This year, due to school, I am unable to attend any of the event really. Though with our wedding on April 23rd, I might get to drop by and say hi to the variety of WSSF event crew I’ve met while being a photographer up there in previous years. If you have the opportunity, you should really check out this annual event, it’s one big massive party with some spectacular events and acts.

If I could make it, what would I go see?

There are many events I would definitely check out if I were able to get up there for the entire 9 days. I’ll try and name a few of them and if you do get to attend any of them, I would love to hear about your experiences.

State of the Art

Local and International artists display epic works of art throughout the event’s duration.

Well it seems I don’t have any of my photos from the previous years State of the Art gallery. You’ll have to have to trust me or check out some photos on the WSSF website.

AXE concert Series

There is always some sort of concert going on.

Classified on the Main Outdoor Stage

Actually there are two stages in the Whistler Village that constantly has various bands playing. One of the big names this year is Swollen Members.

Katie Rox – Smaller outdoor stage

Olympus Pro Photographer Showdown

If you love beautiful and epic photography, then this is definitely the event you need to check out (if there are still any tickets left). The Pro Olympus Showdown puts 4-5 photographs up against each other in photo-slide show of epic proportions. It’s not your typical family vacation photos either, these are killer once in a life-time (perhaps not for these guys n gals) photographic moments that would bring a tear to any avid skier or snowboarder.

Again, I seem to lack any photos online that I took from previous years events. Check out the WSSF site for some photos during the event.

VAIO Fashion EXPOSED

This year, the Fashion EXPOSED is sponsored by a different company, previous years it has been sponsored by Schick, but I am sure that won’t change the calibre of fashion won’t change at all.

You can check out more of my Fashion EXPOSED photos over at Flickr.

Variety of on-mountain events

There are of course all the various on-mountain events such as moguls, Super-Pipe and more. This year they are bringing back the Big Air comp which is one of the bigger events that wasn’t done last year.

More More and More

The above is just a small amount of what happens during the course of the 9 days of the WSSF. There are many more things to do, see and experience. I highly recommend checking out the 2011 Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival schedule.

Hopefully you’re able to make it to at least one event up at the WSSF this year.

So what did we get up to? It was a nice and relaxing time, which is what I wanted before going back to the grind.

Whistler/Blackcomb

Our second home of course! Robyn and I braved the potential crowds so we could go enjoy a nice sunny day up at Whistler/Blackcomb. When we arrived at Creekside the parking lot was busier than we’ve seen lately. I suppose people like to go skiing and snowboarding on Spring Break

When we uploaded from the Creekside Gondola, we were told that Big Red was not in operation. Once we got to Big Red the green run down to Garbanzo was crowded. More experienced people were zooming past the less experienced. When we got to the top of Garbanzo, we decided we would take the Peak-2-Peak across to Blackcomb. Glad we did, Blackcomb wasn’t nearly as busy as Whistler was.

After lunch at Rendezvous we decided to ride down to Skier’s Plaza in the Village, take the Gondola back up and then ride back down to Creekside. As per usual, it was an awesome day!

Lighthouse Park, West Vancouver

Robyn and also managed to get out for a little walk at Lighthouse Park in  West Vancouver, were we got to watch a bald eagle up close. I think he was eating a seagull.

Aussie Friends Visit

Friends from Australia were in town visiting. We went for a little walk to check out the Herons in Stanley Park and the Laughing statues in English Bay.

They have started their around the world trip so they won’t be back to Australia for a year. Their travels will take them from Canada down to somewhere in South America, then I think they are popping over to Europe and beyond. Looking forward to their trip as they will be documenting their drive down. I expect lots of surfing photos and videos.

Aquarium

Our friends from Victoria came in to town for a family Wedding. We went over to the Vancouver Aquarium yesterday and had a great time. It was the first time their daughter (our god daughter) has been to an aquarium.

Back to the grind

Now it’s back to school. I’m hoping to get into a Co-op job, but time is running out. I’ve been applying like crazy but haven’t heard back from the Co-op department here.

Even though we just had midterms, our final exams are late next month.

