This is one of my all time favorite photos, it was two years in the making. The year before, I tried to shoot something similar with John Jackson, but it didn’t work out. After that attempt, I was so upset. There’s only been a few times that I haven’t been able to pull off a conceptual photo. Not to mention, that I planned it out a year before I shot it. Let’s just say I was heartbroken.
I was going to try it again for this project, and I was very nervous going in to this shoot. The day we rolled up to shoot, there was freezing rain coming down. It was probably the worst conditions you could imagine for a shoot. I was sitting in my truck, with my friend Nathan Yant, trying to decide if we should go up and shoot or not. He said , “this is what we do, we shoot snowboarding, we work in conditions like this, so quit trippin’ and let’s just go out there and see if the weather gets better.” I agreed, so we gathered our 20 person crew, and headed up the mountain in the freezing rain, as the sun was setting. When we got up there, we entered into a crazy blizzard! All the photo equipment was covered in 10 inches of snow, and it was dark now. It took us 2 hours to find all the equipment and unbury it, then we spent another 4 hrs setting up in a blizzard!
We wanted to get a test shot before we lit the trees on fire, but no one wanted to hit a jump in a blizzard, in the middle of the night. I agreed. The storm started to let up, but now every one was wet and freezing cold. Cameron Pierce and Daniel Eek said, “we will do some speed checks and see if we warm up.” They sad they’d give it a try. Now it was going to happen. My stomach was in knots, but I couldn’t let anyone know this, because if I show doubt, my crew would start doubting it too. My experience with these types of situations is, every one needs to say positive. Everyone was looking at me, and I just kept telling them, it was going to work out and be an amazing shoot, but I had no idea if it was going to work. Daniel and Cameron, started hitting it. After a few hits, Daniel was over it, it was too dangerous for him, he couldn’t even see while he was riding into the jump. Cameron wasn’t stoked about the conditions, but we wanted to do it. Cameron had just come in to town that day, to replace Peter Line, who broke his back working on this project. Cameron is an armature for Forum, and this was one of his first big shoots. Talk about stepping up, and he did!
Now it was time for us to light the trees on fire. We only have one or two chances to get this. I put, a local Tahoe kid, Kyle McCoy, who worked for the forest service
(with fire) , in charge of lighting the trees on fire. It was hard to get the trees to light because they were covered with frozen rain. Kyle made some crazy concoction he learned from working with the forest service. He started dowsing the trees along with five other local Tahoe kids. Nathan and I were thinking this does not look good. We radioed to Cameron, he was ready. We called “action!”, he dropped in and started riding down the dark mountion at full speed. We motioned to light the trees and there was an explosion of orange light. Kyle was on the peak of the jump with this flammable concoction in his hand. We noticed his half of his body was on fire! It looked like a scene out of a Die Hard movie! He knew Cameron was already riding into the jump, so he didn’t even try to put the fire out! He just ran and jumped off the side of the jump while on fire, not knowing what was on the other side! Next thing you know Cameron comes flying off the jump and bam I shoot this photo. I looked at the image instantly and knew I had the shot.
Now it was time to see if every one was ok. We ran up to
Kyle and he was laughing. I asked, “Are you ok?”, he said, “This is nothing! I work for the Forest Service, imagine being in a real forest fire!” At the end of the day, it all worked out. I was stoked. I grew up in South Lake Tahoe, and let’s just say , “we are a rare breed”. My crew was mostly made up of these people. It would not have been possible to do this without them.
Most people would say we’re crazy… I say, these are my friends!
Side note: If any one was wondering about the trees, I had my friend Tarren and Kyle Norman, gather Christmas trees that people had thrown out with the trash after Christmas. They stored them for us until this shoot. The trash left over after Christmas, is so bad for our environment. That is what this photo symbolizes to me.
