Pleasure Magazine - Complete AK Feature

A Chilean Volcano Venture

This summer I spent a week in Patagonia with the North Face team. We hiked and splitboarded up a volcano, camped and rode. Click here to watch the video and keep an eye out for the February issue of Transworld Snowboarding Magazine for the full story.

John Jackson Cover of TWS Photo Annual

After a long day of shooting in AK we flew back to our lodge and I went straight to my room and downloaded the days images. I knew I had a few bangers in there but it wasn't until I saw this shot on my screen that I realized how good it really was. After seeing this shot for the first time, I think John and I both knew deep down this shot was going on the cover.

Mikkel Bang on the Cover of Norwegian Magazine

I shot this photo of Mikkel at the end of the day during a week long stretch of sunny days in Whistler, BC. The crew was motivated so we didn't stop till the sun dropped.

New TWS Cover Shot of Devun Walsh

I've been shooting Devun Walsh for almost 20 years now. I've watched him go from the kid without a sponsor, to the kid everyone wanted to look like, to the legend he is today. It took him a lot of hard work, on and off the snow. Whether it meant hiking the jump just one more time, driving solo to Utah for a photo shoot or only spinning a switch backside 5 because a 12 will look like shit, Devun knows that being a professional snowboarder is more than chuckin' whatever the newest trick is. He does it all better than anyone else out there, and here is the proof.

Update from Chile. The making of Brain Farm's movie "Flight".

About 10 days ago I left Canada for Chile to shoot with Brain Farm for the making of their feature film "Flight". The snowboarders for this portion of the film will be Jake Blauvelt, Scotty Lago and Travis Rice.

We landed in Santiago and stayed in the city to shoot the lifestyle and the travel portion of the film first before leaving to Farallones, a small town near the ski hill Valle Nevado. With a huge house for us waiting in Farallones along with 2 helicopters, this is where we were to base ourselves from for the next month.

Due to a lack of new snow we decided to leave the house behind and fly south a few hours to Termas de Chillan. All our gear following in 2 cargo vans. Unfortunately the expected snow in Chillan never showed. While waiting, we were able to do a lot of fun things that will end up in the TV show, a kind of a behind the scenes and making of the film. One day consisted of flying to a winery for some tasting, and the next to the beach to check out the Volcom Nutcracker surf contest and finally a day of heli shopping.

We are now back in Farallones, regrouping and planning the next week of the shoot. We still have close to 3 weeks left so we are all optimistic that the snow will come. With this group of riders, all we really need is 3 good days to get it all done. Fingers crossed.

Santiago Airport flooding, not sure the bucket will help.

Greg Wheeler films a local act with the Phantom Camera.

Local dancing in Santiago.

A portion of our group overlooking Santiago.

The setting sun from our house in Farallones.

A lot of people followed Travis Rice and our crew around on Termas de Chillan.

A view of farm land on the way to the beach.

A layer of fog over farm land.

Chile's La Gotera point break from the air.

Travis Rice and Madonna. Opening night of gay ski week in Termas de Chillan.

Gay ski week and Jake Blauvelt's birthday made for one hell of a good time.

Published in American Photo

I recently submitted a few photos to American Photo for their feature on sports photography and was thrilled to find this photo of Mikkel Bang was published. The photo was taken this winter. We were in the Whistler backcountry, it was late in the day, and my crew was still motivated to get shots. This was Mikkel's first time hitting the jump. He was trying a backside 180 and misjudged his speed and went way too big. He opened up like this to keep his balance. On the next try he got the trick but it just doesn't look as cool as this one.

Team Shoot Out 2010 - We Are The Defending Champions

Last year I teamed up with Rome Snowboards and Bear Mountain to compete in Transworld SNOWboarding's Team Shoot Out and took top honours. This year we defended our title against 3 new teams. The photos and video's have been submitted and we wait the announcement of the 2010 TWS Team Shoot Out winner.

Laurent Nicolas Paquin - elbow rail 50-50 to stairs.

Shoot Out Contest Breakdown

The contest goes down in a two-week window: seven days of build time and seven days of ride time.

Each team is provided with a maximum of 210 groomer labor hours and 240 hand crew labor hours by the host resort.

Each team consists of five riders (including one girl). If the team doesn’t include a female, they can only have four riders.

Rider substitutions can only be made if a team member is injured.

One photographer is assigned to shoot each team for the event.

Each team can use a maximum of two filmers to shoot video.

Each team must create a four-minute final video and submit a gallery of six photos for judging.

Judging is broken into the event’s three main components: video, photos, and overall creativity.

The winning team is awarded the September cover.

The Team Shoot Out winner is determined by adding the judging scores of all the contest criteria for the highest possible points total.

