Callaghan Lodge and Whistler

I've been gone for the past 5 days enjoying the snow of Whistler and the Callaghan valley and now I am more than ready to go home and rest my tired, sore body... and then party hard on new years of course! So i'll start with cross country skiing in the callaghan valley. Just a few minutes out of whistler there is one of the coolest places I have ever been in BC. It's a vast landscape filled with deep snow, not too many people and an awesome lodge if you need somewhere to stay. We cross country skiied for 3 hours and right as we thought the trail would never end we came over the last hill to find the Callaghan Lodge. This place was sick! It was a hotel in the middle of a huge valley which offered breakfast, lunch and a 5 course meal...or should I say feast! There was a ping pong table which doubled as a pool table and various other little games that we could use to amuse ourselves in between eating and sleeping. So that was inside the lodge. Outside the lodge there were steep untouched powder valley's just begging to be heli-skied! Next time I go to the valley it will hopefully be by helicopter because it was literally just steep, untouched, wide open, ridges with cornices all over and a huge run out at the bottom!

So after the two days of luxury we headed back down the mountain, taking the steep hard way where there were many crashes but great times none the less. In the parking lot we parted ways with the other skiers who came with us and headed off to whistler.

The first day of skiing on Blackcomb was amazing! What a way to spend christmas day! My brother Fred and I headed up seventh heaven and found some fun little drops and jumps, had our first reminders of the fact that we hadn't broken in our ski legs yet and got some pretty good shots.

Boxing day we took the day off and went shopping. The "HUGE" boxing day "Sales" were pointless because everything was still stupidly expensive and Fred was the only one who bought anything. I really regret taking that day off.

The third day was a pretty standard day. We just had a good day of skiing, then hung out with my friend Cam Hilts later on and walked around the village. Oh! and I got some pictures printed on canvas for my family's condo on Blackcomb.

On the last day I ran into Jordan Manley who is an amazing photographer who's website you should check out: www.jordanmanley.com, said hi and thanked him for helping me out with any obstacles I've come across with my photography and then met up with Kyle Jasper. We took a few runs through the park, took some shots, met up with Tamo Campos and a bunch of other buddies and ended up moving on to lunch back at Glacier Creek. So In the end the day involved a lot of waiting around but in the end somehow ended up being pretty awesome. I skied the last few runs with my family and ended the day on a tired but good note at Blacks restaurant with burgers and some good old Coca-Cola. That night we saw the movie Sherlock Holmes which kicked ass!! Go see it! I'm gonna see it at least one more time!

So that was it for our trip. The next day we packed up and went home early because my Grandpa broke his ankle and had to go down to the hospital in vancouver. I was happy to be home and I'm definitely going to be doing a lot of leg workout so that I can ski for a whole 7 days in row without being dead tired by the end. I guess now all there's left to show are the shots from the trip. Hope you like them!

promotional shots for the coalition

So today I took some promotional shots for the coalition. I met up with the band +Sarah Lubbe in Safeway which was super convenient because both Tera Incognita (Sarah and Will) and the Coalition (Dylan, Sina and Will) are going to be playing a show together soon so now they have pictures of both bands together to promote that. As always it'll be a kick ass show and now it can be even better now that they have pictures for it. So back to the coalition shoot.... Sina borrowed a shopping cart from Safeway, we went to Will's, got a fire going (in the fire place) and took a whole load of pictures. In the midst of all this there was much laughter, many jokes and a fun time was had by all! Oh and the pictures turned out alright but they could use some fine tuning.

ski shots and legit shots of the coalition coming very soon

So not an awful lot has happened since my last post, just been up grouse skiing, not shooting and other than that just hanging out with the coalition. Got a few shots today which you will see bellow, should get some shots tomorrow if I go up the mountain and finally, on friday, if everything goes as planned, there should be some banger portraits of the coalition. So keep checking back throughout the rest of the week and hopefully you'll get some eye candy. Keep your fingers crossed for more snow! see ya later!

In the studio with the coalition

Last night I went to the Arc of the Universe studio with Will Hodgins to meet up with the other 2 members of the coalition, Dylan Stickel and Sina Nazarian. After a long drive from North Van all the way out to Surrey we arrived at a house with what looked like a huge garage. When I got inside this big "Garage" I found out that it was actually a huge incredibly luxurious recording studio. I went into the room with all of the instruments and set up my stuff. I was quickly handed some of the best tea I've ever drank which definitely helped the workflow. The pictures came out alright and there's going to be more to come in a few days so keep checking back. Soon there should also be a bunch more shots of the coalition so actually keep checking back for the next couple of weeks! Here are a few shots from the night.

the best day ever

So today I skipped school and headed on up to whistler to do what you ask? To assist a photographer called Adam Clark on a shoot for skiers such as Sage Cattabriga-alosa, Ingrid Backstrom and Ian McIntosh. My job was to carry a big flash around called an Elinchrom Ranger which, at the beginning felt like it weighed about 30-40 pounds, unfortunately by the end of the day the pack felt like there had been a midget added to its contents. My legs stopped working and I had to really push myself to keep skiing. I only had one minor spill and i supposedly made an awesome save, keeping the flash dry and safe, while sliding down spanky's ladder on my back. Sage, Ingrid and Ian are some of the nicest most welcoming people you'll ever meet and they all sent it huge!! We did a couple laps of Spanky's, shot a few cliff drops and Adam did his job very well and got a ton of killer shots. The day was one of the best days I've ever had, let alone one of the best shredding days in whistler. Thanks guys for an amazing experience I learned so much and had an awesome time! See ya!!

Nothing Happening

So not much has been happening lately in my world so I haven't updated the blog but soon my life will be filled with interesting stuff to talk about. Last sunday I went skiing with a few buddies, threw down the first backflip of the season and tried a new trick. This trick was a rodeo 5, didn't work out too well, but I promise that it will happen by the end of the season and i'll get video and a photo to prove it! I would have brought my camera up the mountain with me but it was crazy foggy so there was really no point. This season I'm hoping to have some pretty solid shots, maybe a mag cover or something along those lines and hopefully I'll actually get a job! So if you have stopped checking the blog because I took so damn long to update it then I'm awfully sorry and by the time the rain stops on grouse you can expect new shots every few days...or once a week at the least. Give me a shout if you have any ideas for this blog. Bye Bye!...oh here's a few shots of Trevor Robson for photo class:

2 events 1 day

I was out at UBC yesterday taking pictures for two events at the same time and on the same day. You would think that would be pretty hectic but it really wasn't I just didn't have much time to properly set up and I didn't have all the gear I needed. None the less, I got some ok shots but not the best ones possible. The two events were the Redbull UBC rail Jam and the other was a research presentation day for the medical students. My friend Jess who was helping me out with what i had to do at the medical thing was really nice and helped me get everything done really quickly so that I had time to go shoot the Rail Jam. I had fun and got some ok shots here's some of the best from both events. As I said before, I didn't have all the proper gear so I couldn't take the best pictures possible and I had no time to set up flashes and such at the rail jam. Here's what I got:

First blog

I am starting a blog, something that I said I would never do many times but I'm doin it anyway since I messed up my website. Its just gonna be of a bunch of photos and whatever other info I want to share with the world. Here are some pictures I would like to share with you to give you

something relatively interesting to look at.

Here's a couple of sites you should check out:

chasejarvis.com

jordanmanley.com

ianruhter.com

daniel blom.com

let me know what you think of the blog