This ice wall took 2 days to build, it got finished at 4:30 am. We could only shoot on the ice for an hour before the sun came up. We felt like we were dreaming because we were so tired. (Action by Pat Mo0re)
Action & Portrait photo:Daniel Eek
The pond photo was super fun to shoot, nothing crazy happened. So my boss (Bryan Knox)had to “live up to the craziness”, I told him that every time I shoot, something crazy happens. He told me he was going to jump the pond on my snowmobile. In my head I was like “yeah right”, and said sure. He road it through it a few times, and decided he said I going to do it. I couldn’t say no because I already said he could. I hear my snowmobile just coming out of the darkness at full throttle toward it. Then you see him flying over the pond. He made it!
We started screaming in excitement, he brought the snowmobile around to me…we noticed the whole rear end was bent and all the shocks were blown out!
There was a take off, but just a flat landing. I just started laughing and said I was stoke he did that.
These photos are my greatest contribution to snowboarding. I’m very proud of them out of all the submission to snowboard magazines this one is my favorite. One of the reasons I am so fond of then is because thet have a message in them. It is very subtle but that’s the way I like things. They represent what we are doing to the environment. This is one of the most important issues of our times. We are slowly destroying the earth the thing that keeps us alive. That is just a crazy thought to me. How is it possible that we consume so much stuff? The leaders of our planet encourage consumption. Or society is based around this concept. Why do the products we by only last for six mounts? My thoughts are that recycling is important but it is miss leading. Now I’m suppose to feel ok with thronging thousands of plastic bottles away? The fact is we have to stop consuming as a planet. I feel like the earth is a living organism and we are a cancer killing it.
This is not your typical environmental project it is not come guys eating granola trying to save the earth that is not my style. I want to paint a very graphic picture of what we are doing. At the sane time I wanted it to apply to a young audience who are snowboarders. The youth is the future and I feel like if I can plant a seed now maybe it can grow in time. These kids will be running things in time. We all know the people doing it now are not doing that good of a job.
This project was made possible by Forum ,Transworld snowboarding mag and the efforts of so so many people thank you for being a part of this.
The third time is a charm they say. I have shot this photo 3 times now. After the first time I shoot here I was supper stoked on the photo but I felt like it needs some thing more. The first photo is shot with a black sky and the city. My problem is any one could go there and shoot the same exact photo. By being patient and waiting to reshot on a day with weather give this photo a unique signature no one can replicate the cloud in the new photo. The city and the road will be there night after night but the cloud was only there for a half hr. My point is don’t ever settle or sell your self short .If you thing you can do something better then at least try. In life I see people just saying that’s good enough. We should be able to stand tall and say I gave it my all. I don’t want to look back at my like and say I could of tried harder. By then it will be to late.
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My third try and final image#3
My first try image #1Samuel Blaire is a home less man I met it front of star bucks He’s was trying to sell us a CD of his music. I was with my friend Jordon and we were in not in the mood to get hit up for money. On our walk there every 10 feet it was you got $1.35 or .25cents ECT it gets old quick. We have to deal with this 24/7 every day .I just started saying do I look like your mom. Samuel was cool he just started paying and we were in awe thinking this guy was no joke. We ended up buying his CD. I let him know I wanted to shoot him for my LA project. He was not really feeling it so I had to sell him on it. The roles had been switched now I wanted something from him. Oh the irony. I won him over and meet him a day later so I could shoot some picks of him. I have a few good ones but I know I have only just started my journey with MR Blair. I want to document his day-to-day life. He lets us know he had a wife and kid that he lives with on the streets under a bridge. He shines shoes in the day and plays music at night to support them. This is an amazing story. If you want to here his music this is the link http://www.myspace.com/samueljblair you will be stoke on it if you like blues.
I met an amazing artist by chance the other day. It is funny how life works. My new friend Lorenzo Saicido is air brushing a picture on a six by ten foot canvas. This is one of the most impressive pieces I have seen. He has been working on it for a week straight.
Lorenzo is an underground artist from LA. It is just a matter of time before he blows up.
This is a peak at his work. I will show the hole thing when he is done. My friends and i sit around sit day after day in awe watching him create this work of art. It is like watching a modern day Picasso being created. I did not want to show to much because it not done. But I will just wait!!!!
