Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Habodin

Habodin (Hah-Bow-Din): Term meaning to snowboard, not ski, but to snowboard either on a mountain or on ones own property. (from the roots of buck speak)

Friends are great, even better when you have friends that are great at something. This last monday I got to join one of my best friends, Charlie, up in beautiful Breckenridge Colorado once more for some wonderful snowboarding and of course some shootin. Charlie is a creative genius and a talented photographer and videographer, so needless to say after our first day of riding we decided to try our hand at shooting some live action snowboarding and skiing shots on the mountian. Luckily Charlie is one of those guys who knows everybody and someone who everyone loves to be around. This is key especially when you are looking for talent to shoot, and not only shoot but talent you can ask "you wouldnt mind jumping a 40+ kicker over my head while i shoot, just so you can hike 200 yds back up just to do it again?" and then have them more than willing to comply. So CMOS (Charlie) called up a boarder that met us on the slopes and we got rippin...in various meanings of the term. Now unfortunately I wasnt on my "A" game and also forgot to shoot RAW but I did get a few satisfactory shots.


The above is a shot of Charlie's friend (sorry bro I cannot remember your name, hit me up and ill edit this) going off axis right over my head. To get this shot you need 1: a beautiful mountain, 2: a big ass jump! 3: a boarder with sick skillz like you wouldnt believe, and 4: a photographer dumb enough to climb under a 30 foot kicker lip without thinking about it.


I had to throw this shot up, not because it was the sickest trick or the bigges jump, but mainly blind luck with a fortunate outcome. Granted that makes it sound almost like this is an amazing shot, which I admit it's far from, however I just like it and since this IS after all MY blog...why the hell not.


This guy was a real champ, he was totally down with whatever and once more was willing to hike the park over and over. When I thanked him he just shrugged and remarked, "it's my job." Heck where was that in the classified ads when I was lookin!!! But like I said I couldnt have been more greatful.


As I said before
I wasnt on my "A" game that day and the biggest regret was shooting in JPG instead of RAW. This is one shot that I really regret not having done in the RAW format due to the excessive noise I got when I processed it in black and white. I shot this one just as Charlie and I were packing up and leaving, I looked up and in between the trees we could see a sole boarder hikin the pipe with a ray of afternoon sun beeming in on him. The feeling was quite epic but I only had time to puch out two frames as we went by, this being the only one in focus due to the cold weather.


We did shoot other riders as we were there, I mean come on when you got literally dozens of pretty much pro riders hittin some of the sickest parks in the world wouldnt you take a few shots?! Any way I just wanted to show these last two pictures (the one above and one below) to illustrate one thing and that is BOTH pro...
...and amature riders are allowed in the park, and just because you can hit the big jumps without killing yourself doesnt make you pro. That being said I also must say respect the other riders and the slopes. While we were shootin we saw one kid bust his wrist, so note if you are going to go big understand the possible consequences ...that and have fun its a sick sport people.

Anyways that about wraps it up for now... I feel like saying "Join me next time BLA BLA BLA" but since Im fairly certain that Im the only one reading this .... hmmm....

Saturday, December 5, 2009

BRRR-eck

SO I got a saweet deal on a town home in breck CO for a week, for those of you who dont know breck is a ski resort. Anyway I had a great week and was extremely greatful to be able to finally get away for a little bit and do some riding. It definately gota bit chilly my last two days dropping close to -10 degrees but hey its CO. So I didnt take nearly as many pictures as I was hoping or should have for that matter but I did go out on one of those cold nights to lake Dillon and took a few shots.

The above is a shot of some peak I cant remember the name of but its near lake Dillon heading west. this is about a two minute exposre and I color corrected the shot so that its a dang near perfect representation of what my naked eye saw that night (obviously I didnt see that text floating above the peak but I thought it looked cool ). The only thing I dont really like about this shot is that the shore line is leading the eye out of the image on the lower left hand side but oh well it was freezing, late, and Im on vacation so .... yeah still no excuse.

The shot above is the same peak as the previous one just a bit further down the shore line. The ghostly visor is my friend micah, needless to say he was FREEZING, but a good sport for hanging with me in the cold, also a great border we had a blast tearing it up this week !!! This shot was taken with a bare handheld 430ex camera left at full power first curtain and a two min exposure, I did a little CC in post as well as a bit of burning, the text floating in the air however is completly original and we were very fortunate to have his name floating above the lake that night.


The above is same location as the previous one (same big rock that micah is leaning up against) just a different angle. The mountains in the back is where the ski resort is and also where my amazing town home was located for my weeks stay, once again AMAZING DEAL! I did some CC work in post and decided to punch up the levels a bit for this one as well as the saturation. Two min exposure nothing special.

All in all I gota say that Colorado has got to be one of the most beautiful places on earth and I am greatful to be blessed by living here.