The REAL Holiday card arrived today. It was a bit of a fire drill getting the art done for the card. To top that the first printer we went with went sour so we had to go with another. Which gave everyone at REAL a few hours to sign all the cards before they get mailed out on Friday. They turned out well minus a couple tiny things I would have changed for next time.
It has been another amazing year. Here are a few photos from the last few months. Have a Happy Holiday and a Healthy New Year.
enjoy.
It was a couple weeks down here without a great sunset. Tonight’s sunset was, however, impressive.
I hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving. I was lucky enough to head home for the weekend. Saw the family, friends and snow! It was a whirlwind of a trip so I didn’t have much time to shoot. But here are a couple shots I was able to grab.
Some of us found out at work on Friday that 11.21.2008 was opening day at Snowshoe Mountain in VW. We all joked about heading up there for the weekend after hearing about the 23” that was dumped on them the night before. Finally we decided to make it happen. Dave, JD , Mike and I packed up the car after work on Friday and headed west. We made it to Snowshoe at around 4am. The place we stayed at was nice though I think anything would have been nice at 4am. We gabbed a couple hours of sleep and then I woke up for the sunrise (all of 2 hours later) to take a couple photos.
The crew was ready for the slopes ten to 9:00. We rode all morning doing laps to the one chair that was open. It was a blast, though a little cold. But the snow was still stuck up in all the trees form the heavy downfall making a very amazing and contrasting view than what I have been use to for the last few months. The snow conditions were great neither icy nor bare spots on the slopes. At around noon we headed in for lunch and then back on the hill for a couple more hours of shredding. I headed back to the room after to score a very needed nap. Dinner was at a nice restaurant in town. Then it was back to the room for a movie and sleep.
The next morning we were up again for the 9:00am start. I meet up with Ben. Ben works in the terrain park there at Snowshoe. I meet last year when Jason and I went up. We took more laps looking for some good shots to get. I was eager to shoot on the snow as I have yet to have a chance to do so since I got my new gear. The conditions were good if only it was later in the season, with more options for shots. We made the best of what we had on the couple runs we could get to. We shot and rode all morning, then headed in for lunch and then met back up with the crew to head back to Cape Hatteras. It was a terrific trip, a bit different from my last trip, but a blast none the less.
It was another cold day in Cape Hatteras. With winds at 30 knots, it brought the temperature low enough to get a good morning snow. Nothing stuck but it gave me enough to shoot a REAL video of Jason and Rick kiting in the snow.
On Saturday, I headed over to say hi to Drew who owns HIB (Hatteras Island Boardsports) to pick up some wax. We got to talking about how there are usually a couple crazy things that happen over the winter. The next morning I get a call from Jason and Sam that a sailboat had come ashore. I headed down to Avon to check out the scene. Sure enough a rather massive boat was beach about a half mile south of the Avon Pier. I stuck around for a little to take some pictures and see if they were able to get the boat off the beach with the dropping tide. They were unable to get the boat off the beach before the water dropped. We also found out it was not the captain’s first time getting in to trouble on his voyage from NY to SC.
I then wanted to practice some speed blur shots. I meet up with Jason to shoot some dirt biking. I had Jason drive around in circles so I could grab a couple shots. I was relatively happy with the results.
The wind was up today. Another SW wind was apon us. Carrie and I headed out to do a downwinder fro SDA (salvo day-use area) to REAL. I put up a 12m Havoc in 19 knots and my wakeboard. We got about 10 minutes into the down winder when a squall came trough and it picked up to about 25 and gusts to 40. Needless to say I was bombing downwind. I could have my kite at 12 and would be standing straight up and edging against the kite. It was one of the scariest times on the water I’ve had in a long time. I had to body drag into shore to have someone land my kite. I then grabbed a jetski to go pick up carrie who was still out in the sound.
For the second session, I headed to the Planet with Bill DeGeorge and a couple friends from MI. I rigged up my 8m Havoc, just as I was about to get ready to launch my 8m’s bladder blew. I had to ride my 12m. Again after I got 15 minutes into the downwinder the wind really picked up again. Not quite as bad as last time but I couldn’t edge. By the time I made it to the planet slick (about two miles ahead of the crew) the wind died down a little and I did a bunch of speed runs trough the slick. I then bombed my way to the REAL Slick. My first jump in the Slick was probably the largest jump of my life. I jumped about 10ft from the top of the slick and landed about even with the goofy pool. I called it a session after a few more boost (Thanks for the photos Rob).
After I packed up my gear I headed back up to the Slick to shoot Brandon and Trevor. We spent about an hour riding while I tried to dial in my flash shooting with action.
Julien and I did a couple shots before he left the Outer Banks. We did a couple lifestyle shoots, one under the Waterman’s Treat and then took a couple shots where we did one of the action shoots. For the action shoot we headed over to a dock to do mock wake skate shots. I’m pretty excited to try and get more wake skate shots at the different docks in Hatteras.
