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Sunny Cypress

Today the sun finally started to shine and my spirits shone, not least because it was the first day there was snowboard training up at nearby Cypress Mountain. There were some nice views from the Media bus, but it was a pretty dismal lack-of-snow sight to behold once up top. I managed to catch the bus with both Himbrechts and Matt “Elephantitis” Shirvington – he is one tall, good looking man. And pretty friendly and good to chat to. James Brayshaw was also on the bus, but was too-cool-for-school in his sunnies and avoided every Aussie and hid at the back of the bus…or maybe he was just super hungover this morning. If he’s anything like the substance abusing rest of The Footy Show members, I would reckon on the latter.

There is fuck-all snow up at Cypress, and on the way we passed one of those Ericsson “Elvis” Air Cranes – in Australia they dump water on bushfires, in BC they pick up container-loads of snow to make a pipe, mogul course and BX track! And besides the lack of snow, the layout and organisation of Cypress is pretty poor. There are at least 6 stories of stairs everyone has to climb in order to get to the bottom of the pipe and track, and the organisers are super anal about lame rules: where you can and can’t stand, which way you have to walk, where the buses stop…and worst of all, enforcing us to wear mountaineering crampons to hike the pipe to shoot on the deck! I don’t own any, so have to try to buy some tomorrow, otherwise I will be seriously limited the photos I can get.

I shot 700 or so frames and 4.5 gigs worth, but I reckon only 2 to 2 and a half shots are worthy of publication (but whether the Evil Editor decides to use them is a whole different matter!) But that’s ok, it’s only practice day 1. The best shots I have to save for the exclusivity of the magazines, so these are just some fun ones from today. But I increased my chances for tomorrow when I dropped by Canon Professional Services in the MPC. They loan photo gear of all descriptions: $10,000 400mm 2.8L lens? Sure take that. Brand new $7000 Canon1D MkIV camera body? Do you want one or two? It is amazing – I’m like a (photo-nerdy) kid in a candy shop! I can’t wait to try out the gear tomorrow.

But back to Cypress – the pipe is in good shape, so the riders say, but with the fog and rain the snow is in rotten shape. Two hours into training the right wall had huge deep ruts and action was ceased an hour early. The Aussie SBX racers are stoked with their “Ninja Turtle” tops, and I think the pipe team’s uniform is great – nice and bright and excellent for photos (and much better than the sombre black they normally have). And I don’t the Japanese have a team uniform…just a general theme of looking like a clown. The Yanks have copped a little flak for their faded jeans and flannel uniforms, but in person they look awesome (although a bit too dark for good photos here). Some American commentators have called the get-up unpatriotic – I guess becuase it looks a bit messy and casual, but it really captures the good-ol-boy, truck driving yankees to a tee. And let me just say that Gretchen Bleiler looks amazing in jeans…

On that note I’ll leave you…I’m writing this in the bar underneath the backpackers I’m staying at, surrounded by drunk, shouting Canadians chanting at the replay of Dale begg-Smith losing Gold to the local boy. I think it’s about time to join them…

Let the Games begin!

I had heard photo spots were limited for the Opening Ceremony, and as I think that the Olympics are about sport, not ballet I wasn’t overly fussed if I missed out. However, a couple hours before the kick-off, I strolled past the protesters downtown and into the MPC and asked about photo spots…and was handed a ticket! So that meant I had to race to BC Place to get there in time and get a position in the stand. It was a bit of a mission with all the traffic and crowds to get there…and out front was another sign of Vancouver’s “prosperity”: an old woman sitting in the rain collecting plastic bottles for recycling. What a welcome to the Opening Ceremony.

Once inside, the first person I saw was Himbrechts.

Now that the action has started, the games are on, and the niceties are over! Our two super-agencies, SRM and DHP have had a rivalry for ages, he’s Nikon and I’m Canon, and as he is the enemy I made sure I sat right in front of him. This was great, because just as I realised the snowboarder was going to frontside-air through the Olympic Rings and I didn’t have the right lens ready to capture it, I just sneakily bobbed my massive head in front of Himbrechts super-dooper long lens to also stop him getting the shot! Perfect. Unfortunately, you’ll see here that he still managed to get in a few shots from the night despite my best efforts.

The Opening Ceremony was great and I really enjoyed it. They made everyone wear all these hospital-bibs so that it looked better on TV, which was pretty funny. You pay all this huge money to watch an event, then they employ your free labour for the world-wide TV production! The only lull was the innumerable teams that came out and paraded around. Those indian/native american/first nation/aboriginal/original tribes/indigenous/whatever-they-are-called-this-year dancers must have gotten so tired jumping up and down and spinning around and around during the parade!