It’s been a while since we’ve had time to hit up the snowy action here in Vancouver so I thought I would post another photo from our last trip to Cypress. This was taken while riding up Sky-Chair. If you’ve never been to the top of Mount Strachan, let alone Cypress, you’re missing out! Sure, the other mountain might offer a spectactular view of Vancouver, but Cypress does as well. In fact, Cypress has an incredible 360 degree view of the surrounding area!

Recently with the sunny weather, you can see the Olympic mountain range in Washington, the mountain range on Vancouver Island and more! It’s pretty impressive actually.

The above photo was taken with my Canon XSi and it’s kit lens the EF-S 18-55. I sold my EF 17-40L, but the kit lens doesn’t do a horrible job in the meantime. The tricky thing is to turn around on the chair to take a photo without falling off or letting go of the camera (that I don’t have a strap attached to). A bit of lens flare can be see, but hard to avoid if you’re shooting directly into the sun!

Typical of a day trip, we parked at the underground lot at Creekside, suited up and headed for Whistler. The nice thing about getting to Whistler early is that the lift lines are fairly minimal in the morning.

On to the photos!

We met up with our friends and did a couple starting runs. We decided to hit up Harmony and took Harmony Ridge to assess the conditions of Symphony (which was closed). The snow was awesome and there were still some untouched pockets of powder hidden among the terrain.

We went back up Harmony Chair and took a portion of Burnt Stew into Symphony. Unfortunately, I hit a pretty large hole on part of the groomer and saw blue, white, blue, white and had my camera jammed into my spine. No photos of me doing a double cartwheel, but all was good, laughed it off and continued on.

We took Harmony again after Symphony and decided to hit up Sun Bowl. The photos of Sun Bowl doesn’t really do it justice, but it is a fairly steep black run that enters Symphony Bowl. What I learned after we did it was that Robyn has never done Sun Bowl but always wanted too. It was fun, and of course the snow was awesome.

We hit up the Roundhouse for some lunch and headed back out to hit up the Whistler Peak to take the Saddle down.

After we were done and departed Creekside, Robyn and I headed over to Rainbow Park at Alta Lake. It was quite picturesque as the sun began to set.

We met back up with our friends in Whistler Village for some drinks and eventually made it for some dinner as well.

It was an awesome day at Whistler and an awesome time up on the slopes. We’ll have to head back soon to hit up 7th Heaven on Blackcomb too!

We decided to leave from our heavenly place of the West End at roughly 7:30am, in hopes to get early enough to the Base II parking lot to snag a spot. Last time we went up for spring skiing/riding and parked at Base II we were lucky to find a spot; it quickly fills up. We arrived at Base II a little over 9:30am and the Excalibur Gondola was uploading.

We arrived at the top of the Excelerator Chair, I strapped in and we headed down to Glacier Lodge via Wish Bone so we could hit up Jersey Cream as 7th Heaven was currently closed.

We headed down Jersey Cream a few times. The snow in the sun was great, better than what I was expecting, though the snow in the shade was icy but of course that’s expected.

After the third time going up Jersey Cream, Robyn noticed that 7th Heaven was open. So took off over to 7th Heaven and Robyn was excited as she’s never known it to be open during spring season due to lack of snow. It definitely did not have a lack of snow!

The top of 7th Heaven offers one of the most spectacular views of the near by coastal mountain range. From there you can see the various mountains in the Garibaldi Provincial Park, the infamous Blacktusk as well as Whistler and it’s terrain. Too bad the Whistler side is closed, looks like there is enough snow to keep Symphony and Harmony both open for a little longer. It was also the first day that Whistler was open for the Mountain Bikers too! I’m sure the village was crazy busy.

We hit up Cloud 9, Hugh’s Heaven and Panorama a bunch of times. The snow was great, and riding was smooth and enjoyable. There wasn’t very many people either, which is great as we never had to wait in a chairlift line. We also haven’t seen the lifties so happy either! Wearing shorts and t-shirts, what a great time to be up on the mountain.

The above photos might help explain why my forearms are burnt. In fact they are burnt all the way around too. I guess the sun reflection off the white snow played in that part.

Of course I had to get a photo of Robyn “smelling the status”.

Perhaps a pre-cursor of things to come?

