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Events: 2012 Crankworx

The seeds were planted months ago. I wanted to come to Whistler to shoot as much of the 2012 Crankworx as I was able. I missed the first few days, but there are some pretty gnarly events left to come and I am excited to be here. I am a volunteer. If you’ve read previous posts you might know that I do that, I volunteer for events but rarely as photographer. Photography is my profession, or has been, and I am working at bringing photography back to my primary source of income, it’s about half right now, which isn’t bad for a photographer who has retired a couple of times. Along with photography, I have a great love for cycling and if you’ve read my blog before you might also know that. I volunteered for Crankworx because I want to create some portfolio quality mountain biking images and after tonight, at the Deep Summer Photo Challenge, I can tell you that not all portfolios are created equal.

It was humbling, to say the least, to see the quality of images and slide shows shot and edited in three days. There isn’t a month of Sunday’s in which I could do the same. That said mountain bike photography is relatively new to me and I don’t spend the time in the mountains that I did when I was young. I don’t mean to demean the work that I do, only to elevate the work of tonight’s presenting photographers. Simply, tonight’s photographers shot the kind of work that first made me interested in photography. You should have a look.

This is what Bike Magazine had to say about Reuben Krabbe’s winning slide show; actually, they were a bit speechless. Have a look:

http://www.bikemag.com/news/reuben-krabbe-wins-deep-summer-photo-challenge/

 

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Events: 2012 Crankworx

It was a bit of a late start this morning after yesterday’s late night, especially in my cold medication-induced haze. I must be the only person in Whistler with a pocket full of Halls and Tylenol Cold & Flu medication. I spent a couple hours today shooting at the Pump Track in Olympic Plaza where riders were getting in a training session before the full competition later this week.

More pictures from Crankworx to come.

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Events: 2012 Crankworx

Wow, it’s been a long time since I last posted, but in my defense, I’ve been super busy with both business and personal travel; but excitedly I can say that I am now in Whistler to spend several days shooting Crankworx, the largest Mountain Bike event of it’s kind in the world. I arrived late last night and spent too much of the morning just getting myself sorted, there have been some amazing images coming out of the Whip Competition today and I think I am going to find myself challenged to keep up with some of the work being produced.

Early this afternoon I did a course tour with Redbull of the Joy Ride course and I can safely say that to most, it is simply shocking, just wait till you see pics at the end of the week. I did manage to snap a couple frames before the tour and this is my favourite. A sweet little drop over looking the patio at the Garibaldi Lift Co. Can’t wait for more!

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Link: Preview Gallery from the 2012 Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon

Yesterday was an intense day. With a team of 7 photographers we shot the 2012 Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon and between us we made close to 25,000 images which I will sort, process, and upload for the client this week. I have taken a comfortable seat in front of my computer and it looks like I will be here a while. I have posted a small preview gallery on SmugMug with images from myself and a few other photographers. It’s an unbelievably anxious feeling to be responsible for so many images, and with 6500 runners on Sunday it was bound to be a huge undertaking, but the more images I get to, the happier I am with the team that I pulled together for the event.

Have a look if you are interested!

2012 Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon Preview Gallery

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Today’s Archive Image: 2011 Whister GranFondo

So much in the hopper right now ahead of this weekend’s 2012 Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon and just a week out from this year’s BC Bike Race. I have been very excited to put together a team of photographers to shoot the ‘Scotia Half’ this year, regularly regarded as among the most scenic Half Marathons in Canada and I am looking forward to seeing a lot of great images from our team, perhaps as many as 18,000 images, which will see post production and upload next week. Wow, it will be interesting to see the final numbers. Get ready SumgMug!

As last summer was coming to an end I was asked to shoot the 2011 RBC Whistler GranFondo and this is one of the images shot that morning in September from the back of a motorcycle on the Upper Levels Highway above West Vancouver. My buddy Chris and I spent a huge day with the event shooting close to 4000 images between us in the period of about 16 hours. It was an intense day, but what can I say, I love shooting events, and I love shooting cycling. Sunday is going to be epic and I am looking forward to a team photo at the start line at UBC early Sunday morning.

