This evening was one to remember.  All day it had been nice out.  We got a bunch of gardening done, had a long bike ride, had a swim and were cooking dinner on a fire at the beach.  We were cruising and so were the low lying clouds which we noticed were disappearing.  As the moon rose, it did so nearly right at sunset and the colours that it picked up were incredible.  Heather didn’t even see the moon at first because it looked so odd, and I was scrambling down to the beach with gear in hand.

It is incredible the detail we can see in the the moon.  So many craters and features like the massive crater on the bottom right of moon in frame.

The photos do the rest. shot at 300mm with a 1.5x crop (450mm eq.).

Good to be home at one the beach.

-Nic

The UBC Botanical Gardens are awesome. Straight up.  With areas on both sides of Marine Drive, the gardens span a rather large amount of land and include a massive diversity of greenery, from towering cedars to twisted and shaped fruit trees to tropical plants.  For some reason, during my six year stint attending school at UBC, I never once ventured into the gardens’ back corners, maybe because as soon as class was done I was pinning it on my bike home.  Thus, it was rather nice to hear that my sister was getting married at the gardens, and finally I’d get a chance to walk through the forests and see what it was all about.

I was tasked with the job of wedding photographer for this celebration, and although I am sometimes uneasy about shooting family and friends’ weddings (because it cuts into my experience of the day and evening), I decided to take this one on as I knew the area would produce some great shots.  Scouting the gardens the day before the wedding, I located some spots to shoot if it was sunny and if it was cloudy…sunny being the more difficult one as the forest would be full of hotspots and the white dress would be a massive light reflector out in the open.  On the wedding day, we snapped shots at a few choice spots in the gardens and then a few at the Museum of Anthropology.

Following the shoot, the ceremony and reception were a blast.  Shooting a wedding is a high pressure scenario for a photographer as you have one chance, that’s it.  Two bodies with different lenses is mandatory if you are going to capture those moments properly, and after what felt like only a few minutes (but was more like 20) of stealthly running around capturing the happenings, Kristine and Geoff were officially both Andersons. Something I always keep in the back of my head, and warn my clients about is the desire to shoot in golden light.  Usually something like this “So, the light might get really good this evening, around 7:30pm, and if you are interested, there may be the opportunity to crush some nugs.”  Well, maybe not exactly in those words, but that’s the point.  Luckily for all of us, this wedding was one of those where the light began to fire, and it happened to do so in between speeches and dessert – a perfect time to steal the bride and groom and capture the best images of the day. I’ll let the images do the rest of the talking, but needless to say, I was very happy with the result.  It wasn’t until after the power light photoshoot was over that I realized the magnitude of what just aligned – the day the couple had chosen for their wedding happened to be sunny, the location they chose happened to have a nice open pagoda, the sun happened to be setting directly in-line with the center of the pagoda, and we all happened to have the time and be alert enough to capitalize on it. Thanks to Paulla and Kourosh for assisting in that.

For more information about wedding shoot packages, please contact me for options.

Gallery (click image for larger view)

Golden evening on the west coast.

The ocean is increasingly my lifeblood.  Maybe it’s because I continue to spend more time wrapped in a rubber suit than in the past, but it has become the natural progression of myself.   I live a few hundred steps from the beach although surf in this area is rare and tiny.  Despite this, I often find myself sitting on some logs watching little mouse and cat barrels peel off the point for hours on end.  There is always so much activity going on in the water whether it be waves, birds, mammals, or boats, many things are always happening.  When I need a little quiet time away, I’ll wander down the beach along the high tide line, keeping an eye out for unique pieces of wood to take home and put in my stash of ‘cool wood to work with in the future’ pile.  I’ve scrounged like this for years, but only in the past few did I really begin to tune into the other elements along the tide line – plastics.

100m of beach in waters that appear crystal clear and clean still yield plastic constantly. This is from one high tide.

