Kazu Tight Crop

 

Part of the shooting schedule during the 2011 winter season was collecting images of the Burton Team for advertisement. Some years the raw snowboarding captured during the session makes the cut for ‘inside front cover,’ while other times we’re shooting ‘to spec’ to fill in space previously set aside within a two-page spread. Perhaps what I enjoy most is a little bit of both, as with this season’s ads!

 

The Tight Crop campaign kicked off with Kazu, with placement in the first issue of Transworld Snowboarding (Volume 25, September 2011). The idea was to get into the riders face during the snowboarding action, while not worrying about the height of the trick or the surroundings within the composition (think Jeff Brushie Big Bear halfpipe images long ago…). After a satisfactory photograph was collected, the colors were stripped down, a blue tint was added and the rider’s name was laid across for all to see.

 

After receiving the shot direction from Lance and Evan, it was off to the slopes to start collecting these images. As y’all know, snowboarding and skateboarding have these ‘codes of conduct’ concerning photographic composition. It’s accepted world wide the viewer should have the right to see ‘take off to landing’ to gain reference and understand the image. Well, not for these ad shots!

 

With that said, approaching these shots was a bit challenging in the fact that you had to digress your shooting technique…no lip, no landing, cut off part of the rider’s arms, legs or board. Also, when talking about ‘guy in the sky’ photos, what lens do you use for these types of shots, auto focus, flash!?! Another factor was the rider had to always look directly into the lens while performing their maneuver…not so easy.

 

Surprisingly, the Kazu image took only five warm up shots, with the sixth image being the one selected for the ad. I use the words “only took five shots” because some of the images we’ll talk about later took wayyyyy more...

 

So this is the ‘Tight Crop Ad Campaign’ for the season, more details to follow as additional versions drop, enjoy. Blotto

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos by Blotto at Buttermilk Halfpipe, Aspen, Colorado 2011