Warren Miller was, and forever will be, an inspiration. I did, and always will, think of him fondly. He will be missed.
When I made the decision to “go into photography” as “a career” I thought about people like Warren and all the “photo annuals” in the ski and snowboarding magazines that littered my childhood floor (somewhat as an adult now too). I grew up with Snowboarding Magazine side by side with National Geographic. I would spend endless hours looking through them. After all these years I still have a few from back in the day. Growing up, getting magazine after magazine filled with colorful, daring pictures of power hounds inverted off this cliff, chest deep in power on the steepest of fronts... these images filled my head of things that I would like to do. In 2007 I really forcefully made a choice to “figure it out” and see how photography could be a part of my life. So, after a year and half of work, I bought a camera, and before graduate school, headed West myself. I never really did create images from the mountainside l saw in the magazines, but I did take a few snaps that I look back on and smile.
Snowbird, 2007
X-Games, Park City, 2007
Snowbird, 2007
Even a few that make me laugh. I don't know what I was thinking here...
Me. Self-portrait. Somewhere in Colorado, with my 5DMKI & Subaru, 2007
By all digital standards the camera I bought then is worthless now, but I cannot for the life of me sell it (as if it would sell).
At that time, 2007, it was everything. From my companion in the mountains to a tool in grad school, it became this thing that was quickly defining me.
My First Digital Camera from 2007
And while my images from my season in the mountains weren’t the audacious attempts like those I grew up looking at in magazines, and I had so much to learn about photography and life, those images were mine. I was there and hungry. And while I put career ahead of being a ski bum, which took me away from the Mountains, but I do always look for that opportunity to return (although, it had never occurred to me to make a career out of being a ski bum, maybe a missed opportunity there... but que sera sera and all).
Warren Miller will always be one of many inspirational figures in my life. Have a good weekend out there…