When one spends so  much time near the water, the evidence of daily plastics washing up on our beaches hits you square in the face.  Inspired by a friend of ours, Taina, a number of years ago we began consciously being very aware of our plastics consumption and cutting down on anything that wasn’t necessary, and most isn’t.  There is often the misconception that we as humans, citizens of Planet Earth can do nothing to stop the shit storm of destruction and waste that we currently have set in place.  The ozone holes are opening, the oceans are filling with plastics and our streams are being polluted for the sake of big business.  No, we cannot change some of that larger scale stuff by ourselves, but when you take a moment to think about it, many of those ‘big’ problems have ‘small’ beginnings.  It is our job to care for this planet in order to maintain human species survival, as not only to save the animals and the trees, but to save ourselves.  As critical habitats and species on Earth die off due to human pressure, so will we.  We’ve managed to rape and pillage the land and sea at such an astonishing rate in the past 100 years, that we almost do not know where to begin to cut back.  Well here are some things that are dirt simple to cut back on or stop using completely.  Change starts small and grows big, everyone needs to do their part and fundamental societal change will follow. It has to.

1) Straws – do not use a straw.  If you go to a store or bar or restaurant, either do not take a straw or make sure to ask your waiter or bartender not to put a straw in your cup.  We are not 2 year olds who do not know how to drink out of glass.  Straws are a massive waste of one-time use plastic and can easily be eliminated.

2) Plastic bags – like straws, there is absolutely no reason nor excuse with the knowledge we have today, to use plastic bags.  Buy a few cloth bags (most people already have a lot) and remember to take them when you go grocery shopping, get beers, or whatever you may purchase that gets shoved in a plastic bag only to be pulled out as soon as you get home.  The age-old argument of ‘I re-use my plastic bags’ doesn’t fly anymore, as it is better to not use in the first place and we all know that.  We all forget from time to time to take bags to the store or we need some food on the fly, and for those cases, simply ask for paper bags or don’t use any bags at all….after all, most things are already packaged. Simple, easy.

Canadian night barrel.

3) Bottled water – unless you live in a 2nd or 3rd world country where potable water from the tap doesn’t exist, leaves those bottles on the shelf.  If nobody buys them, producers will stop making them.  Many areas have better tap water than what is in the bottles (and some bottled water is tap water), and the usage of plastic to hold that water is absurd.  10 years ago when one would go to a business meeting or out for lunch, it was a common status simple to be drinking a bottle of water alongside your chic suit and tie; however, now, when we know the destruction plastic does to the environment, consuming water from a bottle is frowned upon as it should be.  Don’t be the douche who orders bottled water.

There used to be massive trees full of knowledge and history. Now there are only stumps and spindly trees

4) Paper napkins – Mitchell Scott wrote a piece that involved napkins a while back in KMC magazine, and I think he nailed it.  Napkins and kleenexes are made of wood, wood comes from trees, and trees are essential to consuming the CO2 in our air and transforming it into energy making themselves grow to only consume more CO2.  So why are we cutting these wonders down in order to whip our greasy hands on them once and toss them into the garbage?  When I was a kid, my dad rocked a hankie all the time.  I thought nothing of it, it was just what everyone did.  Nowadays, the hankie has gone the way of the Dodo bird, but why? Image? It is now cool to be aware, informed, and intentional with your environmental actions, so ditch those paper napkins, don’t buy them, don’t take them, don’t use them, and pick yourself up a hankie.  Use, re-use, re-use, and when dirty enough, toss it in your washing machine alongside your clothes.

5) Everything else that is one-time use and plastic based (milk jugs, yogurt containers, bulk bags, garbage bags, excessive packaging, cigar tips, among a few thing) – no matter what you are buying, invariably you will have a choice of packaging options, and simply being aware and conscious of your day to day decision making, will make a big difference.

Enjoy nature and the ocean in their clean and pristine conditions and lets all work together to help keep things that way.

Andy ripping a wave well past last light. Solo.

After 7 days of ski touring from our yurt in the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan, we skied on the funnier 20 minutes of my life.  We deciding to ski all of our gear out from the yurt (some of which horses brought up), which yielding some hilarious moments of crashing on log and horse skidded snow roads, creeks, and horse shit.  The evening light made it extra rad.  After our ski back to the home-stay, Schumacher and his barely-alive-do-everything vehicle arrived and we drove home in clear skies and awesome light.  What followed is what follows in pictures.  Explanations not needed.

Evening play by play:

I keep on finding myself describing Kyrgyzstan as many trips within a trip.  There were so many individually unique experiences throughout the trip.  As a result, I am going to share these experiences in blog posts like this one and the workshop piece.

-nic

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.

This is TRIP 1 of a series I am sharing as there were so many trips within the one Kyrgyzstan overall trip.  Many individual moments, like this time in the workshop, will be popping up on my blog.

-Nic

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)

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