After 26 hours in airplanes, I finally touched down to Canadian soil a couple of days ago. Kyrgyzstan was fantastic, but it feels good to be home after being on the road for a while. One of my favourite parts of traveling is the unexpected. Upon our arrival in Karakol at Yak Tours guesthouse, I stumbled across the owner’s workshop. Entering this workshop was one of those unexpected moments aforementioned. A workshop that filled the senses with more than one could take in. Here is my morning representation of this incredible time capsule of Soviet past and Kyrgyz present.
Kyrgyzstan, why was I there? Where is that? Between Russia and China lies Krygyzstan, a country filled with great people and some big mountains. I was there capturing skiing with 40 Tribes Backcountry, along with Mike Hopkins, Izzy Lynch, Leah Evans, and filmer Anthony Bonello. Ptor Spricenicks – Zeus, and Roddy kept was entertained and safe in the backcountry Stay tuned, as this trip filled with many little treasures will surely be creeping up on my site for a while.
Thanks to The North Face for supporting this project and to G3, Arc’teryx, Dakine, and Smith Optics for helping me kick it in our mountainous adventures.
-Nic
Fall is one of my favorite seasons. There is still enough daylight to get a lot of activities crammed into a day. Mountain bike trail conditions reach the apex of primeness, surf begins to pick up with regularity to the pulsing swells, and the air smells rich with anticipation as winter approaches fast. This is a time of year that rather than put the bike away, I get a chance to bring it out more and ride for fun. At the same time I get a chance to explore surfing to a greater depth and catch up on everything that got pushed to the back burner at the end of summer. Winter is coming and I am very stoked to ski this year and expand my horizons in the skiing world. Fall is diversity…or maybe diversity is an old old wooden ship used during the civil war era….or maybe Ron Burgandy’s definition wasn’t quite correct.
To start off the results of the diversity that Fall presented, here is a short video produced as Dendrite Studios from a heli trip to TLH heliskiing with Epic Planks. I finally got a chance to finish up the edit in time to release this piece and get everyone jonesing for pow! My first heli-ski trip, this adventure was all time, skiing pow and eating like Kings.
After the TLH edit, it was back to the mountain biking world to help finish up ‘From the Inside Out‘ by Secondbase Films (The Coastal Crew + Anthill Films). My role on this film began as a photographer, and I’d shoot the odd video here and there. As it was time to nail down The Coastal Crew’s segment, Curtis took a very bad crash and put himself out of production. Then a couple of weeks later, Norbs crashed and broke his foot. This left Dylan as the only person who could get into the zones to film, but also the only person left to ride. As a result, I happily hopped into a much larger role as cinematographer, and Logan was a big help firing the remotes for the photos. The production timeline for Inside Out was insane, way too tight, but we managed to get it all done without too many sleepless nights.
As a result of all of our travels and bike shooting, I have a number of new magazine publications to share. Kyle Norbraten’s train gap nailed Photo of the Month in The Red Bulletin, as well as two spreads in Freeride Germany magazine Gallery (Oregon shot below plus the train gap); Darcy Turenne‘s Dakine ad came out with a bunch of shots from a recent trip to Bolivia, and Kenny Smith’s Fox train gap jumping ad can be seen online, in Decline, and Bike magazines. As well there are gallery images and spreads in the current MBUK, The Ski Journal, and Spoke Magazine.
Darcy Turenne Dakine Ad, Bike Mag, Oct 2011
The Red Bulletin - Kyle Norbraten train gap, Oct 2011
Kyle Norbraten in Freeride Magazin (Germany)
So things have been busy, way too busy….it seems like i find myself saying this more and more. Oh well. I’ve been shooting stills and video on set for From the Inside Out bike film with The Coastal Crew. After a quick stop in Whistler, we built and shot in Rossland with Mike Hopkins and after that we went to Fernie. We are now in an incredible house right on the mountain and as we wait for light there is an energy around as we know the zone we built has some high potential to produce. Tonight is the the 7th night of the trip and only the 4th in a bed (the rest were in the van while shooting night TLs and sunrises), and I’m stoked to have broken the 50:50 mark finally. Here are some scenics and a few lifestyles from shooting with Hopkins in Rossland and then a few from the Fernie build.
Here are some images from our surfing camping trip. The surf was good and got really great on the last day, the salmon were big, and many good times were had in sun and only a bit of rain. I’ll let the images do the rest of the talking.
Alrighty, here is my first ‘real’ blog post. Tomorrow I am heading out on a vacation, my one and only summer vacation. An escape from computers, phones, people, and work. Where might one find such a paradise in this world of access and internet on every corner? Well, for the past 3 years I’ve been going on boat trips with some friends to remote beaches to camp, surf, fish, and just plain chill. Such trips have sometimes been work related, as Mountain Life ran an article in 09/10 winter issue, and a few other images have popped up in mags from other years. This year is different though. The artistic direction I have been going lately puts increasing importance on the process vs the outcome. The outcome is still important, but the creative process is what drives me to create art in whatever way I do. Whether it is documenting nature’s artwork or capturing great moments, it is all fun.
For this trip I was thinking about leaving the cameras at home, but that never happens. As I love shooting and this trip is about being immersed in a most beautiful place, on a beach, with a rivermouth, fish, and surf, well, there are always things to shoot. I have come up with a project for myself that will really push my creative process and help tighten up my filming skills. The yet to be titled project will have strict requirements on what is shot and what ends up on timeline. The plan is to shoot a short video and that is about the only content restriction. The big thing is that EVERY SINGLE VIDEO CLIP THAT I RECORD WILL BE USED IN THE FINAL EDIT. That’s right, if I commit and hit that record button, the shot better be a banger and important as it will be going in the edit. I will not waver on this and as such it will really push me to think very very carefully about every shot, the light, the composition, the content, the need for it in the timeline, etc. I’m stoked to do something different, and this really will make the post-process a who the le lot easier only dealing with footage that will be in the final timeline.
Of course I will also shoot stills…many stills, or not many, depending on how I feel, but knowing the zone we are headed into and beautiful evening light that exists, I’m sure I’ll find myself bouncing across the sand digging up nugs during golden hour.
Ciao for now and i’ll report back in a week plus. Should be fun!
Here’s a few photos from a recent trip to Boliva with Mike Hopkins and Darcy Turenne. Enjoy.
-Nic
