Last Week in the PNW

The last week in the Pacific Northwest was pretty incredible. I just got back from an amazing day shooting up at Crystal Mountain, after they'd received 18" of new snow in one night.

 

A pretty incredible day. Looking forward to many more like it this season!

Revo Ad Campaign with Jimmy Chin

Just got the first of the layouts from the Ad Campaign I shot for Revo Sunglasses earlier this summer. Really happy with how everything turned out. Stoked to have been able to shoot with Jimmy for this. It's not often that your model is also an incredibly talented photographer and athlete... let alone a cool guy.

 

 

If you'd like to see a little Behind the Scenes from this shoot, check out the LINK to our earlier post.

National Geographic Extreme Photo of the Week

For the second time in the past year, I was awarded National Geographic's Extreme Photo of the Week! Incredibly honored to be selected for this again. Thanks!

To see the write up on what went in to getting this shot, click on the LINK to National Geographic.

Newly Published Skiing Images

Every once in a while, I like to showcase some of my most recent images that have been published in the magazines. Below are a few of my favorites from the start of the winter editorial season. Enjoy!

Amie Engerbretson scoring the "Letter from the Editor" in both Skiing Magazine and Ski Magazine

Both shot at Stevens Pass, Wa.

Powder Magazine, December Issue, Shooting Gallery, 1.5 page spread

Bryce Phillips in the Alpental Backcountry

Stevens Pass Resort, 75th Anniversary Poster

Tyler Ceccanti in the Stevens Pass Backcountry

Ski Journal, Kaya Turski Profile

Coast Mountain Culture Magazine, Parting Shot

Tyler Ceccanti at Crystal Mountain, WA

Ski Canada Cover

Just opened up my mailbox yesterday to see one of my images on the cover of Ski Canada Magazine. I don't care how many covers a photographer might land during their career... it's always an honor to see your work as the face of a publication... that feeling never gets old.

Thanks to everyone involved for making this happen!

Behind the Scenes: Street Basketball Shoot

Just got done shooting some new work for my portfolio. Here's a quick look at the "behind the scenes" of our recent basketball shoot in downtown Seattle.

To see the rest of the shots from this shoot as well as some of our other recent shoots, check out our updated website under the "Sport" tab. Here's the LINK

ESPN.com 2012 Winter in Review Feature Story

I just got asked to work with ESPN.com to give a retrospective look back on my Winter of 2012. Check out the full gallery and story HERE. I'm incredibly honored to have my work profiled in such a manner, especially as we get ready for another Winter. Enjoy!

Ian Coble signs with Sally Bjornsen Reps

I'm happy to announce that I just signed with Photography Rep Sally Bjornsen for North American Representation. Sally is an amazingly talented rep and I look forward to working with her in the future. To see more about this deal, you can visit her website HERE.

MSR Shoot

Just got back from an awesome shoot for MSR a couple weeks ago. Amazing locations for the shoot. While I can't yet share the photos from the campaign, I can share a couple shots from where we were to give you an idea. Enjoy!

Click on the images if you'd like to see them larger for more detail

Mountain Bike Shoot

I just got back from an awesome mountain biking shoot last week with pro bikers Bryn Atkinson and Jill Kintner. We headed up Highway 410 outside Mt Rainier National Park to shoot for the day. Came back with some great shots from a few hours of shooting in the late afternoon. Amazing light and location never hurt either.

 

Shooting Action with Strobes Using Hyper-Synch

Lars Sternberg at Stevens Pass. Shot at 1/3200th of a second

This post is going to be super heavy on camera nerdy tech jargon.  If you're not a dorky photographer, this might not make a lot of sense... but please keep reading and enjoy!

That disclaimer aside, I started working with Pocket Wizards to trigger my off camera strobes roughly 5 years ago. Last year, I was fortunate enough to get contacted by them to help in the Beta testing of their Flex TT5 and Mini TT1 units. I was super excited to start testing these as they promised the new ability to synch strobes above the normal 1/250th of a second shutter speed. For action shooters, this is a dream come true. The previous limitations of technology prevented photographers from shooting above 1/250th of a second. Instead, we had to rely on the flash duration of our strobes to freeze the action. Beyond just the ability to freeze action, it also prevented you from under exposing a scene to achieve a heavy dramatic look.



