Ben Poechman had a spot in mind he wanted to hit. He had been there a few days before and set it up, but just needed to wait for it to snow for the landing to get soft. When he reached out to me he said the feature was right at the end of the forest. This was my first day back shooting snowboarding of the 2020/2021 season and while I hadn’t shot snowboarding with strobes in a while I knew I wanted to do that for this image. The feature was close to a chairlift so it took away some of the difficulty of the logistics of hauling all the gear.

I’ve released my 2022 calendar. Calendars can be ordered here.

It features 12 months of landscape images all capture in British Columbia, Canada.

2020 was an interesting winter. In British Columbia, the season came late with hardly any snowfall in December and ended earlier than expected with restrictions being put in place. However, there was still plenty of time to get after it. I’ve put together this slideshow to share my snowboarding work from 2020. Some of the images made it to print in various magazines, others have been used online, and some haven’t been seen at all.

When getting out for this sunrise I had a specific shot in mind I wanted to shoot. Not to long ago, I shot a sunrise image in the fall. Later that spring, a massive landslide on Joffre Peak took off half the face of the mountain, altering the mountains look. While the peak was only a small element in the photo, I wanted to shoot the same landscape and show the difference between before and after. We got there just in time for sunrise, I set up my tripod and got the shot I was after.

Josh and I had been trying to get out for a while. We kept throwing ideas around of places we wanted to go but never were able to make any of them happen. Finally, a day lined up, but the weather was looking rainy. We figured big vistas weren’t on the future agenda of our hike so we decided to go to a cabin. After some research, we realized the initial cabin we planned to go to was boarded up due to Covid. Another option we thought of was a cabin neither of us had ever been to before. I’ve heard it mentioned by friends in the past asking if I’d ever been there, but have never had the chance. We did some pre-trip research finding as much info as possible. I’m a pretty frequent user of Google Earth so once I had a general idea of where it was I was able to zoom in and find the exact spot of the cabin and plot a route. I’m not personally a huge fan of sharing locations, (I wrote about my thoughts on that here) so wasn’t surprised that I had to do a bit of leg work to find some info.

When shooting you can plan all you want, but sometimes everything comes down to luck. Getting this exact framing depends almost entirely on luck.

While in Tofino, we decided to take a day to hop on a boat and check out the shoreline from a different perspective. In doing so we came across a lot of wildlife ranging from bears to grey whales and orcas. Being on the water gave an unobstructed view, as I didn’t need to shoot through a thickly forested mountainside.

Not every adventure is some epic multi-day mountain ridge traverse, and I don’t think it always should be. This day was forecasted to be rainy and overcast, but we decided to get out regardless and just deal with the conditions. Not that I am in any way against hiking in the rain, it can sometimes just be harder to motivate.

For his 30th birthday, Tony Pavlantos made the goal to hike and snowboard 30,000 vertical feet on Mount Superior in Utah. This is no easy feat and it took the better part of a day to do this. He was up all night hiking and riding, and stopping for breaks in between to take a nap.

I didn’t have a particular plan to make an image in the ice cave. Ben Poechman and I planned to get out on Whistler Blackcomb on what was supposed to be a mostly sunny day. The idea was to shoot images on the giant ice blocks that fall off cornices in the spring. However, a storm came in and we were instead hanging out in a whiteout with nearly zero definition. We decided to go and check out the ice cave as it was nearby and we hadn’t been in a while.

After originally shooting some trail running using myself as the model in a recent post I was able to arrange an athlete to come out and shoot. We were delayed by rainy weather delayed for a bit but we finally got a nice window of sunshine.

Overall I live a generally active lifestyle, from getting out snowboarding, to hiking in the mountains, to even just biking around town. While not all overly physically demanding they keep me in decent shape. One thing I have always struggled with though is doing a regular exercise routine. This is fine in the middle of winter when I’m getting out nearly every day. But there are times when I find myself on the computer for days on end, editing photos, and realize I haven’t done anything physical. Normally this happens in the spring when I’m trying to finish up all my imagery from the winter, and in the fall when it starts getting rainy.

What gear do I carry on a regular trip into the mountains? This is an ever-adapting list, and I’m always adding or removing things based on what activity I’m doing.

Some items included in the winter, rarely make it in, in the summer, and vice versa. I try to keep the weight of my pack down, and I think many people would be surprised at how simple I keep it.

Reputed to be brave, unruly and skilled horsemen the gaucho is a national symbol of Argentina, renowned in legends and folklore. However, the heyday of the gauchos has passed. But what does anybody do when their way of life starts to go the way of the dodo? They adapt, they change, they do what they can to remain relevant, and that is exactly what has happened at Mallin Alto.

Should we publicly tell people about locations that we love? Post about them online giving the exact directions and beta on where to park, how to get there, and exactly what to expect?

Traveling can be overwhelming, especially if you don’t do it regularly. Trying to decide what you should bring, and what should be left at home, can cause nightmares putting stuff in and out of bags trying to make up your mind. When packing my suitcases, if I have time lay everything out quickly, put it in my bag, weigh it and gage where I am. I then take everything out and look through it to make sure I’m not missing something important, or bringing a bit too much. However with my carry on I always pack the same things, and always know what I am going to bring.

I have recently redesigned my website, updated my portfolio, and improved things on the backend. This being said, the content from my original blog wasn’t able to easily transfer over. I have chosen a few feature pieces I would like to share, but unfortunalty I don’t have the time/capability to integrate every previous blog post. Enjoy reading a few of the past pieces, and follow along for future content.

Skiers and snowboarders are part of a nomadic tribe that can be found dreaming about the next turn, sometimes traveling to great lengths in search of pow. This summer as days were getting longer and temperatures higher, I found myself longing to get away from the scorching heat in Whistler, BC.

A hike and photography at a trail near my house in Whistler. Behind the scenes of my thought process and my photography.

A hike and photography at Joffre Lakes in Pemberton, BC on a sunny fall evening. Behind the scenes of my thought process and my photography.