Robyn and I believe this has been our best session this season. We went solid for 4.5 hours and enjoyed every minute of it. Even on the way back down while on the gondola, Robyn saw something cool!

It’s hard to see, but that black round shape on the left side near the little shack is a black bear, fresh out of hibernation and only a few hundred feet away from the Base II gondola station. Thought about going closer, as we saw a bunch of people nearby, but we just wanted to get home.

It was truly a fun and epic day on Blackcomb and it was the perfect way to end our Winter season.

I had Robyn play around with my Canon 7D as I came down Cloud 9. Camera was in AI Servo on highspeed and told her the closer I got for her to just hold down the shutter button and let the camera rip. The above sequence is of the photos she took and I threw them together into a little video clip.

The weather was pretty dreary out and it kept threatening to rain but I was still wanting to go up and check it out so I did just that. I arrived in Whistler at about 10:30AM where I met up with my buddy Keith. We headed off to the gondola just before noon so we could check out the event closer to the start of the finals.

I was a bit anxious about riding to the event with my camera gear on my back. I have gotten used to carrying a 2L water-hydration pack when I go riding, but not 25 pounds or so of camera gear strapped to my back with a larger backpack on. I kept my gear to a minimum, which consisted of my Canon 7D, Canon XSi (with grip), 70-200m, f/2.8L IS and the 17-40 f/4L. It fits all nicely into my ThinkTank Streetwalker Pro backpack too. Getting onto the lift is easy, getting off the lift with the pack is the tricky part. Since the Peak 2 Peak Gondola is closed, Keith and I had to make our way up Blackcomb via the Excalibur Gondola, to the Excelerator chair then ski down to Glacier Lodge and take the Jersey Creme chair up to the Rendezvous Lodge. Then we skied/rode down Springboard to the base of the Superpipe in the Nintendo Terrain Park.  Yes, Keith was carrying more like 50 pounds of gear and hasn’t skied in over 14 years, but I still think taking a heavier backpack than I am used to on a snowboard isn’t an easy task at first either. Getting off a chair with a snowboard isn’t as easy as skier’s getting off a chair, add a pack and it makes it much more fun!

Did I mention that this is the first time Whistler/Blackcomb has had a 22-foot super pipe? Typically it is roughly 19-feet high, so now (if they can get themselves the 22-foot pipe cutter from New Zealand) their local Olympic athletes can practice at home!

Alright, so on to the photos! It was hard to choose a selection of photos from the 1000+ I took on the deck of the halfpipe. I uploaded 110 to flickr, but I have to decide how many photos to add to this post!

So many photos to choose from, at least they don’t take up too much bandwidth and I am sure many of you out there have fast enough internet connections so the load times shouldn’t be too bad in loading this page. Just randomly pulling photos from my recent upload too.

It is pretty amazing what people can do on Skis, including the amount of amplitude (height) they can get above the deck. There was talk about trying to look at getting this event into the Olympics too, since snowboarding on the half-pipe is an Olympic sport, why not skiing? They allowed for the Ski-Cross to happen this year which was pretty crazy and awesome to watch!

You can check out the rest of the photos I’ve uploaded over on Flickr. I would appreciate any feedback on them or for you to favourite any of them you like! After all, how do I know I am doing any good or if you enjoy the photos I take if no one mentions it?

Next up will be the Grenade Games half-pipe event on Blackcomb, but not till Thursday!

I’ve been monkying around with my Canon 7D custom functions and getting it to match my Canon XSi so that when I go use both camera bodies, I don’t have any issues with one working a different way than the other. I use * button on the back to stop (or lock) the focus, so that the regular shutter button controls the AE (exposure) and taking the photo itself.

Anyway, Keith and I wandered around the entire Stanley Park seawall on our normal quest to find the resident eagles. We never did come across any of the eagles this time.

We stood around the little stone bridge at the west side of Lost Lagoon for a little bit. Showing some Aussie tourists how friendly the local chickadees actually are, especially when you have the proper seed for them.  While this was going on the two sparrows (I think that’s what they are) were gabbing to each other.

I have really been enjoying my Canon 7D’s high speed continuous ability. At 8 frames per second and a high shutter speed I can now freeze movement and capture instances I would normally miss with my Canon XSi. I still have to work on focusing on the proper spots on a bird though as this guy’s head isn’t in focus.

