Andrew Strain Photography » snowboard

Deep Winter 2011 Slideshow

Strain — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:59:15 +0000

It’s been almost a year since I managed to steal third prize in Whistler Blackcomb’s Deep Winter Photo Challenge. Today, I was out on the mountain scouting some stuff with Jussi Grznar, who is making his own run for the title of “King of Storms” next week, bringing back all kinds of wonderful memories like shooting in such heavy snowfall that my camera completely iced over. Or, sitting in the Glacier Creek bathroom for an hour trying to de-fog my lenses with a hand dryer (a more detailed re-cap here).

Would I do it again? Hell yes. I live for Whistler’s storm season. In the meantime, enjoy my 2011 slideshow, and get your tickets for this year’s event before it sells out. January 14 @ the Fairmont. See you there.

Off and On

Strain — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:49:46 +0000

Winter arrived early and strong in southwest BC: I got my first pow turns on October 3rd, got chased out of camp by two feet in the valley bottom on November 17th, and could barely breathe nor see on Blackcomb’s opening day, the snow was so deep. And then, as fast as winter arrived, the jet turned off and the sky stayed blue for almost a month.

While my friends in Utah are still suffering from the early season doldrums, winter is back in full force in the Whistler area, providing badly needed powder for the Christmas vacation crowd and snow-starved locals. A combination of factors has led to the establishment of an uncharacteristically unstable coastal snowpack, making the new snowfall a maddening exercise in patience and restraint, as everyone is chomping at the bit to get out and into the gnar. Two BC skiers succumbed to injuries sustained after being caught in avalanches this week, a sobering reminder of the dangers that exist within our mountains.

Wanting to escape the holiday crowds at Whistler, but leery of the heightened avalanche risk, I headed out to a pillow zone off the Duffey Lake Road with the Surface Skis crew on a greybird photo / video mission. The lack of snowfall has left me with very little to shoot over the last month, and I was eager to get out for the first ‘work’ day of the season. The light was flat, but the snow was excellent and pillows well-developed, with plenty of protected stashes hiding in the forested shoulder of Joffre Mountain. Just another day in paradise…

Condolences to the friends and families of the two skiers that died doing what they love. May the powder be plentiful in the afterlife.

Joffre touring

Strain — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:16:27 +0000

I went on an exploratory day tour on tuesday up to Joffre Lakes with Unofficial Whistler‘s Jake Cohn. Neither of us had been before but wanted to scope the area because of its excellent and easy access from the Duffey Lake road. A short climb and a couple lake crossings and we at treeline in a riding paradise – steep couloirs and chutes, 1000m glacier descents, massive pillow fields and mature forest presented up and downhill options for any conditions.

We tried to gain access to a great looking couloir but short of booting up the gut, couldn’t find an ascent option we were comfortable with and decided to back off to a different line. We were again shut down trying to get on top of the Heartstrings zone when the weather socked in, eliminating our ability to navigate above treeline, in an area with more than enough death-gnar to do around… not the kind of place you want to be moving blind. Entering the line further down the ridge, we were rewarded with a playful and pillowy 600m descent to the valley bottom.

Of note: I was able to ride my split all the way back to the lower lake with ease, making Joffre the most splitboard friendly tour I’ve done off the Duffey to date. A quick transition to put skins back on, and I was first back to the car – doesn’t happen often when touring with skiers! Despite being turned back of our two objectives, our exploratory mission was a great success, and you can bet we’ll be back soon…

No blogging on a powder day

Strain — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:38:37 +0000

February was good. Wasatch touring, 2nd in the SLC shootout, storm of the season in Whistler, and a backcountry hut adventure to end the month off.

It’s snowing again, hard. I’ll try to write some stories when the snow stops falling.

A little help?

Strain — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 06:37:44 +0000

The last month has been a crazy ride – placing 3rd in the Deep Winter Photo Challenge last month and now, taking 2nd at the Ski Salt Lake Shootout last week. I’ll do a full rundown on the SLC shootout as soon as the snow stops falling in Whistler, but for now, I have to ask for a little help…

I’m in a couple little facebook photo contests right now, both for some serious coin. I need your help to win. EDIT: CONTESTS CLOSED. I didn’t win. Oh well.

The first is the Unofficial Networks photo contest – a simple, ‘most shares on facebook wins’ style competition. All you have to do is click this link to my entry, click the ‘Share’ button at the top, and post my entry to your profile. Most shares by the 20th wins $1000.

