[by Brian Hockenstein]
The life of a snowboard photographer
is anything but glamorous, but there are always a few events each year that,
for a moment, however brief, make you feel like a rockstar. Getting to hang out
in and around helicopters is always one of those moments and getting to
participate in a private sunset shoot, complete with our own helicopter for
shooting video and photos, is extra special.
How's the view from your office?
For the past four years, I have been
lucky enough to be able to document the annual spring booter sessions at
Whistler Blackcomb with the Sandbox Films crew. Each year a spot is chosen and
the amazing W/B park crew get to work and build us a custom jump, bigger and
better than anything the public gets to hit. When all the stars align (weather,
riders, photogs, filmers, jump shape, snow conditions, heli...), we all come
together as a group and try to make some magic. For the riders it's a chance to
get in some final shots for their video parts, for the photogs it's an
opportunity to nail a couple more bangers before the season is over, and for
Kevin Sansalone and the Sandbox Films team, it's a chance to finish off the
year with a bang and to hopefully keep their production progressing each
year.
The motley crew (not crüe) that makes the whole shoot happen.
Your ticket to the top.
The beautiful white sands and bright red sun burns of Bro Beach.
The weather in BC for the past few
weeks has been nothing short of terrible, but still the parks crew stepped it
up and built the boys a huge booter that measured over 80 feet just to the
knuckle, meaning the riders were going 100 feet. With the pop and airtime the
jump's shape gave the riders, that was plenty of distance to help them nail down
pretty much whatever they had in mind. Wiley Tesseo, Logan Short, Matt Belzile,
Trevan Salmon, Jake Koia, Scotty Brown, Zac Stone and Clint Allan all really
stepped it up, throwing down a hefty list of tricks, pretty much every spin up
to 1440 and enough double cork whatnots to keep all the kids from getting their
panties in a bunch. You'll have to wait for the footy to drop to see the
specifics (don't worry, Push.ca is bringing you
an exclusive behind-the-scenes edit on the session this summer) but you can be
sure everyone threw down and hammers were tossed, and landed.
(keep reading to see some of the money shots that came from the session)