We popped over to the Vancouver Aquarium, but at the section that is “free”. Here a trainer is working with the recently rescued Harbour Porpoise the Aquarium as acquired. Wonder if they will release it back into the wild, or if it will join the spotted dolphins in the next tank over.

Now if you have ever gone on a photowalk with me into the more nature type places of Vancouver (Stanley Park, Lighthouse Park, Riefel Bird Sanctuary etc) you’ll probably learn I’m really good at seeing and pointing out critters that most people seem not to notice. The above photo is of a hummingbird, just not sure which one it is since the lighting is horrible on it. I cropped the photo to about 90% tried to increase the light levels and bring out any colour I could with Lightroom. I then tossed it into Photoshop CS4 and run NoiseNinja on it to clean it up a bit. Not bad for what I had to work with, maximum focal length at 200mm in a tree whose leaves are almost the same size of the bird and with no sun being out!

I should get a hummingbird feeder out sooner than later now! It seems that Spring is here…

Since the clouds were out and about it’s always a good time to do a hand-held HDR photo of Coal Harbour. The Westin (far left behind marina) is home to not only I.O.C (International Olympic Committee) but also to various families of the Olympics too. I heard a rumour that President Obama was supposed to stay there too but it looks like he pulled out and now the Vice President will be in town for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

So what, now the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics are 9 days away? What will I be doing? Probably just wandering around with my camera taking photos of whatever I happen to see. Too bad I couldn’t get accrediated to do some sporting venues for the Olympics I would have really liked to see Shaun White and them on the Half Pipe like I did at Cypress last year.

Yeah, I have been going through some of my photos taken during the LF FIS WorldCup event up at Cypress Mountain last year. I even did a first attempt at creating a sequenced shot in Photoshop too, I don’t think it turned out half-bad.

There is still some time left in this Winter season, perhaps I can get up to Grouse Mountain for an event or two, or at least head over to Whistler for the upcoming 2010 Telus World Ski and Snowboarding Festival!

By now most people know that Whistler/Blackcomb is home to many of the Alpine events for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Which is quite evident when driving up into Whistler itself. Various Olympic graphics are being put on the various fencing and tents, security measures are becoming a bit more evident and you can now see a Military presence. The snow base is great though, so no need to truck or fly in snow like one of our local mountains has to do.

Now in previous times when Robyn and I have gone up to Whistler/Blackcomb, Cypress or even Grouse Mountain, I tend to take Robyn’s Pentax Optio W10 point and shoot camera. Why? Well the main factor is that it is waterproof. Dropping it in the snow or getting wet isn’t a big deal. It also easily fits into one of my various pockets which makes it easier to use than a typical digital SLR camera such as my Canon 7D or my smaller Canon 450D (Digital Rebel XSi).

Today was different, because I bought a Canon 7d, I now have an extra camera body. I thought about bringing my Canon 450D up with us to the mountains but falling on the camera has always been a fear of mine. Not from hurting myself mind you, but breaking the camera and leaving me camera-less. Today I brought along the Canon 450D along with the EF 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS kit lens. I used my 2L water backpack which happens to have enough room to fit my Canon XSi, the battery grip attached as well as the kit lens. I was stoked! In fact, I slept horribly because I was so excited to try and take my camera up with me!

Now I don’t know how many of you reading this actually Ski or Snowboard, let along carry anything with you when you do it. This was my first time and at first it was a bit awkward having that extra little weight on my back. I quickly got used to it and it felt normal.

We parked up at Base 2 (Parking Lot 6 on the Blackcomb side), geared up and headed up the Excalibur Gondola. From the Excalibur Gondola you head over to the Excelerator Express Chair. This is where I first took out the Canon XSi and started taking a few photos.

I fully strapped myself into my board and we proceeded down towards Glacier Creek Lodge. Robyn wanted to hit up 7th Heaven right away, so we did just that. At first it was a bit weird to have the extra weight, but that feeling quickly subsided as I twisted and turned down towards Glacier Creek Lodge.

We headed up Jersey Cream Express to where Rendezvous Lodge is located. We ducked down Expressway and entered 7th Heaven from below. By this time I barely even notice the small backpack and camera on my back.

