I was excited going into this shoot! In the past Whistler Blackcomb has done lots of sunset park shoots, but they haven’t happened as often in recent years. This past two year filmmakers Ryan Regher and Jeff Thomas were working on a couple video projects for WB and had the right pull to be able make a few different sessions happen.

Prior to this year my opportunities to participate in a sunset park shoot like this had been limited, so I jumped at the chance when Ryan gave me a call. Photo assets weren’t specifically necessary for either of these shoots, but knowing how rare these sunset shoots are I still wanted to make it happen. Without the pressure of needing to deliver specific images it allowed for more creative freedom to capture the images I wanted to.

I first shot kayakers on this waterfall years ago but at the time just used natural light. We shot on a cloudy day, and at the time I was excited about the images, but looking back my excitement had faded and they weren’t super strong. They kayaking was still impressive, but the images were flat and weren’t anything special.

I had the idea towards the end of last summer to try and shoot the falls using a flash to create a more dynamic image that showcased the power of the water and the shape of the waterfall. At that time of year the water is to low to safely paddle so it needed to wait. I sat on the idea for the winter and waited until the spring when the water levels would be higher. 

Exploring different activities and learning about them is always intriguing to me. Before shooting this day I had never been around anybody boards in this way. I’ve had a few friends build snowboards, but the process is different. Other then having a general idea of what the space looked like I really didn’t know what to expect.

I’ve fished on occasion throughout my life, and I keep telling myself to get into it, but it always gets pushed to the wayside when things get busy. However I’ve been visually interested in fishing for a long time, often seeing imagery come from this world that is stunning. Fishing normally seems to coincide with the early morning, or the late evening. From a photography perspective this is perfect, generally the best light of day, and the most likely time to get fog rising of water.

Motivation can be difficult to find sometimes. On certain days I go out and the conditions aren’t ideal, and if I’m shooting work on spec I find myself leaving my camera in the bag and not shooting much. While I don’t think there is anything wrong with this, I’ve wanted to try and add some motivation to my shooting to make myself more engage and find the story in each day out. After something I recently heard I’ve been challenging myself to create a simple story before I even head out shooting to give myself a direction to shoot towards.

This interview was originally published in Prime Snowboarding Magazine Issue #24. The interview was done in English and translated to German for the publication. I imagine very few of my followers speak German so I have include the English translation here.

I’m always trying to keep my eye out for a canoe, regularly checking buy and sell pages and Craigslist to see what is available. The right one is yet to come along, but I know it will eventually. While I would say I’m far from a regular on the water, some of my earliest memories are from boats. From learning to sail my parent’s Laser, to going on canoe trips at Boy Scout camp, to taking my dad’s Adirondack Guideboat for long rows on the Finger Lakes of New York. To now owning paddleboards and using them to explore the many lakes around British Columbia. I love the ability a boat offers to switch up the perspective and look at the shoreline and provide the freedom to glide into every nook and cranny and see what is there.

When getting out for this sunrise I had a specific shot in mind I wanted to shoot. Not to long ago, I shot a sunrise image in the fall. Later that spring, a massive landslide on Joffre Peak took off half the face of the mountain, altering the mountains look. While the peak was only a small element in the photo, I wanted to shoot the same landscape and show the difference between before and after. We got there just in time for sunrise, I set up my tripod and got the shot I was after.

Josh and I had been trying to get out for a while. We kept throwing ideas around of places we wanted to go but never were able to make any of them happen. Finally, a day lined up, but the weather was looking rainy. We figured big vistas weren’t on the future agenda of our hike so we decided to go to a cabin. After some research, we realized the initial cabin we planned to go to was boarded up due to Covid. Another option we thought of was a cabin neither of us had ever been to before. I’ve heard it mentioned by friends in the past asking if I’d ever been there, but have never had the chance. We did some pre-trip research finding as much info as possible. I’m a pretty frequent user of Google Earth so once I had a general idea of where it was I was able to zoom in and find the exact spot of the cabin and plot a route. I’m not personally a huge fan of sharing locations, (I wrote about my thoughts on that here) so wasn’t surprised that I had to do a bit of leg work to find some info.

Sounds are unnerving, especially when you don’t know what they are. That odd noise from your car when driving down the highway. A weird crack or pop from your body you weren’t expecting when you move in a certain way. Maybe the scariest and most unnerving of them all, an unknown sound in the backcountry. It can really put me on edge and make my hyper-aware of my surroundings.

When shooting you can plan all you want, but sometimes everything comes down to luck. Getting this exact framing depends almost entirely on luck.

While in Tofino, we decided to take a day to hop on a boat and check out the shoreline from a different perspective. In doing so we came across a lot of wildlife ranging from bears to grey whales and orcas. Being on the water gave an unobstructed view, as I didn’t need to shoot through a thickly forested mountainside.

Not every adventure is some epic multi-day mountain ridge traverse, and I don’t think it always should be. This day was forecasted to be rainy and overcast, but we decided to get out regardless and just deal with the conditions. Not that I am in any way against hiking in the rain, it can sometimes just be harder to motivate.

I didn’t have a particular plan to make an image in the ice cave. Ben Poechman and I planned to get out on Whistler Blackcomb on what was supposed to be a mostly sunny day. The idea was to shoot images on the giant ice blocks that fall off cornices in the spring. However, a storm came in and we were instead hanging out in a whiteout with nearly zero definition. We decided to go and check out the ice cave as it was nearby and we hadn’t been in a while.

This was another one of those days where we got skunked by the weather. We had some good conditions in the morning, but as we moved into the afternoon it started to cloud out with high clouds at first. Noticing this sun dog starting to be visible I knew I wanted to get a shot with the rider in front of it. We were already in a zone taking some fun laps that had a slope that lined up reasonably well. I wanted the sun dog to intercept the slope so the rider appeared in the middle.

What gear do I carry on a regular trip into the mountains? This is an ever-adapting list, and I’m always adding or removing things based on what activity I’m doing.

Some items included in the winter, rarely make it in, in the summer, and vice versa. I try to keep the weight of my pack down, and I think many people would be surprised at how simple I keep it.

A highlight slideshow of my work from the winter of 2019.

I first learned to skate when I was a little kid on a pond by my house. We would go a couple of times a winter when it was cold and frozen. I was an okay skater, but it never really took up much of my time. I then grew out of my skates and never replaced them and went years without skating. I moved to Utah, where it wasn't an option due to lack of nearby ponds and lakes, but it never crossed my mind as something to do.