down on Cypress and it was so foggy out that while riding the chair lift i couldn’t see the chair in front of me. It took me forever to come down a green run because you just couldn’t see anything so I bailed and came home instead. I tired to get all the people that i was meeting on the hill to come and eat Enchiladas and watch snowboarding videos but the rain kept the snowboarding portion of the North Shore Crew at home. Your guys loss really the Enchiladas were the awesome! :)
Just Some Random Creepy Smoking Guy.
I am off to a mountain today but I got up way to early again so I will blog to pass the time! See all you folks that are hitting those Cypress slopes today.
170cm of snow
Means that I am spending the entire day on cypress mountain again tomorrow!! The snow was so awesome on Wednesday that I nearly didn’t come down the mountain, so I hope tomorrow is even better because I won’t have to :)
Guess where this jerk is
Yup cypress. I know I am a jerk for flaunting my self employedness but
take comfort in the fact that tomorrow while you are all sleeping it
off from the night before I will be hard at work. So today I am here.
Errr… Ahh I Am An Albertian………
…….so I will just go anyway! :)
But I have to say that I am not really prepared for such weather :) I don’t know where my longjohns are!