Although I've been working with the Flex and Mini units for over a year now, I was still having trouble achieving a proper hyper-synch. Occasionally they would work at speeds over 1/250th, but it wasn't always reliable. Fast forward though to last week and the game changed. With the release of Firmware Version 3.110, any issues I had previously had with the units disappeared. (There are some adjustments that need to be made in the Pocketwizard Utility in order to achieve accurate hyper synch. Below is a screen shot of how mine are set up for use with Elinchrom Ranger RX's).

I went out and shot with pro mountain biker, Lars Sternberg last week to put the Flex and Mini units to the test. The results were astounding! Shooting with a Nikon D800 and two Elinchrom Ranger RX packs (utilizing the S heads, NOT the A heads), I was able to get full synch at 1/1250th. A HUGE jump from 1/250th.

However, I was able to continue pushing synch speed higher with hardly any clipping. At 1/1600th I had very slight clipping at the base of the frame... and I mean hardly noticeable. As shutter speed was pushed higher, the clipping gradually grew, but very minimally. Even at 1/8000th of a second, the clipping was still very minimal (see reference files below).



I know some will look at the above and say that there is a bit of darkness at the tops of the frames that could be construed as shutter lag. However, it's affect is so minimal compared to normal shutter lag, that it can easily be compensated for by increasing the strobe's power or camera's f-stop by +1/2 a stop.

Additionally, with the huge file sizes being output by the D800 (36.2MP), the tiny clipping seen even at the fastest shutter speeds can easily be cropped out without losing the detail or size of the file.

A big thanks to the people at Pocket Wizard for working with me on the beta testing of these units. I'm excited to see the new possibilities that this will open for action shooters utilizing strobes. Hope this article helps some of you. Good luck and happy shooting.

1/3200th with no cropping of shutter lag at bottom of frame

Mountain Biking

Just dusted off the mountain bike after a long winter of rusting in the garage. Great to be back on the trails again. Here's a few shots from last weekend's ride over in Leavenworth, Wa.

We've got plans to a lot more bike shooting over the summer, so keep checking the blog to the latest work. Thanks for looking!

Cascade Designs

Just had the chance to do some work for the Seattle based company Cascade Designs. We were shooting for their ThermARest division to showcase their new backcountry cot line. Check out a couple of the photos from the shoot and the some of the resulting tears. Enjoy!

Revo Sunglass Shoot for Factory Design Labs

 

(The crew at the base of Palmyra Peak in Telluride)

Last month I had the great opportunity to shoot a commercial campaign for Revo Sunglasses with their ambassador Jimmy Chin. Teamed up with the amazing people at Factory Design Labs, we had an awesome six day shoot in Telluride, CO and Arches National Park, UT.

While I can't yet share any of the images from the campaign, I can show off a few of the behind the scenes images from the week (courtesy of my assistant Pat... thanks buddy!).

(Everyone waiting for the light to"pop" in Arches National Park)

A big thanks to the folks at Revo and Factory for working with me on this. Additionally, a huge thanks to Jimmy Chin for all his hard work. Jimmy is an extremely talented photographer and athlete and it was an absolute pleasure to shoot with him. And finally, a huge shout out to my crew for kicking ass and taking names.

Will update the blog and website later with the finished campaign once it's available.

(Shooting in Telluride)

(A shot from Jimmy's perspective: via his Instagram Account. (Copyright: Jimmy Chin)

Oahu

Last month I took a short trip to the North Shore of Oahu with my wife, in order to get away from the dreary Pacific Northwest winter. After an incredibly rough winter, some time away was much needed... and a week in the sun can be a great thing.

While there, I woke up early one morning and put together an impromptu running shoot on the beach at sunrise. Couldn't have asked for better light and scenery.

Sometimes it's nice to shoot... just to just. Without client or personal restrictions on creativity, it can be really enjoyable to just shoot because it's what you love to do. 

