A Bird's Eye view on the skislopes

While shooting the snowboard and skitest for the Dutch “Wintersport Magazine” I was using the same skilift over and over again and felt it was really great for doing some shot from above as it came over the skislopes really low at a specific part.
All what was needed was a bit of good timing and a bit of good luck. With one test run (and some walkie-talkies) we managed to get speed perfectly right and while the skiers went underneath me I just had to lean out of the chairlift adn shoot a ton of pictures.
The end result came out incredibly good and I totally fell in love with this shot: it really embellishes the way you feel when on the slopes with friends. The shadows give it a really nice touch too and the spraying snow from the skies couldn’t have been more perfect, this is wintersports!

The image has been cropped slightly and was pulled a bit brighter with the curves tool. Just minor adjustments to a photo that hardly needed any work. It was shot with a manual setting at 1/1600th at f6.3 with 100ISO. 15mm fisheye lens on a Canon 1D MkIII (1.3 magnification factor).

Bad Hofgastein, Austria.

Client: Wintersport Magazine
© 2009 Fotograferen.net

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With the last dump of fresh snow being weeks ago in the European Alps a powdertrip throughout Austria perhaps wasn’t the brightest of ideas. But, hey! The snow must go on and we just went a bit higher to get to those last bits of untracked freshness. Luckily a cold spell kept those tiny heavenly spaces a bit better than expected.

Anyway, since a photo says more than a thousand words, and I’m to lazy to write down a full report I thought a photostory might be in order. Please enjoy! The full story is featured in this months Snowboard Magazine.

Silvretta Nova


First shot of the day, not a bad way to start out in the overtracked Silvretta Nova region. Bit of scary-ass hiking from Bas Elhorst was all it took.


A bit of black and white freshness, Bas Elhorst again.



A long easy hike, a few relaxing turns and finally: a nasty hike out of the bow. Anne-Fleur Eiff and Martine Veldhoen don’t mind at all. This was perhaps the last bit of untracked snow for miles around. Not any more!


Silvretta Nova actually has quite a good park for Euro standards. The wallride is particularly nice at the end of the day. Bas rocks to fakie.

St.Anton am Arlberg

The drive from Silvretta to Arlberg is a supernice, and not too long, one. Especially when the mountain pass is open (it hadn’t snowed for a while, remember!) you can enjoy some crazy views.


It’s extra fun by the way when the Volvo dealership lends you the new C30 T5, a small (not very practical with tons of snowgear but who cares) 250 horsepowered piece of metal that will set you back about 40.000 euro’s but manages to do a decent 230km/h on the highway with roofcarriers on it and three people and their bags in it…

Timo Hermeler and his girlfriend Irene Bauer live in this mountain paradise and managed to squeeze out some minute pieces of powder. Perhaps it wasn’t that smart to visit this place in the highest of high season…

Expensive resorts have expensive lifts… this whole thing lifts up the gondolas so you don’t have to take some stairs… whatever, it looks cool though!


Scary rocks don’t scare Timo Hermeler.


I love backlight! Irene Bauer too.


Anne-Fleur Eiff.


Perhaps the smallest lift in Austria? It holds six people… barely.


But the view is worth the cramped ride to the top of the Valluga. Normally a great place to find the last bits of fresh snow…


Some of those last bits…


Tijs Goossens in action on the Valluga.


And so is Timo.


So the day ends.

Mayrhofen
This place needs no introduction bus just as our luck had it: the pro-line was closed for some massive building action for the Ästhetiker Wängl Tängl in two weeks. Bummer!

Fortunately rookie Steef van de Meer doesn’t mind using the massive rail instead.


Ahhh… Mayerhofen park pizza.


Too much stuff and Gin&Tonic. It’s nice being a photographer!

No animals were harmed during the making of this Austrian funtrip, some snowboarders didn’t get away that easy… it’s nice having weird layers underneath powder!


:-)

 

Again a nice publication in the 2Magazine, edition August. This time just the images are mine (except the very last one with the rainforest thingy). Couple of good golden oldies and a bunch of newer stuff.



© 2008 Fotograferen.net & 2Magazine
Text by Jim Algie
Photography by Fotograferen.net
Download full pdf of the article here.

 

Now this is the way I like it: action & party in one big event, that must be the Belgium Ski and Snowboard Open 2008. Why have a contest only when you can go big with live performances by Triggerfinger, Milkshakerz, Luc de Vos, Turntable Dubbers and the amazing guy in the green mask: Dr Lektroluv. All of this in the European Alps version of Vegas: the French partytown Les Deux Alpes.

It’s Sunday now and I have just one day to recuperate from a crazy week of snowboarding that is used as an excuse by about 850 belgiums to party bigtime! The Belgium Champs were never bigger than this, that’s for sure so it’s going to be interesting how they are going to top this one next year.

Enjoy the full series at the Snowjam website or get more info at the VSSF site. Tomorrow I’m off the the last wintershoot of this season in Swedens Åre. Pics soon!

 


Click on the collage to go to the full Dutch Ski Champs series. For private use only!

Also, two publications from the AD Newspaper:

Alwin de Quartel & Kees-Jan van der Klooster

 

Some images from the Dutch Ski Champs in a way too warm Austria. Besides a few too many stressed out parents it’s really a nice sport to photograph. The action looks really good really quickly and there’s plenty of atmosphere to shoot as well.

Full series coming next week.

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