The great thing about getting to Whistler/Blackcomb so early, is that there is virtually no one at the lift lines and a few people actually on the runs. Though I am sure it’s not like Fresh Tracks.

Once we got up to Horstman Hut the sun was out, the clouds were far away and the snow was great.

It was time to head down into the first main run of our day, we decided to take Cloud Nine as it seems everyone else was heading towards Hugh’s Heaven.

Cloud Nine was great even if it wasn’t a groomed run. The snow was nice and soft, there was some small patches of deeper snow too, which is always fun of course!

We cruised on down to the 7th Heaven lift and went up again. We did Cloud Nine and Panorama a few times before heading over to Glacier Creek Lodge for some lunch. Though before heading out, Robyn tried to capture me snowboarding down Panorama.

Ah so much fun. No I didn’t fall, I was waiting for Robyn to put the camera away and hand the backpack over. Though I did find riding without the backpack was weird and I felt off balanced. I think from this point on, I shall always have a dSLR with me on the mountain.

To get back to Rendezvous Lodge we took the Green Line out of 7th Heaven. We went past the lodge and headed back down to Glacier Creek Lodge for lunch. Robyn and I had a delicious lunch and rested for a little bit before proceeding back outside. At this time it seems that clouds were beginning to roll in and the sun was falling behind the mountains. We headed down Zig-Zig took the Excelerator Express chair back up to Glacier Creek Lodge.

Headed up the  Jersey Creme Express and down past Rendezvous Lodge. Robyn suggested we head towards the Big Easy Terrain Garden as she knows I want to take photos of people taking jumps, rails and such. We just went through the park, didn’t stop to take photos as I felt a bit awkward doing so. I’m fine for taking photos when I’ve been asked to do it, such as the time I went up to photograph the LG FIS WorldCup 2009 events at Cypress Mountain, or when I photographed the events at the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival last year too, but when it comes to taking photos of random people I tend to be a bit shy. I want to work up the courage to do it, I need to hang out at the terrain parks more often and take people photo’s right? People want to be photographed showing off their mad skillz in the parks right? That would be awesome!

At this point I was getting tired, I accidentally went through some massive mogul area (Sluiceway) up at 7th Heaven and that tuckered me out for the rest of the day. From the Big Easy Terrain Garden we headed back down to Base 2 and drove home.

It was an awesome day. Great snow, great weather and of course it is always fun riding along side Robyn. I was such a good ROI I think!

Some other photos from today:

From a photography standpoint, using my dSLR was just amazing for the results. Being able to control the finer aspects of the camera’s settings I think can help make a photo a little bit better. The great thing about so much sun was I could get away with using a lower ISO, smaller aperture and faster shutter speed. I don’t remember the last time I could shoot at ISO 100-200 with an aperture of f16 and still get shutter speeds above 1/500th of  second.

Perhaps I’ll work my way up to bring along my Canon 7D, but for now the Canon 450D works perfectly fine for this sort of thing. Well except for getting action shots. While Robyn was trying to photograph me coming down Panorama, the buffer filled up (it doesn’t have much of a buffer to begin with) and there were some great shots missed. Though I do like what she did manage to capture.

When I get more into it, I can look at purchasing one of those Burton Camera Backpacks or perhaps one from F-Stop. Then I can bring more camera gear with me, though I’ll probably have to get into better shape to carry a 28L pack while riding the slopes. I can hang out around the Terrain parks at the various ski mountains we have and work on my portfolio and experience! After all, I’m not too shabby with a camera, right?

I’m not sure what a photographer’s greatest moment can be, but for me it was the feeling I got from having my first photo published, well being asked for a photo in which would be published in a book. Not only was that a cool feeling, receiving the book in which my photo was published is even better!

I received an email from a publisher asking me about a particular photo that they wanted to use in a book about the history of snowboarding, the bonus? Ross Rebagliati was writing it! If you are from Vancouver, or even Whistler, Rebagliati is a pretty big name in the world of snowboarding. Who else has a park and a ski run named after them?