Unfortunately, despite the massive status of SRM (and unfortunately also DHP) we were assigned pretty crap spots far away, and it was a challenge with a long lens and very dark interior (and only being able to shoot at max ISO 1600 on the Canon 1dMkIIN). The big guns at Reuters, Getty, AFP, AP and AAP get the prime spots, and the best shots. It was a challenge to get nice shots – we were both pretty happy with our work…until we checked what the uber-agencies managed to capture. Check-out Fairfax’s gallery here. Those guys have it so sorted – prime spots already assigned, they just fire away till a memory card is full, then hand it to a runner who takes it downstairs to a guy who edits the shots for him, then emails them on so they are online before the Ceremony is even over! So I’ll chalk my night down to a great learning experience and an awesome, fun, general Olympic experience…

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I was woken up Friday morning by the thunder of helicopters echoing off the buildings and rattling the window next to my bed – fortunately I wasn’t in some sort of Hunter S Thompson bad-acid Vietnam flashback (sorry, i’m currently reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to get in the right frame of mind for our Snowboard like a Rockstar magazine trip to LA in March). The Olympic flame was in town, and the choppers were catching all the action in downtown Van…and when I got out on the street it was packed, and the real Olympic spirit (not my manufactured, barstool one) had finally hit.

Thursday had been a great first day in town, checking out the massive MPC (Main Press Centre) and picking up my free kit, as well as running into Dan Himbrechts. Check his blog here for some more shots of pre-Olympic Vancouver. It was a busy night, first up with a ritzy reception by the AOC to introduce the Australian Team, and announce Torah as the flag-bearer. Well done, Torah! I knew how these things go, so while everyone was dressed in their semi-formal attire and on best behaviour, I, in my t-shirt and jeans headed straight for the bar and the food buffet to get the most of my tax dollars. Some snowboarders may scoff at the idea of being an Olympian, but I couldn’t help but get a real sense of excitement and pride from the “athletes” representing Australia. More than any other moment, I wanted to be up there with them, part of the Team. Maybe it seems more attainable when you see guys and girls you’ve known for years up on stage? I don’t think I’ve ever seen the last member to sneak into the snowboard team, Steph Hickey, with a bigger smile on her face!

The party was surprisingly full of sports and Channel 9 famous faces, and some out of place swimmers like Grant Hackett and Gian Rooney. The most important man in Australia gave a speech and intoduction, and even K-Rudd sent a video message perpetuating the myth that Australia “punches above its weight” on the world sporting stage – what a crock. If it weren’t for an old High Court interpretation of the Constitution that allows Australia to use taxpayer money to fund communist-styled institutional sporting programs for the “good of the country” we wouldn’t “perform” so well every 4 years. I’m all for public spending on sport, but now that the rest of the western world has cottoned on to taxpayer-funded sports programmes (except the USA, which is privately funded – ie sponsorship) don’t just expect and demand medals, Kevin. And remember, this is the same Labor that wants to cut sport spending unless a sport can guarantee medals (which affects all the marginal winter sports, except snowboarding and freestyle skiing).

After the AOC gig Dan and I then caught a cab to the aquarium where Canon and Nikon were jointly hosting a party – more open bars and hot buffets – for all the 1200 photographers. We just wanted to go along so we could pick up our gift, a limited edition Lowepro Flipside 500 camera backpack, which you can’t buy but would be worth about $300 in Oz. Score! But it was a bad idea to have a photog party at a place with some many bright and shiny things and so many enquiring eyes – I don’t think the jellyfish were allowed to float alone once…I even couldn’t help but get in on the paparazzit act, no matter how hard i tried to resist the obvious. It was a surreal, sort of nerdy party – but fun nevertheless. I got discussing Van’s shitty weather with a Canon Professional Services woman who commented that you don’t need to worry about white balance here – with all the clouds it’s always 18% grey. Haha. Photo humour.

Speaking of weather…it’s been pretty much raining the whole time i’ve been here, and doesn’t look like stopping. And I must say, i’m trying to love this city…but just can’t. What makes a city beautiful? Is it the people, the landscape, the structures or all three, plus that little bit of something else you can’t put your finger on? Van certainly gets a tick for its beautiful women, but a cross for all the pasty, splotchy-half-bearded hockey jocks. Without the advantage of makeup, fake tan or mineral bronzer, all the guys are so pale and weird looking – I swear I saw Edward Cullen yesterday. I understand why they filmed up here – the sun never shines on his glittery skin. And Van should get another tick for the theoretically snow-capped mountains across the bay, but with all this cloud, you can’t see them. The city itself is nothing special, in terms of structures, but where it really lets itself down is it’s slums right on the CBD doorstep. As the warmest city in Canada, Vancouver is mecca for the country’s homeless. They are everywhere, and then there’s all the druggies: I’ve been asked for spare change by cocky mother-fucker losers in the line for McDonalds and Pita Pit! I was walking just a couple hundred metres from the MPC and came across a homeless food shelter (I felt too intrusive to take photos) and on East Hastings there are shops selling everything to make your homeless life comfortable. There are even tourist information signs in front of the old Woodwards building that celebrate the descent into depravity that East Van has become. What’s next, Rio de Janeiro-style motorbike tours of the slums (favelas) to laugh and point at the downtrodden? Even Reno is less visibly sketchy than this place. I’ve never been to Detroit, Philly or the Bronx, but they can’t be much worse than Vancouver, except that in US slums I would be judged by the colour of my skin, and not by the content of my character, and targeted accordingly. It’s mostly white homeless here in Vancouver, which can make it hard to work out if that guy in tatty black clothes is a drug addled drifter, or just an urban hipster/emo punkster…until they get up close and you look at their eyes and skin.

