I haven't posted here in over a year now. I have been a bit uninspired by the whole "Hey check me out!" sort of direction skiing and our world has gone in the past few years. I'm slightly ashamed to say that I have been a part of it, I have an Instagram that is mostly filled with skiing photos and very little story telling or good information sharing. I have degraded adventures by making them square and throwing a filter over the top.
I've always thought that it would be amazing to make a living out of sharing photos and stories. I have spent considerable amounts of time trying to create art in the back country with my friends and my camera. We have gotten lucky more than a few times, created some stunning images that look great on glossy paper, and rack up the "Likes", like crazy. But something my images have always in my opinion failed to do is tell a story. Reflecting on my own images I see more photos that say, "look at this person doing this thing." I think my photography much like that of most others lacks emotion. I want to capture images that say, "Look at this moment. This is how it felt. Isn't that quite an amazing sensation?"
With the onset of digitization I think that photography lost a lot of its authenticity. It is too easy to point and shoot now. I know that every great photographer came from thousands of frames no matter the physicality of there negatives, but when I look at photographers whose work I admire for their appeal to emotion it seems they all have roots in shooting film. It seems like our world is loosing authenticity at an alarming rate, it is becoming far to easy to be something you are not, something you haven't earned or possibly do not even know two cents about. Students of film seem to provide intention in every frame and capture things beyond the visible spectrum.
It is a bummer that my lack of inspiration by the commercial ski scene and a bad day in January have really limited the number of days I have shot with intention this season. But here a bunch of photos we have grabbed through out the season so far and captions to go along with them.
P.S. We shot 54 images with disposable cameras on our California trip a couple weeks ago. It was one of the best weeks of skiing I have ever had. I can't wait to see the story our photos tell.
Day 2: My second morning of skiing was on Monarch Pass in late October with Sam. We managed to get two laps in on a short north facing bowl before returning to Gunnison by 9:00 for class. I'd call it powder skiing more than rock scratching.
Early in November Elias and I headed back up to Monarch to grab a couple of laps before the sunset. I had been at work all day and we raced for the light after hatching a plan while molding his boot liners in the shop earlier that afternoon. I have developed this photo multiple times now and still haven't been happy with an honest presentation of the moment. Given the lighting conditions and my equipment I think this is as close as I will get. Strawberry flavored pow!
Early season conditions near the Paradise Divide were all time. At this time we were still able to drive all the way to Pittsburgh, which is a small town site only accessible by ski's or snow machine during the deeper winter months. Reflecting on it now the vibe back at the trailhead that day had so much "Opening Day" stoke. Tons of stoked crews that had skied in different zones all day coming together to finish it with high fives and smiles. Skiing good snow generates some undeniable camaraderie.
CAW CAW!
Head north! It kept being really good, and we kept waking up early.
This photo was taken a day or two after getting back to Colorado from a Thanksgiving Trip home with Sophie, Gavin, Brad, and Andrew. After having been gone for awhile I felt pretty out of touch with the snowpack. Early in the season when the snow is still quite shallow things can be especially dynamic, with weak layers relatively close to the surface and easy to impact, Tucker, Sam and I took it easy skiing low angle powder fields. Tele-skiers think the are so "soulful".
Early in December we started to get out on a few longer tours. It is my first season with a snowmobile and it has provided access to so much inspiring terrain. It has been a pleasure exploring new mountains that have been just out of reach for the past three seasons.
I was lucky enough to get to go home to the Sierra for the Christmas holiday. My long time friend Chance and I spent the majority of our three weeks back ski instructing at Mammoth. Every day we would try to sneak off for a few free runs at lunch or after work. Conditions were great all break it was awesome to experience a little bit of California's best season in the past 5 years. This photo is of Chance in bounds after a long day of teaching 3-5 year olds how to pizza and french fry.
On my birthday Chance and I took a cosmic tour to the summit of Mammoth via Roadrunner. Here he is posing underneath Chair 14 with the lights of Fresno in the background. We skied fresh Corduroy down cornice bowl after midnight, and crashed in the upstairs of Main Lodge before waking up at 6 to go back to work.
Ouch. Tucker sent it big on this day and bomb holed to dirt. Thankfully we got him packaged up quickly and he was only out of the game for a couple of weeks. This was the last day that I have shot my DSLR all season. My camera played an obvious roll in or decision making on this day and upon reflection of the day I decided to set it down for a bit. Turns out soul shredding and not telling to many people about it has been pretty fun and I haven't felt the need to take a "professional photo" since.
At a certain point you start to realize that ski touring is just a really round about way to pooping in awesome places.
A really really round about way, with the biggest dumps come the best turns. (This is what its all about)
For the past few years we have been heading to a nice low key zone in the San Juans. There isn't much ski history in the area and I think it is safe to say that Sam, Dylan, Matt, Myself, and a couple other people have been opening some new and quite high quality runs. This is Sam on his way to another new place.
The Memphis Couloir. 2,900ft. No one owns the mountains.
