Six months from today will be August 28th 2011. The northern hemisphere’s last ski season will start to blend in with those of previous years, British Colombians will have seen many thousands of hectares of land burned in summer forest fires, ski resort plazas abuzz with mountain bikers and foreign tourists snapping pictures, photo editor’s inboxes will finally become un-clogged after receiving all the ski photographers’ images from the year.

And, every skier will be wishing they were six months back; in the middle of an amazing ski season.

As a Canadian the words from Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi come to mind: “Don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” Though she wasn’t singing about skiers’ separation anxiety from fluffy white snow, the phrase sure as hell applies.

This is it; the sport we love in the peak of it’s season. It doesn’t get any better than looking out my window to see blue skies, while checking the forecast seeing another storm rolling in to pummel the mountains.

So; take a moment to appreciate and cherish it, before it’s gone.

ESPN Freeski picked up the story of my team’s win at the first Banff Photographer Shootout in January. Click on the image below to see 10 images from the contest. Including park, urban, pow, and big mountain ski photography.

Wrangle the Shoot is an annual photography competition in Golden BC hosted by Kicking Horse Mountain Resort. Photographers start shooting at noon and have to shoot, edit, print, and present five images by 7pm. Another twist; instead of heading out and shooting with riders you have control over you’re hopping around the hill predicting, reacting, and sniping skiers competing in Wrangle the Chute

-Same shot as above, cropped so you can better see Logan sending it.-

As a ski photographer this format is quite difficult for capturing images, its like taking a seasoned jockey and putting him on a horse he’s never ridden, and then telling him he has to race. Every other day ‘in the office’ I get to carefully orchestrate every image, coordinating with the rider giving him or her specific details about how they should ski a specific feature. In regular shooting a rider skiing accuracy by a foot or two off the agreed line is crucial to the success of a shot. But this weekend riders could be dropping, turning, jumping and falling on a zone 3 ridges wide and several hundred feet tall.

These images won me ‘Best Photographer Overall’ in Wrangle the Shoot 2011

Working as a photographer you get to walk the fine line between chaos and order. Taking time to plan in advance to eliminate risks and unknowns, while embracing the chaos that creative work thrives in, and the not so predictable worlds of Skiing and Mountain Biking. The Banff Photographer Shootout epitomized the conflicting worlds of (dis)organization in the life of a ski photographer.

A little background on the event: this was the first year of the Banff Photographer Shootout, a competition where you have 7 days to shoot, edit, and create a slideshow, which is then pitted against 5 other photographers. (Same idea as Deep Summer/Deep Winter in Whistler)

24 Hours before the competition started: Every rider, assistant, location, carefully planned out to work efficiently with people I wanted to, in the places I wanted to. Itinerary set. Then:
-35 wind chill in Calgary
The worst avalanche conditions in 30 years.
Highway closures adding hundreds of kilometers and many hours to traveling times.
Equipment acting unpredictably from extremely variable temperatures and humidity levels.
Riders getting injured.
Melting Levels near the peaks of lots of mountains.

Its events like the Banff Shootout that remind you, no matter how well you have a shoot organized, a team’s ability to act spontaneously, and create innovative solutions on short notice proves to be more valuable. Through all the madness my team of athletes managed to pull off some great work, and our slideshow won the event. Although I’m the one behind the lens pushing the button, the creativity, positive attitude, and skill of each of the athletes determined our success.

More pictures from the slideshow night, and some of the competing photographer’s slideshows Click here