A single landmark seems to hold elements of each perspective in it’s striking and dramatic nature. Popularly known now as The Black Tusk, it’s original name as given by the Squamish nation is t’ak’t'ak mu’yin tl’a in7in’a'xe7en which means: ‘Landing Place of the Thunderbird’.

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The outcropping of rock was formed by a long extinct volcano, a reminder of the length of geographic history which has shaped this landscape over thousands and millions of years. It’s differing names call to mind the diversity of peoples who have inhabited the region, naming the features of this land according to their history and culture. The shape encapsulates a lifestyle to which so many identify; a pursuit of adventure, exploration, personal achievement and conquest. From it’s summit, the horizons tell stories of industry and conservation battling throughout the resource rich forests, mountains, and streams.

That smell is in the air, the chilled breeze bites at my neck whispers of the colder times to come.

August 2011 Wallpapers
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(29 Photos)

In late March I spent a week in the Whistler-Pemberton area shooting with a number of different athletes. Over the week the average daily snowfall was over 20cm. From day to day every line on every mountain we skied filled in and transformed from one other worldly shape to another. Like sand shifting on dunes, the lanscape morphed as time passed. One of the daily missions we embarked on was to the north of Pemberton up the Hurley pass to ski ‘mini-golf’ lines. (Hike-ski repeat on short zones of cliffs spines etc.)

July 6th: North America is nursing it’s hangover from a weekend of Canada/America Day festivities, businessmen are back in offices longing for their week retreat to a beach. Four months after I battled through waist deep powdery bliss I find myself slathering copious amounts of suntan lotion on my all-too-white arms, only a stones throw away from the spot we shot the image above. Skis, poles, boots and skins litter the ground as we gaze through the trees at the patchy remnants of winter littering forest floor.

Everything about that moment was as backwards as it could be compared to the last time I stood in that valley. +20, blue skies, non-existant avalanche danger, sunscreen, sweat in the eyes, sun glasses and a T shirt. Compared to goggles, thermal layers, toe warmers, overcast, puking snow, wind, avalanche pit digging, slednecks within earshot. Ski touring is ski touring, its incredibly fun, tiring, solitary, and methodical but the experience couldn’t have felt more absurdly different.

Shooting bikes in Whistler has an interesting twist right now, normally the elements a mtb photographer in whistler gets to work with include: dry or tacky dirt, warm weather, and dialed trails. La Nina’s effect was so severe on the Coast of BC the Whistler trail crew has been digging snow rather than building an maintaining trails. In places you’re riding between banks of snow, in others you’re traversing mud pits axel deep, reminiscent of the West Coast Trail.

But its more than funky riding conditions, it is a key element of the definition of biking. Exploration, uncertainty, adaptability and a flowing evolution of the landscape we travel through. A deep snow pack in one year isn’t an oddity, it would be much more absurd to see identical conditions from week to week, year to year.

Tomorrow: Skiing on Dirt

And, well, just this month I got to see two of my shots in Decline Magazine’s big, fat, glossy, sexy, colour-that-punches-you-in-the-face pages. Goodness, I love it.

The shot above is a self portrait from a great evening riding Sideshow Bob in Calgary. A sickeningly fun trail which dips bobs and curves around the chalky ridges of the river valley. Below is an image of Daniel Norton on Bear Cub in Whistler which is also July’s free wallpaper.
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What is the Deep Summer Photo Challenge? Its similar to the Banff Photographer Shootout which I won earlier this year. The basic idea is you and a group of riders have 3 days to shoot a bunch of pictures. 1 editing day. At the end each of the 6 photographers present a ~5 minute slideshow infront of a huge crowd during crankworx in Whistler BC.

I invite you to head over to the voting page and select the person who you think can challenge the photographers in the competition. Of course I’d like to think you’ll select me to go head to head with Barham, Zimmerman, Riga, Olsen and O’Neill, but thats really up to you. The voting is based on 3 submission images, which you can see below, but I also invite you to look over my wider (updated) portfolios

Click Here to Vote

Here are the three images from my submission. With links to download for -and only for- your computer background. (Be nice and don’t abuse the availability of the shots for your background. Santa is watching)

Carter, Whistler BC
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Andrew Pike, Millenium Calgary
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Self Portrait, Calgary
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Click Here to Vote for the photographer you like the most. I’ve got some really great ideas I want to flesh out in a slideshow, and don’t want to wait another to create it.

Over the past year I’ve been shooting a lot with Alison Law from Studio A Interiors , photographing her interior design portfolio for her website. This specific project was a special treat as Alberta Home Magazine picked up the story of the interior renovation, and ran a feature article in their April issue.

On the photographer’s side of things there was some special challenges, namely including people in some of the imagery. Alison and I agreed it would be a great image to have an image of the home owner’s children in one of the shots. Photographing children and interior design are two incredibly polar opposite types of photography, and capturing both in one image at once proved to be an interesting challenge. When photographing interior design you have quite a bit of flexibility concerning when you take the shot, things don’t move very fast. Children however, have split second unpredictable photogenic moments, and a very short amount of time they’ll be happy working ‘on set’. After a fair bit of coordination with all the adults we had on hand, we managed to get the first image of the little master baker in his element. At the end of the shoot we even had the opportunity to sample some of his creations.

If you’re in Alberta in April, you can find Alberta Home on the magazine rack, the article ‘Forever Home’ is on page 41

If you are out of the loop on what the race involves:
130 Riders in a mass start
5020 Vertical Feet
12.3 KM track distance
14 CM of snow on the peak of whistler.

Tyler Morland won the race with a time of 21:49. Okay go back and read that again, just under 22 minutes from the peak of whistler to the skier’s plaza at the bottom… absolutely insane time. Next time you ride the park time a lap on garbanzo, and that’ll give you an appreciation for how impressive that time is.

Race Winner Tyler Morland neck to neck with Chris Kovarik as they emerge from the snow.

Ian Morrison testing the new dual slalom

Snapped Intense Suspension Linkage, courtesy crabapple hits

Caven on Blue Velvet

Thoma Hip on Garbanzo

Thoma on Lower Canadian Open

Andrij in Burnaby

Best Quote;
‘Hey Peter hows it going?’
‘Today sucks!’ -Peter
‘Why does it suck?’
‘A bear stole my backpack, and ate my apple fritter!’ -Peter
‘Yeah, I guess that does suck’
‘Yeah, It does! So I had to throw rocks at it till the bear would give it back!’ -Peter