The weekend is almost on us, events are everywhere, cycling, running, farmer’s markets, fairs and parades, these are the stock and trade of staff shooters covering weekend shifts across North America, these are where features are made, faces found and stories are witnessed. I hope you find something to shoot this weekend, your latest portfolio piece is out there.

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Personal Work – The Portrait Project: Hank the Barber

When I left the house early Friday morning to mark the route of a charity bike ride stretching from Crescent Beach in White Rock to Chiliwack, BC about 100km east of where it began I wasn’t thinking much about making photos. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve left the house with my camera with it never seeing the light of day, but I always remind myself that there is a lot to miss in this world and you never know what or who you are going to run into.

I can’t tell you much about the community of Yarrow expect that it sits in the shadow of the Cascade Mountain Range, has about two dozen businesses on the main street through town, offers a great sandwich at the Yarrow Deli and has been home to Hank and his barber shop since the 1940’s. Hank had a seat in the sun in front of his shop when we pulled into town and the sun seemed to light up his white, starched barber jacket. He was impossible to miss and after our lunch break at the town park, I wandered across the street to introduce myself and ask if I could make his portrait.

“I’m Hank the Barber, guess how long I’ve been here.”

We only had about five minutes with him, and I shot shot a few frames, but this was one of those times where I was grateful to have had my camera in my bag. I love this colour frame of Hank, but as much as it captures a certain light in his eyes, it is a reminder to me that some portraits are more than the face they capture. What’s making me crazy, days later, is how I overlooked including more of his shop in the frame given his shop is such a large component of who he is and his place in his community. Next time I will do better.

 

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Link: The Atlantic’s In Focus Gallery Historic Photos from NYC

I was working on a post earlier and will get back to it later I suppose, it features a few images I shot on the weekend of the 2012 Starbucks Run For Women at UBC last Saturday. As I was writing, and trying to collect my thoughts about what it means to see people complete their first 5 or 10 km race I found myself struggling to capture the emotion, satisfaction and exhaustion written across so many of the faces I saw that morning.

This is totally different! A link the the Atlantic’s In Focus Gallery, @In_Focus, came up in my twitter feed today with this remarkable gallery of images from the New York City Municipal Archive. Long before I considered a career in Photography, I studied history, receiving a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Victoria in 1999. I didn’t often get to sort through historical photos, but I relished any chance I got. I love seeing places I recognize in a fully different context, I love the differences and I love seeing what remains after the passage of time and human development.

What is most remarkable about this gallery are the images that also link to Google’s Street View to reveal their modern incarnations. If you love NYC, or old photos have a look and check out how these scenes appear today. I challenge you, however, when looking at these photos to consider them not as just images of our history but for the people captured in these frames, at the moment they were made, it is the apex of their modernity.

Have a look:

The Atlantic

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Today’s Archive Image: Danny Casper 2002

Every photographer or photojournalist has had assignments they seem to remember with perfect clarity whether it was last month, last year or a lifetime ago. I remember my time with Danny Casper with a clarity that is absent when I think of other assignments shot for the dozen or so different newspapers I have contributed to at one time or another. I remember the state of his poverty-worn home, a trailer as old as he, his story of what happened to him as a truck driver when he returned from his military tour in Vietnam. I remember his acute sensitivity to light as a result of the medication he was prescribed to treat cancer. I remember being in his trailer and having to dial up the ISO to 1600 on my Nikon D1H, a camera not known for it’s capacity in low light. I remember shooting this image of Danny in his doorway on my way out, camera still set at 1600 at f2.8. It was lucky I didn’t end up with something blown out and unusable. I look at this image, one that hangs on my wall ten years later, and I see the perfect portrait subject, unaware of the camera and totally unconscious of his appearance. This remains one of my favourite images from my summer in Spokane at the Spokesman-Review in 2002 and remains my favourite of the portraits I have shot. No mater how strong technically or creatively appealing any portrait since, Danny Casper is the bar by which I measure any portrait I make and at the worst of times Danny Casper is the mirror in which I see myself in 20 years wondering what has become of my life.