Mar 7: Good Practice

I haven't put up images in a while. I've been working on some new ideas, pushing my creativity, and solving problems. I've had quite a few 'practice' days, but I've also nailed some sweet new shots.
The practice images are boring, and the good ones aren't yet ready for show'n'tell.

Today, though, I'll show you what I'm working on.

I want to set a nice image with a background skier in soft focus. This angle was good practice for the depth of field, but it doesn't show what I want.

A few frames later, the slope explodes and runs out in a whoosh. A little spooky.

After another scary moment in a narrow choke, we were happy to ski some gentle trees. The smile is as much an expression of enjoyment as it is of relief.

We put in a few good turns though.  This one is pretty standard, but you know, gettin' deep turns never gets old.

A few other frames turned out very nicely.

It's supposed to snow ~15" tonight. Should be some more deep turns tomorrow. Never gets old.

Feb 17: New Snow

Every ski town wants more snow, new snow, deeper snow, softer snow.
Alta finally got it last night: 11" in ~3 hours. Locals like to call that 'nuking.'

Knowing there was a very limited window for morning light, we headed up early. It was a beautiful morning. The kind of morning that makes skiers giddy. Photographers too.

However, many natural sluff slides had run full track on the slopes adjacent to where we wanted to ski. We kicked cornices, triggering fresh energetic sluffs.

We ski cut and rode some lower angle terrain, to get a better feel.
I've been trying to work more with shadows. This one didn't quite line up, but it does display the excellent riding conditions.

Although three turns later, amongst the trees, we found the magic angle. (not shown.)
Then we went back to ski our original line. It looked really good.

But, it all washed out before Kate could get into it. (I planned ahead and stood in a shadow zone, away from the washouts.)

It totally wrecked the line. And the sun disappeared. So, we returned to the white room.

We hit a few more little lines. I tried to embrace the flat light with a little motion blur. This one's a bit off, but still interesting.

I guess we'll settle for more fresh turns. Nice focus.

Thanks Kate, for your tireless effort and endless motivation.

PS. Kate finished 2nd in the Targhee Big Mountain Telemark Comp last week.

Jan 27: Big Time

4:30 wake up.
5:15 rendezvous.
6:00 trailhead, skins on.

7:30 first saddle, 1500 gain, 1.7 miles up. sunrise.

8:15 aspen glades and long shadows.

9:00 recon base, under the face.

10:15 final ridge. big exposure. a slip left would be bad (fatal?), running on hard steep crust.

10:30 final summit in view.

11:45 standing on the summit (left), 3100 gain, 3.5 miles. the line is rather implied by this angle, but i won't give away exactly how we sent it.

12:00 the entrance proves a bit tricky. (sorry Kate, can't resist)

12:05 Kate recovers and skis it to perfection. (this one is soft and I'm blaming it on the lens. the auto-focus totally bounced this time. I shouldn't have trusted it. I was shooting two cameras simultaneously at varied focal length, but it's a shame I didn't get this right.)

12:05 flying through the runout.

12:35 regroup at the bottom. Justin Sarah Kate Hazen. note the lines.

1:15 back at the saddle, we admire the tracks. Sarah put in the left line, super stylish, and earned photo of the day (not shown). Kate put in the upper-right chute (in shade). Justin's creeps into the bottom corner, direct from the summit.

1:30 back to the car.

7:45 bedtime??

Jan 24: Tree Time

Sun on the South.
Wind on the N-W.
Good time for some tree skiing.

Low-angle fun in the protected zone. (Kate, loving it.)

Would you call this a high-low-angle? (Kate, working it.)

We hit this high-low twice, and the other version turned out way better. But it's still in the processing room.

This is how we GTS. (Get The Shot)

Not a clean dismount. 2 tenths deduction. I'm just glad I didn't fall on my head.

She is all about GTS. (Kate, crushing it.)

The strongest images are still in the works. We did well today.
More tomorrow.

Jan 22: Be Flexible

We set out today with big plans.
The wind was supposed to calm, the sky was supposed to clear, the snow was supposed to be good.
But it didn't play out that way.
Low visibility, high wind, graupel, ice, and crud.

Someone mentioned hot cocoa and a sauna.
The team disintegrated.

Kate and I took one extra lap.
We had to ski close to trees to get any contrast in the flat light.

We found some interesting spots.

This tree was nice. (The smaller one on the left is distracting though.)

Each of the images is missing something. The compositions are just a little off. It was tricky out there today, but I should've done better with depth and direction.