Juskuz Photography

The hill manager at Mont Ripley, Nick Sirdenis, asked me if I wanted to take photos at the ski hill again this year. It’s a great excuse to go hike around the hill with my camera, and my wife and I both get season passes out of the deal… how could I say no. So, yesterday morning I headed over to the hill to get some photos of the early season snowmaking. Here in the Keweenaw, even though we average over 200 inches of snow each year, we the ski areas rely heavily on snowmaking equipment. Making snow in the early season ensures a solid base, and makes for much better skiing earlier on than if we had to wait for the base to build up with natural snow. In my mind this equipment is crucial to the operations at our local hill and having a small library of images showing this equipment in action seems like it might be useful for marketing purposes. So, here I am hiking around the hill at 7am on a cold December morning with my camera.

Some of the guns are lit with relatively powerful spotlights. I’m assuming that these are used so that the operations crew can tell if the gun is still producing snow when it’s dark out. I look at it and think… that’s some cool light… how can I make that into a sweet image? In hindsight I should have gotten to the hill a little earlier than I did. I was hoping for a sky full of those really deep inky blues, but the cloud cover worked to diffuse and distribute the light in a way that didn’t mesh with the image in my mind. Also, the guns had been moved since the last time I was at the hill, and their positions made it a little more difficult to incorporate multiple lit guns into one frame. So, I hiked around for a while looking at the different angles, looking for subjects to include in the background… the chalet, the town across the canal, other snow guns.

As it became lighter out and the color started leaving the sky I decided to set up shop at the big snow gun below and use a few strobes to highlight the plume and at the same time underexpose the sky a little to preserve some of the blues. In the image below you can see how my lights were set up – one on each side at 1/2 power feather away from the ground and the main body of the gun, and one in the back aimed at the gun itself at 1/32 power to provide some fill on the rear of the machine and provide some small highlights to give texture to the metal mesh and dome on the back.

Check back often as I’ll be sharing more images from the ski hill as the season progresses.

Just thought I would share this video I stumbled across. Personally I think it’s pretty sweet. The story is quite simple, and the use of high-speed cameras make it into a mini-adventure. Shoot on over to Vincent Laforet’s Blog for more information and some behind the scenes video.

Later.

The December issue of Digital SLR Photography the UK’s Fastest Growing Photo Magazine is just now hitting the stands… and guess what? They decided to use one of my images on page 71 to illustrate the use of rear-curtain sync strobe to maintain subject sharpness while letting the background blur to help create a sense of motion. It never gets old seeing your photos in print.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I contacted the guys from UltraFondus over in France and they were kind enough to send me a digital copy of the article about Sam. If you can read french and are interested here is the full copy in .pdf form.

Full Article

I still think that it’s funny that this image of Sam that ran as the lead was shot in our living room just one night when we were messing around. I guess it just goes to show that you should always be playing around and experimenting and shooting… you never know where those images might end up.

So, I know I haven’t posted anything of any substance in quite a while. It’s not that I didn’t want to, it’s just been super busy around these parts and I really just haven’t had the time.

So, here’s a quick update:

The images below have recently been featured on The Magic Bus Collective website… check them out!

I believe that I have an image in the most recent issue of Mountain Bike magazine… I’ll post more when I know for sure.

I just submitted a fairly large request to Superior Outdoors Magazine.

A representative from Digital SLR Photography in the U.K. recently contacted me about using an image in an article of theirs. That should be going to print fairly soon and hopefully I will get a copy.

Besides that we went camping in the Porkies the other weekend, I’m working on a new online retail site for Down Wind Sports – Namaste – Check it out. If you use the code “fam30″ (no quotes) you can get 30% off your entire purchase through November 15th.

I’ve also been working on the newsletters and mini-websites for IceFest and TeleFest. They really aren’t anything special. They are more or less to help make our event info a little more accessible.

More to come…

Holy Crap!  I need to see this movie. Who would have thought we would ever see the day when bike movies looked as good as the stuff you see in the theaters.

One of the benefits of getting up around 5am is getting to see the first little inklings of light as the sun comes up. This morning was pretty cool, and with the canal being so warm there was a very thick fog hanging low over Houghton/Hancock. However, high above the sky was clear as could be… makes for some pretty neat images.

Hope you like.

UPDATE: Images are DONE being uploaded to my online gallery. Thanks for your patience… we hope you enjoy the images. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

In the gallery you will be able to download the low-res digital version for sharing… or you will be able to purchase high-res digital copies and prints if you so choose. We are hoping to have everything uploaded by sometime tomorrow… if you don’t see an image of yourself just keep checking.

View Complete Gallery

Also, while on the course I ran into another gentleman taking photos. Here is the link to his website… the more the merrier right.  
Aladino Mandoli Super D Gallery
Aladino Mandoli’s Fat Tire XC Gallery

So, yesterday was the nth annual Copper Harbor Fat Tire Festival. Usually this race seems to serve as many people’s last hurrah for the season. It’s a great race with a low-key attitude. The race start isn’t until 2pm and afterwards there’s BBQ, beer, music… pretty much the whole town of Copper Harbor comes out to party. It’s the type of event you end up not wanting to miss even if you’re not a racer.