Submitted Photo #1 - Eiki Helgason

Submitted Photo #2 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #3 - Will Lavigne

Submitted Photo #4 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #5 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #6 - Laurent Nicolas Paquin

2010 Transworld SNOWboarding Team Shootout

Its spring time and the busiest time of year for me. You wont be getting a lot of updates here since I barely have time to sleep. Its been a great season for me, I've spent the majority of it in Whistler but it's not even close to done. Right now I am at Bear Mountain in sunny California working with the Rome team on the second round of the Team Shootout. Last year we won and have a lot to live up to. Check out the video of what we've been up to.

Top secret day 1 from www.helgasons.com on Vimeo.

Travis Rice on Justin Timberlake.com

"Travis Rice is the type of dude who can make linebacker-sized men pee themselves and/or scream like girls. After all, the US Open/X-Games/Icer Air medal-winning snowboarder is commonly known for doing jaw-dropping stuff like this........and making it look easy"

Check out the full interview and more photos here.

Olympic Halfpipe Venue Looking Bad.

VANCOUVER, B.C. - Winter Games officials have given up on any help from Mother Nature and will now be trucking in snow for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events at Cypress Mountain, on Vancouver's North Shore. The forecast for the week ahead suggests that there will be no new snow for the mountain, nor will it get cold enough to allow them to make any, the organizers said Wednesday after their final board meeting before next month's Games. "We are planning that we will not have snow," said Cathy Priestner Allinger, executive vice-president of sport and Games operations for the organizing committee, known as VANOC. Contingency plans are now being rolled out which include using straw and wood to take the place of snow to build the base for the courses. But Priestner Allinger says they believe there is enough snow elsewhere on the mountain and they will use trucks, snow cats and if necessary helicopters to move snow to the event sites. "We are going to create a fantastic field of play and we are just doing it a little differently than we had originally planned," she said.

These are the grandstands for the halfpipe event.

Can we still deny global warming?

After you factor in the price for this helicopter, just image the cost for each bail of hay.

Dr. Seuss Re-Visited

Back in 2007 I was lucky enough to have the chance to shoot with Jeremy Jones up in Alaska. While flying around looking for lines that he wanted to ride we stumbled upon this feature, later to be named Dr. Seuss, that had never been riden before. Now we all know that Jeremy is nuts when it comes to the lines that he decides to ride, and I'm fine with that because he truly knows his own ability. What scares me is when he started making decisions of where to drop off the photographer and filmer. Check out the video for what I'm talking about.

Safe in my personal Alaskian IMAX theatre, as long as I don't move.

Jeremy Jones finding his own way down.

They call this a tow in, any gust of wind and all hell breaks loose.

Kevin Sansalone Photo- TWS December Issue

Kevin Sansalone was one of the first guys I ever took photos of. We worked together for years during his long pro snowboarding career with Santa Cruz and Option snowboards, mostly in the Mt. Seymour backcountry. Kevin faded from professional snowboarding a few years ago to take a bigger role in his production company Sandbox.

This past winter, Vancouver received abnormal amounts of snow, which created new oportunities for snowboarding in downtown Vancouver. Kevin called me up and told me he wanted to shoot a photo. The idea was to build a tiny transition at the bottom an art sculpture in a park downtown. He showed up with a twenty foot ladder, to get on top and video camera for his buddy to use. From the top of this feature, Kevin told me it looked like he would miss the transition all together and crumble in the flats. Even still, he stepped up at knocked it out.

Outside Magazine BG Winter 2010

Outside Magazine just dropped their Buyer's Guide issue on the newstands this month. Inside you will find a photo I took of Mads Jonsson from a Standard Films shoot as well a photo of Kale Stephens playing in his backyard, Whistler BC.

Because it's socked in so often, British Columbia can be difficult to shoot. So when the sun came out for Serfas in the remote backcountry of Terrace, BC, the 36-year-old Vancouver native took full advantage, stretching the four-day shoot as long as the weather held. It paid off. On the tenth and final day of the trip, Serfas caught this image of pro rider Mads Jonsson, 26, pulling a frontside 360 as he raced down pillows of powder-covered, corniced rocks. The best part? Serfas got to go first. "There was a point riding down when I was just laughing at my good luck," he says. -Lisa Lombardi

Kale Stephens, Avoiding the crowds at Whistler-Blackcomb

My Early Snowboard Photography Career 1992-1997

Every week I get at least one email from a guy who wants to become a snowboard photographer. They want to know what I did to get where I am now. The answer is simple. Shoot and submit. I used to take photos of my friends on weekends and then send them to the mags. I shot with an old manual camera on cheap print film and processed it in 24 hours at the drug store. Then I would send a self addressed stamped envelope to Jon Foster, TWS photo editor back then, with all my "jems". I had no clue what I was doing, and I'm sure it showed. Here is a photo I took of Devun Walsh on Blackcomb in '92 that I submitted to TWS. It would have been one of my first submissions. Devun and I were just weekend warriors back then.

