Crankworx 2012 (60 Images)
Get Out There Magazine Cover
Time flies. If it weren’t for the reminders I would say that it was impossible that my last post was in August. As the winter rain settles into the Vancouver skyline I was drawn back to my photos from Crankworx this past summer. What an amazing week and a tremendous opportunity for very intensive shooting. During a conversation a couple of weeks ago with my photography colleagues from CreativeMornings/Vancouver we talked as photographers do and in the process I was asked about a previous position that I held for almost five years. While that job feels like it is from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I remember it being a tremendous learning experience, just as my first internship was. What set these experiences apart from others was how intensive they were, how high the bar was set for production, delivery and quality. It was hard work but it was possible to see improvements almost daily and certainly weekly. If you are at school or starting out the best advice I can give is to shoot daily. There are far more elements to being a photographer than most of us will let on to, client care, business development, insurance, incorporation et cetera, et cetera. But to see your craft develop is to shoot as much and as often as you can. Be deliberate in choosing your subjects and photograph your passions. Be passionate about your content.
The time between Crankworx and now has gone by in a blur, some disappointments and some successes and some great clips found in the Whistler Question, Pique News Magazine, The Vancouver Sun, The Georgia Straight and the cover of Get Out There Magazine’s Western Canada Winter 2012/2013 issue (above). You wouldn’t know it by the frequency of my posts but there have been some interesting and touching shoots for the UBC Department of Midwifery and portrait clients and I am happy to say that I also have a new position. The photo above was shot last February at Whistler’s Olympic Park during the Yeti Snowshoe Race Series. Since then I have signed on as Photographer and Photography Manager for 5 Peaks Adventures who manages the Yeti Snowshoe Series, 5 Peaks Trail Running Series, Meet Your Maker Ultra Marathon and others. We are three events into our year and I can’t wait to get on snowshoes early in 2013 for the Yeti.
Events: 2012 Crankworx Teva Best Trick II
Enjoying the quiet in Whistler this morning with a cup of coffee while I pull a few ad photos for a client. I couldn’t resist post a couple more images from yesterday’s Teva Best Trick contest at Crankworx. Though it remains true what I wrote last night about the work of others, I am pretty happy with some of the shots I made, not bad for a rookie.
Events: 2012 Crankworx Teva Best Trick
It was so tough to pick one image of the 30 or so edits from today’s Teva Best Trick event at Crankworx but I hope you’ll like this one and that it will keep you interested in coming back and ultimately interested in my post event Crankworx gallery. This is one of those events in which the photographers outnumber the competitors, and today it felt like 3-1, the RedBull Joyride event this weekend is sure to be a glass fest. It is interesting to see so many pros in one place, everyone seeking out their unique vantage point, but ultimately turning their lenses to the same subject. One of the most interesting experiences I have had in photography is how different photographers see and approach the same subject. It hits me every time I look at the work of others who have been at the same event as I have. This is one of those things that makes photography so compelling but also humbling. It can be difficult to look at the work of others and see so clearly the elements of my own work that needs something more.
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!
Whistler Jump Park
Turning the camera is good advice. Advice that was often heard in the halls and classrooms of the Photojournalism program I completed ten years ago. Wow, ten years. There has been a lot of mileage racked up in that time and a lot of turning of cameras. Perhaps there is no coincidence that within a year of graduating I was shooting 360 degree panoramic images for hospitality and tourism clients, and in traveling the globe for a lot of that work, the world continued to turn under me. Somehow I don’t think my instructors meant their advice so literally. It was also a huge turn from working at a newspaper and though I no longer do that kind of work there are days when I miss both experiences; telling stories and capturing moments to be shared on newsprint and looked at by perhaps hundreds of thousands of readers and producing images capturing elements of style, design and far off places of luxury.
If you’ve been looking at my photos, or have looked through a few of my galleries, you may have already guessed that I have a strong interest in cycling, it goes back to childhood. One of the lessons that wasn’t taught when I was at school was that it wasn’t enough to be interested in photography alone. Photographers need to be interested and curious about the world they live in whether surrounded by family, food, design, heartbreak or even cycling. Start by photographing what you love and what you are passionate about and let the rest unfold. If you don’t like what you see try changing your perspective, try turning your camera. I shot this image in Whistler, BC on a sunny Saturday in May, and to capture this frame I had to take that advice from so many years ago. I turned the camera. In this case I turned it straight up.
Today’s Archive Image
Between 2003-2007 I had the chance to travel through Europe a number of times for work; I liked to imagine that it was my “Backpack Through Europe” experience, but not really. I was there for work, and my nights in 4 & 5 Star hotels way out numbered my nights spent in hostels, and it didn’t hurt that I had an expense account to draw from. I spent nearly a week in Hamburg in September of ’04 and loved almost every minute of it. It was my first time in Germany and I was sold! On one of my few days off, a world cup Triathlon event took over Lake Alster, in the very center of Hamburg and I hung around to make some images.
Elysium Photo by Rob Shaer 