The 2nd is a side challenge from the Ski Salt Lake shootout. Go to the Visit Salt Lake facebook page and follow the voting instructions there. My photo is photo one – a shot of a steezy hand drag 3 by Eliel Hindert at Alta. The prize there is another cool grand, with Eliel taking $500 for his skiing as well.

Thanks a bunch, and obviously, beers are on me if I win.

Deep Winter 2011 Recap

Strain — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 01:21:40 +0000

Wow, where to start? Last week, I was one of 6 photographers chasing the title of “King of Storms” in the 5th Annual Deep Winter Photo Challenge at Whistler Blackcomb. Leading up to the contest, it was looking like it might end up being the “Deep Freeze” Photo Challenge: high pressure had settled over the area and the long range forecast was not looking promising. Thankfully, Ullr smiled upon the mountains and conjured up a beast of a storm that hit with impeccable timing: each day of the challenge brought a fresh, deep canvas for the photographers to work with.

The idea behind the Deep Winter Photo Challenge is to showcase Whistler in it’s true element: the epic January storm cycle. Everyone loves bluebird shots of a skier making perfect turns on a dream line, but Whistler isn’t the kind of mountain where it storms overnight and is bluebird the next day. When we get hit, we get hit – hard. January is typically one massive storm, where locals see the sun about 5% of the time. Not that anyone here minds; we live for these monster storms, and spend our sunny summers yearning for a return to day after day of low visibility and endless pow. The goal of Deep Winter is to document these January days that exemplify the riding experience at Whistler Blackcomb.

For the challenge, I selected a mixed team of skiers and boarders – I ride and shoot with skiers all the time, so it seemed wrong to leave that out of my slideshow. My riders were not only talented athletes, but some of my best friends: skiers Eliel Hindert, Jake Cohn, and Liam Casey, along with snowboarders Braden Dean, Eric Poulin, and Alex Filler. Possibly the best thing about Deep Winter was that it was a contest that allowed us to do what we would have anyways – lap trees, share laughs, and explore our mountains.

Shooting Deep Winter presented a great deal of challenges – predicted and unforseen. It’s always difficult keeping pace with athletes, let alone doing it with a 35 pound camera bag strapped to your back. It gets interesting billygoating around the big cliffs that my riders like to send and, sometimes, you have no option but to drop too – with thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment along for the ride. Sometimes shots that everyone puts a lot of effort into just don’t work – maybe sometime I’ll post my clunker list. My slideshow consisted of 60 images, whittled down from 1600. Most of those 1600 suck.

The environment is always a factor when you shoot snow, but Deep Winter was another level of frustration. It was great to get new snow every day for the comp, but I could’ve done without the wet snow coating my camera and turning to ice, the constant lens wiping or worse – having every element on all of my lenses coated in fog (that prompted a trip to the bathroom hand dryers and took an hour to fix). Thankfully though, just when it seemed like it couldn’t get any worse, it didn’t. It was as if every day had a series of major obstacles for us to overcome before we were allowed to get shots.

It was such an honour to have my name alongside guys like Blake, Tim and Scarth – and while I figured Robin and Ilja were good, I didn’t really have a feel for their talent until after I’d seen their slideshows. Standing on stage with the rest of the photographers, one thing was very clear to me: this was the strongest field of competition I’d witnessed at the Deep Winter Photo Challenge, and it was a pleasure to watch everyone’s unique style and vision unfold on the big screen that night. Robin and Blake were clearly a class above, so that third place announcement was the only one that carried any real suspense. Hearing my name called – ahead of 2 guys I’ve looked up to since I started shooting snowboarding – was a blur of excitement and relief.

One thing I’ve heard mentioned a couple times since the show is that snowboarding doesn’t really seem to lend itself to the Deep Winter format. Jordan‘s slideshows have featured a snowboarder in the past, but a snowboarding photographer has never won the contest. Perhaps the shred world is too sled-dependent, while skiers are more used to booting and touring around the mountain? Food for thought, anyways.

I need to give a huge thank you to Ryan Proctor and the Whistler Blackcomb PR team for giving me the chance to compete in the Deep Winter Photo Challenge – my whole team had an incredible time trying to capture what makes Whistler such a special place. Also owed thanks are Ryan Regehr for helping me edit my slideshow and filming behind the scenes footage for Unofficial Networks, all the other photographers for inspiring me over the years and putting on an incredible show on Saturday night, and my beautiful girlfriend Alix for putting up with the days I spend glued to my computer editing or out shooting for 18 hours. I love you.

Enough talk, here’s a look at some fun and behind the scenes shots from the contest that didn’t make my slideshow. Enjoy.

