I recently sold one of the shots I got of Libby Redepenning last season to Protec for the new 2013 catalog (right page). I took it in a portrait orientation and they cropped so it's more square. I actually prefer this crop over the full portrait one. It's nice when you're happy with the final crop and layout a company or magazine uses on a shot you took because it can be the other way around, leaving you thinking 'why did they crop it like that‽'.

Last Saturday, I went to the Lib Tech Downtown Throwdown put on by Snowboy Productions. The comp was a 2 hour jam with a few breaks to fix the big divots that formed below the rails in the trucked in snow. The setup was a round rail, a pole jam or a down-flat-down ledge with a small box in the middle and a quarter pipe at the end. I got a few shots walking around during the setup, then went up to the library for some from above views. I tried to get into the other building across the way for better light, but my big white lens and my media wrist band weren’t enough to get me into closed offices, up top. During the rest of the event, I found a bunch of different angles and even climbed a few trees. Even at an urban event, I’d find trees to climb...

Dylan Alto took first, with Nick Visconti in second, Dyland Thompson in third, Ryan Paul in fourth and Brandon Hobush in fifth. Andrew Brewer won the destroyer award and Chris Brewster took the Dinner For Two award.

Check out the rest of the shots in the gallery: 2011 San Francisco Lib Tech Downtown Throwdown

Last November, when I was in Utah after SIA, I shot with Emily Blewitt and Libby Redepenning. We talked at the Transam Jam and ended up shooting street around Park City that weekend. Snowboard Colorado magazine was doing a feature on her in the March issue and she didn't have any shots, so it worked out perfect. The magazine is only in Colorado shops, so I added bigger images so you can read the interview (click the images). My shots are the b/w one on the index, top/right and all the shots on the other pages.

Follow Emily Blewitt on twitter - @specialEMME

When I was in Utah after SIA in February, I went to Solitude mountain for a day of shooting, except it wasn't me behind the camera. John Shafer was working on a review for the new Sony Alpha SLT-A55 for photographyreview.com. He wanted to test the cameras action shooting capabilities and I was up to ride for him immediately since I rarely get to be in front of the lens.

Check out his sequence shot of me on a curved rail in the park on page 3 of the review: http://reviews.photographyreview.com/sony-alpha-a55-review

At a house in Mammoth where some friend's were staying, there was a 1970's Toyota Land Cruiser with a plow buried in snow. We saw it and knew what had to be done. It had been hit at least once before, but there were only 1 or 2 photos from a point and shoot from it. We started to set it up and Chelsea said I should take a time lapse. I had my camera and remote so I thought I might as well. Everything else was across town so I had to use a beer box and a stick on the deck to hold my camera up through the deck rail. After a few frames, the camera slipped a little, but it worked out.

The next night there was a party at the house. We waited until it was dark, at 1am, before we put our boots on, and I setup lights & flashes. Jarod hit it first. The speed and lip were just right so he kept hitting it. We both realized he needed to get a spin onto it get the best shot, so he faced my angle. Chelsea went up the run-in and strapped in. She came up to the lip with enough speed, but didn't quite pop enough... ..Check out shot #4 in the gallery. She hit her knee on the roof and had some blood on her face. We put everything in the garage and were off to the Mammoth ER thanks to Lauren and her car. Only one person could go in with her, so I gave Jarod my camera (he took shot #8 and #9). It turned out she messed up her knee pretty good. We finally got back at about 3am and everyone passed out.

I hope you have a quick recovery Chelsea!

setup timelapse: http://www.vimeo.com/24251240
gallery: 11.05.18 - Land Cruiser Jibbing

The other day, while editing photos from the Go Pro event at the Roxy Chicken Jam, I realized I should make a slideshow out of all my best shots of the day. Finally, it's done and uploaded.

Watch it here: http://vimeo.com/patrickbranch/roxypowderjam. All the shots in the slideshow are in a gallery if you want to share or buy individual shots: http://gallery.pbmedia.us/p38979092 .

Saturday was the inaugural Roxy Powder Jam, an event brought on by the weather. Slopestyle was canceled due to less than ideal park conditions, so the backup plan they came up with to replace it was an event where teams of riders were to film anywhere inbounds on mammoth mountain with Go Pro cameras. The footage of whole teams (and individual riders) will be judged and winners will be announced April 11 with $15,000 to be split between them.

I ended up going with team 4. The riders of team 4 were Christy Prior, Danielle Brodrick, and Leslie Glenn. Seth Lee went along to help film with a Go Pro, doing lots of follow shots, while I took behind the scenes still shots of the riding and filming. We started by Main Lodge and worked our way over to Canyon lodge, first dropping a building gap in the trees and then getting some shots of natural gaps and drops with all the fresh powder. We stopped at Canyon for a bit to dry out the cameras and get some food. As we were heading out, we heard the lifts would be closing because the wind was getting so strong. They did close with exception of chair 8 (where a huge line quickly formed) and a chair lift up the bunny slope. We ended up taking the gondola to the village and then taking a bus back to Main Lodge.

At main lodge we built a jump with a gap over two wind lips above the athlete lounge. It was around 2:30 in the afternoon when we built it and the wind was getting worse, but we wanted to get some more Go Pro shots. My camera was getting covered in snow that wind was blowing across the direction of the jump. I had to keep cleaning off my viewfinder and lens. It was an effort to even stand, let alone build a small jump. By the time we finished it, visibility had gotten a lot worse. The riders had a hard time finding the lip to even aim for it and the wind wasn't making being in the air easy. They hit it a few times and called it.

The Trouble Andrew and La Roux show with the awards ceremony that would take place in the village was moved inside to Canyon Lodge because of the weather. Halfpipe was the only planned event that happened. Qualifiers and Finals were combined in one heat because the weather window was questionable. Kelly Marren took first in halfpipe winning the $15,000 purse
with Leslie Glenn in second and 10 year old Chloe Kim in third.

Today, it actually cleared up and stopped snowing, but it was windy all day. Riders started practicing the pipe for the first time during the event at around 11 when the wind died down a little. The comp started at about noon. The results will be announced during the show tomorrow night.

photos from left to right: 1 - lots of riders, 2 - practice, 3 - Leslie Glenn, 4 - Michelle Zeller, 5 - Summer Fenton, 6 - Michelle Zeller, 7 - Leslie Glenn

Today ended up being like yesterday, but with more wind. Qualifying and practice got postponed, so hopefully they can happen tomorrow... Here's some shots from my phone of all the snow

Yesterday was the first day of the Roxy Chicken Jam at Mammoth, a full day for riders to practice the pipe and slopestyle course. But, the weather decided otherwise. When I arrived at the Mammoth airport the day before, it was partly cloudy and almost warm (though, it had been snowing a lot the past few days). Wednesday morning, I woke up to it snowing with a few inches on the ground. As I scraped wax off my board outside, it started coming down more and more.

I made it up to the mountain at 10. Only a few girls were practicing the course, before it closed early. If they could even get speed for the jumps with all the new snow, they wouldn't have been able to see them. I ended up going riding with two girls I met on my flight to Mammoth (Kelly Etsell from Roxy and Audrey Guillemette from DC) and two others. As we got on one chair, a lifty said the visibility was pretty much 0 at the top of it. He was right... we couldn't see too well dropping in. I couldn't believe how deep it was. It was dumping so much, any tracked out sections in the trees became nearly untracked in 10 minutes. I shot the last four photos with my phone, so the quality is a bit lower than with my Canon.

Hopefully events go as planned today. I've been hearing it'll be like yesterday was...