Whistler felt like the first big trip I did as a more serious photographer, and I really enjoyed it that respect. Lugging a ton of gear, standing outside in the morning cold, and being perched on the finish line of a race course all added focus to both the trip and my photography.
Snowboarding doesn’t really allow you to travel light, so carrying a bunch of photo gear wasn’t a huge change. I was able to tuck my tripod and a small hard shell case in my board bag, and used my new Crumpler bag as a carry-on. Even with a laptop and all my SLR gear, there was still room for a paperback and headphones.
My friends have gotten use to my frequent stops on the slopes for snapshots, and a point-and-shoot in your pocket is still preferable to an SLR there. I think some of the better on-snow shots were taken that way and are just the result of being there and being able to compose a quick shot. What came as a bit of surprise, though, was those mornings I’d be standing out on the balcony with a tripod, shooting the lingering moon or the morning light on the peaks.
The Fire and Ice show was a more challenging subject with limited positioning and light. Cranking up the ISO and lowering the aperture on my prime gave me enough speed to shoot continuously and get some decent shots out of the hundreds taken. In retrospect, a bare external flash probably would’ve blasted far enough help out.
There were some other good sights around town; it’s nice to have an excuse to take a day off from boarding to explore the areas you skip by on the way to the lift. Taking the lift up on an off day wasn’t as productive as I hopped since it was cloudy and snowing, but it was unexpectedly fun chatting with the snow sculptors.
Being the “official” race photographer was a real blast. Since it was just a fun race for our group, I had free access to the course and got to strut the sidelines along the finish. This was another high-speed challenge, and I relied on preset manual focus to get continuous series of racers crossing the finish line. The fog that settled over the race limited me to close-range, and I was able to overcome the fog in post-processing.
Carrying a big camera on the slopes was a new proposition, though I felt pretty safe with my camera in a Pelican case David got me for Christmas. With that in my backpack, it was going to hurt me more in a fall than anything. It wasn’t too much of a burden, though, and since I rode mostly alone that day, neither was stopping to unpack and shoot for a bit. A proper photo backpack is probably on next year’s list - both Burton and DaKine make bags for the photo boarder.
I was a bit disappointed not be able to score and free Wifi in the village, but the laptop was great for reviewing and trimming shots each day. With as many as I took, it would’ve been a long haul to do after the fact. Doing it day by day also led to a more natural selection; as I added more each day, I kept trimming weaker shots to maintain a good set of less than 100.
That also gave me a head start when I did get home and began to publish the photos, both to the web and as a photo book. Living in a digital world, it is nice to see my work in print form, and it made a big difference in sales: I got many more orders when people had a chance to see the book in person at the last ski club meeting.
Overall, it was a very productive and enjoyable trip from a photographic standpoint.
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