Now don’t get me wrong… the low-key attitude doesn’t mean that this race is a walk in the park. On the contrary, it’s my opinion that this is one of the toughest and most technically  challenging races in the midwest. It would be interesting to see what other people think, but the Fat Tire course is pretty unrelenting and the downhills are challenging enough that there really isn’t ever an opportunity to rest.

Anyway, if you like to ride and haven’t ever attended… you should. And if you are a long-time participant feel free to share your perspective in the comments section.

Below are some sample images from the race. Over the next day or so we will be uploading the rest of the images for your viewing pleasure. A big thanks to Ryan Holt for helping cover the race.

Enjoy!

One of the younger participants looking to destroy the competition…

It super cool to see the next generation competing in the kids race…

Usually, I try and move around a lot on the race course in order to get a variety of compositions. And this year I was planning to do the same. I hiked in and set up on the Red Trail at this relatively steep roll down into a double bridge. I figured the faster competitors would probably ride this section and planned to pack up and move once I started getting a lot of walkers. However, more people rode this section than I thought. I think it was because it sort of sneaks up on you and you don’t really have time to think about it before you’re committed. In the end I just stayed here and waited for the sweeps to come through.

When I first setup the position of the sun was such that I could hide it behind a branch to help reduce the amount of lens flare. Problem is… the sun moves. In the image at the top of this post there is very little flare with the sun behind a branch. In the image 4th from the top the sun is in an open part of the sky and I was getting a lot of flare. Not much to do but try and keep it from totally ruining the image. In the image above the sun is back behind the trees and again the flare is gone. What are you going to do…

Will making his way down the roll down…

Trash getting all crazy with the champagne…

Image below courtesy of Ryan Holt…

The shop that I work for – Down Wind Sports – recently entered the online outdoor specialty arena with a new website aimed specifically at outdoorsy women called Namaste. One of the things that every website needs are decent visuals and I’ve been asked to see what I can come up with. Currently they are using some stock imagery, but that only goes so far. It would be much nicer if we could highlight some of the local talent and outdoor resources. I think that eventually we should even allow our online patrons to submit photography from their own adventures.

Anyway, there are different outdoor categories… bike, run, hike, yoga, etc… The plan this morning was to capture some decent images for the running category. Unfortunately the image I had in my head was not to be. It ended up being pretty overcast this morning and because of the lack of good morning light I scrapped my initial idea and decided to explore the local ski hill. It’s not uncommon for people to use the ski hill in their training. Also, this winter I found a great vantage point where I could place a skier in the frame with the local lift bridge in the background. This morning’s trip up the hill was just supposed to be a scouting trip. I wanted to see how tall the grass was and make sure that I could still compose the image the way my mind saw it as everything now sits a couple of feet lower due to the lack of snow.

Even though we were just scouting, I think we came away with some decent images. It was still pretty over cast while we were exploring and that forced me to use a high iso and slow shutter speed to get close with the exposure. Due to the slow shutter speed there is definitely some motion blur around the runner. Also, the slightly lower vantage point isn’t quite as good as when there is snow. I’d like to return with a ladder, some strobes, and some less humidity (= less haze). But, now at least I know what I’m working with. In the end it didn’t take us much time to get these images. It was about 10 after 7:00 when we decided to scrap the other location and head up the ski hill, and after a handful of passes by my beautiful runners we were back on the road headed to our respective jobs before the clock struck 8:00.  Not bad for 40 or so minutes of work.

Stay tuned… more to come.

So, recently I was commissioned to capture a variety of images for the local library’s new website. Of all the different shots on my list, the shots of the library’s exterior have me the most worried. The building the library is very close to the water and has great views of the surrounding area. The interior was very well done and should be a lot of fun to photograph. However, the building itself is fairly nondescript and it’s location is far from scenic being almost under neath a nearby parking deck. 

Today my goal was to go out and explore Houghton and Hancock looking for interesting views of the library. So, I woke up, grabbed my camera, and was out the door by 6:30am. I wanted to make sure I had some time to explore while the sun was coming up so that as the light changed I would have some idea of how it might be incorporated into my compositions. 

Unfortunately, it was extremely humid/hazy this morning and that made it difficult to get the nice, crisp, images I was hoping for. Anyhow, while exploring I grabbed some other views while waiting for the light to change or considering my next move.

Quincy Smelter…

The Ranger on the Portage Canal…

Snowmobile path behind the Quincy Smelter in Hancock…

I did eventually find a couple of compositions that I liked. The two images below minimize intrusion of the parking deck while showing off the library’s close proximity to the water and some of the other more interesting architecture in Houghton.

I’ve still got some additional scouting to do, and then once I’ve identified my desired compositions I will wait and return during optimum conditions to capture the best files possible. 

Until then…