Anyway, enough negativity. The Games are on, and there’s a great festive spirit all around…and I can’t wait till the weather clears (a little) and they can schedule some snowboard practice up at Cypress.

Planes, trains and automobiles (almost)

I hate flying! I used to get so much more excited about the prospect of going to the airport, getting on a plane and landing somewhere different and thrilling. But over the last few years it seems to be so much more of a drag: worrying about getting to check-in on time, not being stung for excess baggage, going through the x-ray and having to take all my camera gear and laptop out, cramped seats, and then dealing with foreign immigration at the other end.

Today was a trifecta of flights: Reno to Seattle, then back down to Portland, before landing in Vancouver. What a weird routing, but hey, it worked and it was cheap and pretty easy…even if Horizon Airlines have the smallest planes known to man! Reno airport and its endless slot machines is always great for a laugh, and it was funny to see how Squaw Valley USA is trying to cling to the Olympics it held 50 YEARS AGO! Get over it, Squallywood. It was bright and sunny in reno-Tahoe (of course) and of course, it was raining and miserable in both Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver. Luckily I took my 3CS puffer jacket with me to ward of the drizzle out on the tarmac.

And it can be interesting who you end up chatting to on the plane. Today I had a woman from Anchorage, Alaska who gets her hair done at the same salon as Sarah Palin (and didn’t vote for her, thankfully) and whose husband once had to shoot a big black bear charging him out in the woods. Yogi now sits above their fireplace with a stunned grin on his face…kinda makes me think of the South Park episode: “That baby deer is attacking me! Quick, shoot it!” On the next flight my neighbour was an ex-colllege footballer who now sold fertilizer – he surprisingly had a lot of interesting things to say.

The strangest neighbour I’ve experienced was on a flight I took into Chicago from Europe. I was on United, but the older gent next to me didn’t quite look like the typical African-American that I assumed at first glance – he was a little more refined, a little darker, and the combination of haircut and clothes hinted at something else. He was full of beans and got chatting to me: he was actually from Eritrea and had been an officer in the army during the long and bloody war against Ethiopia. But at one point he’d had enough, so he used his knowledge of the sentry patrols to slip out through the garrison lines and spent 7 days crossing the Sahara desert on foot to Libya! He stayed there as a refugee, ended up working in the US embassy and was eventually given a Green Card after several years of service. He had been back visiting family. I never would have guessed he had such an interesting story to tell…but I guess it shows you should open yourself up to all sorts of new experiences and people.

I have found that one thing to help make air travel more fun is to try and find a little slice of art in amongst all the waiting lounges, terminals, planes, and out the window with the camera. Funnily enough, I’m not the only one who thinks this way, as Portland Airport had a display of air travel-inspired photography which was quite cool to check out.

And so finally, I am here in Vancouver, already a couple cocktails down, getting into the Olympic spirit. I’ve only been here 6 hours so far, but my first impression is that there is a general sense of Vancouver pride, optimism, friendliness and being eager to please. It’s a nice change from the dour moods and sour faces of when I was here 12 months ago. And Granville St has had a slight makeover…but it’s still full of enough homeless bums and drug-addled angry-looking freaks to stake its claim for the sketchiest main street of any city in the western world. Well, I’d better get back to the $6.50 double Long Island Iced Teas and continue the Olympic spirit…at the very least they will make Granville Street look a lot more attractive later tonight.

Tahoe: It’s good to be back!

With Darragh arriving into town we could finally settle into a place for 2 months, but not before we spent one last night in Reno before our place was ready. Reno sure is one classy place…NOT. The contrast with Vegas is incredible, and i don’t really understand why Reno’s casinos and Strip have gone so downhill while Vegas has gone from strength to strength. On our way outta Dodge, we made sure to stop in at Cabela’s Outdoors warehouse, making sure to check our guns in at the front desk. Cabelas is amazing – Walmart in size and full of fishing rods, boats, clothes, tents, and of course rows and rows of guns and enough stuffed animals to fill Noah’s Ark. And to get you in the spirit of hunting, there’s one of those amusement centre infra-red shooting galleries – heaps of fun for 50 cents, and my 100% accuracy has carried over from last time.

There’s quite a bit of snow in Tahoe, and I’ve got El Rad’s Double Whammy Pass from last year to get me up to Northstar for free. It’s been fun, with a good couple of park lines but unusually cloudy most days, which has kept the pipe in great shape. Sunday was pow day, and I took a few snaps with my pocket Sony Cypbershot, but it’s hard to get good action self-portraits. Only a couple of the photos are still in colour…see if you can work out which.

Northstar isn’t the most epic location for pow turns, but risking a 2 week ban (made worse as the photo on the pass is not of me!), I nicked under the rope and out-of-bounds to find some awesome untouched fresh, steep turns, before finding some more fresh back in the resort – a few laps of the Backside chair made an awesome afternoon, and it felt great to be really riding again, not just sliding throught the park.