  

Fitness/ Workout Shoot

I did a personal shoot the middle of last month and I just got done retouching everything. I'd been wanting to shoot some edgy fitness imagery for my portfolio, so I called up two models I've worked with in the past and they were stoked to lend a hand. Really happy with the diversity of images we were able to shoot. A big thanks to Rachel Elizabeth and Stuart... you guys kick ass!

You can check out my portfolio website to see some of my favorites from this shoot, but I wanted to post a handful of the others I'm really digging that just couldn't fit on the main site.

(Behind the scenes of the lighting for the image below)

 Hope you all like how everything turned out.

Storm Shooting at Night in the PNW

I had a chance to get out and take advantage of the big storm that rolled thru Washington last week. With athletes Elyse Saugstad, Amie Engerbretson and Tyler Ceccanti I headed up to Stevens Pass to do some night shooting with all the new snow. Really happy with how the images turned out. These are just a few from the night. More to come later.

New Editorial Work from this Winter

Just a couple of stories I worked on this past week. The first is a story on ESPN.com on the best Freeskiing Websites online. You can check out the article HERE.

And another with Teton Gravity Research on the huge storm that hit Washington last week. The photo below is from the article, but you can read the post in its entirety HERE.

Remembering Sarah Burke

This has been a tough week for the ski industry. We lost an amazing person. Sarah Burke was so many things to this industry and the people that call it home. I've been trying to find the words the last few days to post about her, but it's tough to put my thoughts onto paper.

Rather than try and explain all of her accomplishments, her contributions to the sport or what she meant to everyone, I thought I'd share a story.

I met Sarah for the first time back in 2007. It was one of the first major commercial shoots I had ever been on in my career as a photographer. It was a 2 week heli ski trip in Terrace, British Columbia with Matchstick Productions. To say the least, I was nervous as hell. I was slated to work with some of the biggest names in the industry on this shoot. Names I had read in magazines and seen in movies for years. Now I was supposed to be the one shooting them. While I was honored and stoked at this opportunity, I was a nervous wreck the first day.

As I walked in the door of the lodge and set my gear down, there was Sarah. I'd seen her in competitions, movies, magazines and ads, but up until that moment, she was just a name. Without hesitation, she jumped right up, walked over and introduced herself with a big smile. I'm pretty sure I stuttered back a nervous "nice to meet you". Sensing I was new to the crew, and a little nervous, she went out of her way to talk to me and make feel like part of the group. She asked questions, told stories and joked around with me and everyone else. I can't tell you how that simple action helped to set my nerves at ease. Because of her caring nature and wanting to make sure everyone was comfortable and happy, I quickly calmed my nerves and was able to be myself... instead of the stumbling newcomer. It's amazing what even the tiniest of gestures can do though.

But that was just who Sarah was and it's what made her so incredible. She was always friendly and outgoing and made you feel good about yourself. I saw her do this with all her friends, and even her fans that would come up to ask for her autograph. She was truly a class act.

I feel blessed to have gotten to know Sarah on that trip to Terrace and on the numerous occasions I got to work with her after that. Her impact on the sport will never be forgotten. But even beyond her impact on the sport of skiing, is a lesson I think we can all learn from... to be more like Sarah. To welcome those around you, to be friendly and outgoing, to make a difference. The world is a better place for having had Sarah in it, even if she was taken away from us all too early. I can only hope to try and live my life in a similar manner that helps to enlighten and enrich the lives of those around us.

My thoughts and prayers go out to her family and her husband Rory. My deepest sympathies.

And to Sarah, thank you again for being such an incredible human being. You will never be forgotten. Rest in Peace.

Because of the space restrictions of this blog format, I couldn't fit all the photos I wanted to include. If you'd like to see some more of the images I was fortunate enough to collaborate with Sarah on, please check out the link to an additional gallery HERE.

Below is a beautiful video tribute that's been floating around the internet. Definitely worth the watch.

A Sarah Burke tribute video. from Downtofilm. on Vimeo.