Another photo from the Poor Boyz Productions shoot at Mt. Hood Ski Bowl last spring of CR Johnson.
A few more things on CR Johnson out on the interweb.
Check out CR’s film segments in some of the ski movies posted on Freeskier’s website. Watch them, remember him, remember what he’s done for our sport.
Also a recent photo gallery from a trip to Retallack early this season on Powder Magazine’s website.
Some great words by Jeff Schmuck, one of the editors of Newschoolers.com here.
As I was driving home from a recent trip to Montana, I got a call from my roomate telling me the news of CR Johnson’s untimely death while skiing at Squaw Valley, his home resort. Just like last year when news of Shane McConkey’s death came through, I immediately got on the phone with some other industry friends to confirm this, and it was true. It was pretty shocking news as this is the second ski icon in as many years to succumb to the extremes of the mountains we work, live and play in, both of which calling Squaw Valley their home. For those of you that don’t know, CR was one of the pioneers of the park and pipe scene and then, bringing freestyle into the backcountry. He was one of the few people that have had a massive impact to the sport,one that contributed to the growth and transformation of the sport and helped make a place for someone like me to have a job taking photos of skiing. Let me say that again, I likely wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for guys like CR and Shane McConkey.
I’ve just arrived home from the drive from Montana so I don’t know much in the way of details, but there are some at www.freeskier.com which is a temporary shrine to CR right now, A Eulogy written by Chris Jerrard (Publisher of Freeskier Magazine) and also a story by Micha Abrams (Former editor of Freeze Magazine) on espn.com
Most people will say, at least he died doing what he loved doing. However he not only died doing what he loved, but he died, skiing for himself and no other reason. No cameras, just friends and the mountains.
CR was one of those guys I had never gotten a chance to shoot with until last Spring at a park shoot with Poor Boyz Productions at Mt. Hood Ski Bowl. It was the first really big park jump he had hit since his previous head injury and it was really a great thing to see him eye up the jump the day before he started hitting that thing. It was really great to see him back. I was really looking forward to getting out in the backcountry and shooting with him this season since the opportunity looked like it was going to come up. It was going to be so sick to see him back in the pre-injury form and sending it.
CR Johnson was a pioneer, prodigy, and one tough dude to come back from his head injury to again ski at the level he was back to.
Condolences to his family, rest in peace CR. You da man.
“Live your life, love your life. Don’t regret… Live, learn, and move forward positively.” -CR Johnson
Go ski for CR.
I’ve been a customer of Pictureline in Salt Lake City for 10 years now. It’s really the only camera shop in Utah worth going to if you need any camera gear and need to speak to a sales person that knows anything. So, need to get camera gear in Utah? Go there.
Anyways in the four or so years they have been in the new location on 305 West 700 South in Salt Lake City they have had photos up on the walls changing out every month. I finally got my shit together and got a few of my photos in to them to put up, and it’s really awesome seeing your work that big. The three prints are HUGE.
So, if you are in Salt Lake City go check the prints out. There are also four prints over in their second location in Draper, UT at177 West 12300 South.
The photos are ski action shots of Tanner Hall, Kyler Cooley, Julian Carr and Derek Spong and will be up until February 28th.
I got a rare chance a few weeks ago to shoot some snowboarding. It was pretty sick to be at the Snowboard Grand Prix at Park City Mountain Resort since it was the last event for the US Snowboard Olympic team selection. It was a really big deal, and it was really nuking all through the comp. Now, although the heavy snowfall isn’t so good for the athletes, it’s something I’ve grown to love while shooting at night. The heavy snowfall just adds so much to the shots, I just love it. I went pretty basic on lighting at this event, as the hot lights they brought in for this event were actually pretty good. Just had an Alien Bee 800 and Alien Bee 400 with me. I got to leave the big Elinchrom Ranger at home for the contest, I was pretty pumped about not hauling the big daddy up for this one! I was pretty amazed as to how well my D300 did during this event. At a pipe event I usually bring two camera bodies up with me, one with a wide or short zoom and one with the 70-200 on it. With the event hot lights I wasn’t sure if the D300 was going to do as well at the high ISO ranges of 1600-3200 that I was shooting at, but it did really well. I knew my D3 was going to do great but how well the D300 did was a pretty nice surprise.
I haven’t blogged much lately, I’ve been trying to get after it so here’s a post with just some photos I liked from the event. I hope you dig.
Posting outtakes is something here I usually don’t get a chance to do. This time around though the shoot was for espn.com and with the instant turnaround time with web, I get to post these while they are still fresh! This few days of shooting was mainly about one thing. Fun. It most certainly was. These photos were shot at Alta, Deer Valley and Brighton Resorts in Utah after a few early season storms in October and early November. My lighting was pretty simple in these, some just ambient, but those that weren’t, usually just a few Nikon SB80 DX’s, an Alien Bees 800 and a Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed with the ol A-Head. Of course, add in a pile of Pocket Wizard Flex TT5’s.
Check out the full gallery here
The lovely people over at espn.com/action had me do a pre-season jib gallery back in late October working with some of the younger crew out here in Utah. From lift terminal rails at Alta to backflip jumps on snowmaking piles at Deer Valley the pre-season mini-shred is on. It was a ton of fun to go out and make some small features of no real consequence look cool. It’s great to work in simply a fun environment, free of the gnar factor sometimes. Add into the fact that my lighting was pretty simple in these, usually just a few Nikon SB80 DX’s, an Alien Bees 800 and a Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed with the ol A-Head. Of course, add in a pile of Pocket Wizard Flex TT5’s
The photo above was real simple, just one Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed with a Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 shot with a Nikon D3 and a Nikon 16mm f2.8 fisheye
Alex Schlopy, Will Wesson, Joss Christensen, Giray Dadali and Dave Euler
Check out the gallery over there:
http://espn.go.com/action/freeskiing/blog/_/post/4675777
This photo was one hell of a production to pull off. Last April in the midst of the biggest storm cycle the Wasatch Mountains has EVER seen on record Julian Carr brought up the idea of shooting some cliffs at Brighton at night. We were fortunate enough to get some help from Brighton Resort to get a last chair up so we could wait for the sun to go down in a nice and toasty lift shack. I hadn’t shot night cliffs before. I was super stoked to try it out but it was a bit of trial and error but fortunately I had Austin Holt out to assist me on the shoot. There was no way I could have pulled this shot off without an assistant. All three of us went out each with a pretty loaded backpack of photo gear and were out there for four and a half hours with help, we probably would have been out till 2AM without help and who knows how that would have gone either!
This is one of the more unique shots I’ve taken, and although I rolled with my style of using gels, I got to do it a bit differently this year and I hope everyone digs it as much as I do.
The gear I used to put this together was quite the laundry list.
Now I don’t normally talk about something like a headlamp used for a shoot, however in this situation with the night shots, they are pretty important. The Black Diamond Icon is a really powerful headlamp that is very necessary out in this kind of situation. A normal LED one just won’t do. It’s really nuts how much light the Icon puts out.
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