Off the Chain: An Insider’s History Of Snowboarding

Now I’ll be honest, I haven’t finished reading the book, but I am really enjoying the information that Rebagliati has put together as well as his journey through snowboarding. The ups and the downs. It is cool to find out how my favourite sport came to be, starting out with modified pieces of wood similar to surf boards and skateboards, to what influences the design of snowboards today.

“With Ross as your guide, you’ll tour with the sport’s best riders, drop into the wilder side of snowboarding culture, and find out what really happened in Nagano as Ross won, lost and regained his Olympic media. Along the way you’ll check out video shoots, navigate the backroom dealings behind the sport, and hit some of the world’s best boarding destinations. Strap on your board, throw caution to the wind, and get ready to rip in the refreshingly candid and lavishly illustrated Off the Chain: An Insider’s History of Snowboarding.”

Even though I have only read the first few areas of the book, it has been some great reading. With aspects like, how the sport came to be and where it will go in the future, some history of Jake Burton and Tom Sims and more. I can’t wait to read more into where Ross Rebagliati’s career took him and how the whole Nagano Olympics went down in regards to his Gold medal.

Enough about that, more about the photo they used!

That’s right, signed by him too! This will definitely be something I keep forever!

There is my photo (page.112)! The caption above tells who the four riders are, where they are and that I took the photo! That’s pretty cool, well for me anyway.

This is the original shot, well the one I uploaded to Flickr that got their attention. Boardercross (SBX) is pretty cool event, but unfortunately we did not win tickets to the event during the 2010 Winter Olympics. At least we got to see the same competitors at Cypress though. Cool nonetheless!

If you want to check out the book at your local book store here is the info:

• Title: Off The Chain: An Insider’s History of Snowboarding
• Author: Ross Rebagliati
• ISBN: 978-1-55365-487-2
• Publisher: Greystone Books

What’s next for my photography? Who knows! It’s a start right? With the up  coming winter season perhaps I can have more oppurtunities for photos such as the ones I took up at Cypress Mountain or at Whistler. Though it looks like it might have to wait until the 2010 Winter Olympics are over.

So here’s to me wishing for more of my photos published in cool projects such as this one! I can toot my own horn right?

Most readers of my blog will know I have many passions in life (one of which is my relationship with Robyn) though recently, the other two I have been focusing as well,  is photography and snowboarding. It looks like those two passions of mine are going to fuse together this weekend up at Cypress Mountain; LG Snowboard WorldCup 2009.

Robyn and I first learned about the WorldCup Event up at Cypress through one of our friends. I was pretty interested in seeing if I could obtain media accreditation for photographing the snowboard events. Our friend mentioned it might be hard to obtain since VANOC and the municipality of West Vancouver was in charge of the event.

So what did I do? When we got home I looked through the LG Snowboarding WorldCup website to see how one might be able to obtain media accreditation. I read over the information provided on their site and noticed that an application form had to be filled out and sent in a week prior to me reading this information. I thought I would email them and ask if I still could get accreditation. Doesn’t hurt to ask right?

My LG Snowboard WorldCup 2009 Media Pass

This week I received an email saying I was accepted for media accreditation and I could pick up my pass for the event. I was ecstatic!

For me this is a great opportunity to combine two passions of mine as well as experience a sporting event as a photographer, it is a dream of mine to get into Sports Photography. Attending games such as baseball, football and even hockey I was always taken an interest of the photographers and their camera gear. Being able to capture such action to me was pretty cool their results are always astonishing.

So this now being my first (of hopefully many) media event, I’m excited to get out into the snow with my camera and capture some of the most exciting action in sports for the Winter season. I’ve also read that Shawn White will be attending the Half-Pipe event too.

Many 2010 Winter Olympians will be in attendance for this event hosted by Cypress Mountain. There is also over $150,000 in cash up for grabs too.

Me Riding Down Blackcomb Mountain this year

According to the website, the Half-Pipe tickets for spectators are sold out. That still leaves the PGS (Parallel Giant Slalom) and Boardcross events for spectators to see. If you have a season pass to Cypress you are also allowed to go watch the events without paying the $10 ticket prices. Tickets can be purchased at the Park Royal shopping centre in West Vancouver if you plan on attending.

Be sure to follow my photographic journey at the LG WorldCup Event over at WestCoast Alpine.