In 1993 I had been shooting skate and snow photos for about a year and had a few shots published in a local zine that you could pick up at the local skate/snow shop. At this time I had saved up enough extra cash to buy a used fisheye lens. Excited to try it out I took it to Whistler on one of my weekend trips. I remember telling this girl I knew that the closer you hold the lens to something, the bigger it would look. She thought that was great, lifted her shirt and said "make these look bigger then". From that moment I fell in love with the fisheye. The following day I shot this photo of Nova Scotian transplant Scott Doucette at the Camp of Champions. "Douce" is now back in Nova Scotia where he runs a record label with his boy Trevor Andrew and doing quite well.

One day in 1995 I was talking with Kevin Sansalone and told me that some backcountry hikers told him of a zone behind Mt. Seymour that we could hike to and build jumps. Only a few people would go back there each month so most days would be untracked. We woke up one sunny day and decided to check it out along with Devun Walsh. I remember post holing a trail up in knee deep powder for about 30 minutes before stopping to build a jump on a knuckle we found. I set up and starting shooting. Devun yelled for me to come up to where he was dropping in from and have a look. Wow, you can see the city from here! I spent the rest of the session shooting from behind showcasing Vancouver in the background. It was on this day that the "city-booter" was born and from that day on, countless pros and wannabes have hiked this popular zone, turning the Seymour Backcountry into a household name.

In 1997, a group of us built this jump for the first time in the Mt. Seymour Backcountry and had Ross Steffy there to film it for Mack Dawg. Our crew was Rob Dow, Devun Walsh, Graham Clements and visiting pro Joey McGuire. Devun and Joey killed it with all kinds of 3's and 5's while Dow launched picture perfect methods for my camera. He wasn't too concerned about the video shot since he didn't have a spot in the movie. This photo was published as a Vans ad and won the "best ad" award in a Visual Arts magazine. Later that year, a photo I shot of Joey ended up on the cover of Snowboarder Magazine, and ever since the jump has been known as the McGuire hit.

For a few years around 1998 Rob Dow and Devun Walsh shared a basement suite of a house. Upstairs lived Dave Cashen and Graham Clements. This house, on Chesterfield Avenue in North Vancouver was known in the local snowboard community as the Chesterfield House. These guys didn't hold parties at the Chesterfield house, parties found the Chesterfield house. Every night was a new adventure, you just never knew who was gonna show up and what was gonna be lit on fire, stolen, broken or flipped upside down. One night we were all hanging out drinking and cabbed it downtown for the last 2 hours of the hip hop night at the Red Lounge. When we returned to the house all the doors downstairs were broken off the hinges and laying in the front yard. The kitchen floor was covered in broken glass and no one had any idea what happened. Just another weird night at the Chesterfield house. The next morning we woke up to sunny skies and headed to Whistler to shoot photos. I remember riding up the peak chair with Dev and he told me that he was still pretty drunk and not down to shoot. Until he got off the chair that is, and saw this cliff waiting for him on the backside. This was a pretty big cliff to stomp when your cross eyed.

Lucas Debari Photo - TWS October Issue

This photo of Lucas Debari was shot in one of Whistler's best backcountry spots. It has almost every type of terrain all easily accessible by snowmoblie.

This particular day in March started from the Mohawk gas station in the Whistler Creekside at 5 am. After stocking up on the days gas and food we rode about 10 km into the backcountry. We were the first crew up and had our pick of all the best jumps and cliffs. We started off with a few easy pat-down cliffs that took only a few minutes to shoot before heading to a spot where the crew wanted to build a huge jump. That was also very successful. While sitting on the lake having lunch, I looked over and started thinking of how this line of spines could be ridden. The angle to shoot was right from where my sled was parked. I thought maybe someone could come in from the left and make a few turns down the main spine. I brought it up with the crew and they were down. Lucas got to the top and said fuck it, I'm just gonna point it from here! Music to any photographers ears. He dropped in, straight lined it and air'd out at the bottom. Wow. He was so pumped that he went back up and air'd into the pocket and then air'd back out. That's that shot you will see in the People Creative movie this year, however the first photo without any tracks happens to be much better and is the photo here that was published in the October issue of TWS.

Endeavor Snowboards Pop-Up Shop

Recently Max Jenke, Rob Dow and I built an Endeavor Snowboards pop-up shop inside of Canada's number one retail store, The Boardroom in Vancouver, BC. Come on down and check it out.