Deep Winter Photo Challenge – Pregame discussion

Strain — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 01:20:49 +0000

For a couple years now, my friends have been pushing me to throw my hat into the ring for the annual Deep Winter Photo Challenge, a photography competition that has a reputation for being a fiercely competitive 4 day grind. 2011 marks the fifth round of a contest that has been won 3 years straight by Vancouver-based photographer Jordan Manley. I was shooting in Whistler during last year’s contest and mentioned that I’d be interested in competing someday, provided Jordan got tired of winning.

As fate would have it, Manley has graciously decided to give someone else a shot at the top prize this year, and I jumped on the opportunity to be a part of the Deep Winter experience. Despite this, the competition is intimidating: Blake Jorgenson and Tim Zimmerman (so badass that he doesn’t even need a website) are top names in the ski and snowboard worlds, John Scarth is the photo editor of Snowboard Canada Magazine, and while I’m not all that familiar with ski photogs Ilja Herb and Robin O’Neill, I’m sure they’ll have a thing or two to say about my bid for a share of a $6000 prize purse.

For those unfamiliar with the contest, photographers have 3 days to shoot in-bounds at Whistler Blackcomb followed by a day to put together a 3-5 minute slideshow, presented and judged live before an audience of 1000. 1st place takes home $3000 in prize money and is crowned the “King of Storms”.

The slideshow presentation runs Jan 15th this year. Get your tix ASAP – this event sells out well in advance every year. Needless to say, I’m thrilled and honoured to be one of the competitors and I’m really looking forward to see what the collective minds of the photographers and our teams are able to produce during the 72 hour shooting window. I’ll be posting blog updates before, during, and after the contest – next up, an introduction to my team of athletes. Stay tuned!

Whats in the Fridge? teaser

Strain — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:35:00 +0000

Whats in the Fridge? is the 2010 release from Jah Raven Creations. I spent some time causing all kinds of trouble in jah kootenays with jah raven this winter and if this teaser is any indication, this movie is going to be all kinds of awesome.

“Get ready to get that gold sticker blown off your new era hat and that check ripped right off you new unscuffed nike sneaks because here comes a teaser of biblical proportion. Displaying the talent of the raddest most real shredders, sledders, and fresh soy cheddar in jah kootenays mon. So turn up jah volume to max and hold onto you keyboard because your about to get slapped. Right in the face.”

Whats in the Fridge? A Teaser. from Jah Raven Creation on Vimeo.

Spring Touring – Cerise Creek

Strain — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:36:00 +0000

I went on a touring mission up Cerise Creek / Mt Joffre with a couple friends last week. Conditions were… interesting over the first half of the approach, where for the first time since I bought them I wasn’t cursing the uselessness of my snowshoes. The crampons bit into the choppy ice of the forest floor far more effectively than climbing skins, but I’m still buying a splitboard this fall. Snowshoes suck.

We thought the snow might be a little sloppy up high, but avoiding sun-baked aspects led to a late April powder harvest. Gotta love that spring crop!

Record Breaker

Strain — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:27:43 +0000

Voleurz rider Braden Dean pops off the injured reserve and into record breaking snow on Whistler Mountain:

As I mentioned in my Whistler Opening Weekend post, I’ve been lucky enough to be a passholder at Whistler during a time when early openings are the rule and record snowfall seems to happen on a regular basis. As a result, last season was a huge let down – although the march ‘redeption’ certainly faded memories of the slow start very quickly.

This season, however, I’ve decided (for a number of reasons) to change things up a little and spend time riding and shooting in the interior. I can’t help question now if I’m making a huge mistake; November is barely half over and Whistler has already received nearly half its average yearly snowfall, smashing the recently-set November snowfall record of 416cm. By the time December rolls around, it looks like November 2009 will be the snowiest month on record @ Whistler Blackcomb (51 more cm to go… the record should fall this weekend). Why am I leaving again?

A couple more of Braden – a little rusty on the first day of his season, but loving every minute of it:

I left Whistler last night in the middle of one of the most intense storms I’ve experienced – thick, heavy snow north of Squamish and torrential rain being driven by devastating winds to the south. We made it home just fine but it really put some perspective on just how hard this area is being hammered by storms right now. Truly incredible.

I know they say theres “no friends on a powder day” but if you ride alone, who’s going to help you break trail on a chest-deep bootpack? With a little effort we grabbed some bottomless turns for the last run of the day – you can see the stoke on everyone’s face. I was too busy snorkeling after this frame to shoot much more.