I was bugged standing on the hill at Deer Valley for the World Cup Aerials finals last week. It wasn’t the cold conditions, or my weak batteries that were getting me down. It was the shooting conditions. Before I go further, it was nothing about Deer Valley. They organize a perfect event every time, and in the small world of winter sports they stand out as one of the best.
Here’s what was bugging me about the shooting conditions… Photographing world class skiers flipping through the air is very cool, but the finals are at night so you’ve got them against a black sky which takes away all context. The best shots of aerials are usually during the day from way up top behind the jumps looking down toward the crowd, and I hadn’t been able to make it to the earlier qualifying session with its dazzling blue sky. Winter sports photography tip: Shoot action during the qualifying and emotion during the finals.
Another annoyance is that a still photo never really captures the skill and technique of this sport. So what do you do when you end up with a thousand-plus photos of flipping skiers on a plain black background? I needed something different from last year. Here’s what came to mind…
That is Olga Volkova’s jump, in nine frames from left to right. And that’s kind of a fun way to look at it, but why stop there?
Here are the lady skiers from the finals in order of their results, gold medal on top, down to twelfth place at the bottom…
It makes for an eye-catching poster. And check out the Chinese skiers in red taking five of the top six spots. Here are the men…
With a little bit of thinking, the very thing that bugged me about the conditions— that boring black background— was turned into an asset and something cool was created. Stop by some day and see the 16×20 inch prints on my wall.
Effing sweet idea!
Awesome. This I am showing to my photography students as an example of doing something different with multiple photos. Very cool.
Very cool idea and execution Trent. How long did it take you to put together?
Trent, this is absolutely amazing! It’s always exciting when someone takes a new and innovative look at our sport. Thanks for the effort you put into this and for sharing it.
Trent…..All I can say is “wow !”.
Great stuff Trent.
Epic.
Thanks to all for the kind words.
Mark- I’ve gotten pretty fast with this kind of stuff. Worked on it off and on throughout one day. Like any of these, you fine tune your workflow as you go. By the time I got the third or fourth one built I had streamlined the process pretty well and then it just flows.
This is very freaking cool. Awesome stuff.
Hi, I was absolutely blown away last night at 12.15pm when I stumbled across your site. My son Dave Morris has just competed and won a place in the Ausralian Aerial skiing team and here he was in your fabutastic photo. We were here in Melbourne having to wait for the scores to be posted. We were not able to see the jump but your sequence confirms for us how neat it was. I am wondering whether we might be able to get a copy of the male aerialist photo so we can make a display for him when he comes home after the Vancouver games. I look forward to hearing from you and to loooking at your other works.
Best wishes from Melbourne Australia
Marg Morris