Everything I post up from the staples, design, photo and video to plenty of smaller projects and ideas that won’t make the main pages of the portfolio or other things I’m trying out.
I spent some time over the Memorial day weekend playing with some paint, I hadn’t painted a skate deck in a couple years so it was good to start messing around with this kind of thing again.
I have just finished working on an update to the www.priestsheetmetal.co.nz website. The original site was relatively simple, for a company that has been operating sixty plus years in an industry that isn’t hugely technical as the sheetmetal industry is, the fax number is important on the footer, the analytics show more people using the site on desktop than phones but they needed a presence without a large budget and now we are just slowly moving towards something more exciting.
The content has slightly updated and we have moved away from a bunch of the text for the site being tied up in the video where it was moving and less readable. Adding more background colors adds hierarchy to the elements of the page in a logical order.
With a relatively small update the site still has elements from foundation running the backend but most of the new elements have been built on CSS grid giving a flexibility with the scaling of the site between phone and desktops.
Every time I go to the Pacific North West I’m reminded why I want to spend more time there but then the reality of the weather kinda sets back in, yeah the skiers never ran but the snowboarders killed it on the King so that was cool to film.
While traveling through Canada during January with the Snowledge crew we caught the 2019 Canadian Open Freeride Championships at Red Mountain, it was a cool little comp which happened to hit a perfect storm with a few inches falling during the night and sunny skies. Check the full post over at Snowledge
Getting on the road the past few weeks felt really good and even tho we were not entirely ready we had to pull the trigger to make it up to Revelstoke for the FWQ4* these events are always a blast and the level just keeps on going up. Covering the event solo is definitely a stretch but I was able to find a nice little spot to post up and catch a bunch of the runs and was able to create a vid for the Snowledge Blog here.
My year of 2019 is looking to be as different as many of the years before it. January 1st I won’t have a stereotypical house but will be traveling out of Frosty the Snow Van a pseudo completed camper conversion of a Dodge Promaster with my wife and adventure buddy Kenzie and our little dog Blue.
I’m nervous about exactly what work I can do on the road and think a lot of it will be website design and development but I will be in some amazing places and hopefully have enough power to produce some amazing media and that’s going to channel into Snowledge in a more complete way.
For the past year my goal for Snowledge was 365 of media so we could keep the social channels running all year. It wasn’t perfect but we did something around that number and although improving that stream is key I also want to make pieces that are more than just a photo or a single video clip.
Pieces like “It Takes 3 Turns” an editorial on the start of a season with words as well as images. I wouldn’t say words are my strongest point but I’m working on them and trying to read in-depth while taking on what other people are doing to hold attention.
3 Turns is just a general thought I had and maybe that will become something of an editors column or maybe it’ll just be a piece of many but it’s here for the reading now
I have this slight filters dilemma, I can’t tell you my dream day in the mountains. I hear from most people it’s pretty simple. Fresh snow, Helicopter and those parts I agree on I’ve been lucky to have been in that situation on multiple occasions. I have the problem of which side of the lens I want to be on. The best feeling is riding a board no doubt but I feel more fulfilled at the end of the day when I sit down at the computer and work through the footage, capturing the artistic spirit of the mountains, not to say I don’t remember a perfect turn or an air but I love keeping the moments alive and for the world to see. Sometimes I can do both and I really want to work on some better self portraits this winter.
This video is a lot of those in-between moments, A quick rip around the hill when the usual suspects are nowhere to be found on a pretty good but not epic day, a few park laps when the crew are feeling beat up from new tricks or just not feeling like anything is coming together and I can throw them the follow cam stick.
And for the help with this I am super grateful to everyone that helped with these shots.I know the sacrifice even when your feeling good but not perfect to take the camera down setup and get setup.
I present to you in full my Snowledge Filmer’s Edit Twenty Seventeen / Eighteen
I’m not sure if I like GoPro’s more as a filmer for being a great little camera or as an editor as pretty much the whole crew have one and can bring me a bunch of shots without having to be at every single thing ever, or even just a second angle so we cut a whole video of GoPro clips, some of mine and a whole bunch from the crew.
When last winter started slowly we we’re sitting around and I wanted to make something a little more interesting than the general snow shots we we’re running on Snowledge for marketing and social purposes. So we goofed off for a day and filmed this, but then it did start snowing and I had a very rough version sitting in Premiere for most of a year, the biggest delay was finding a voice over artist. I tried getting a couple of people involved but in the end I was sitting down with Chase Schwietzer over pizza for another project and brought this up as something I had been meaning to get sorted, he jumped at the chance to be involved and really came through. When I got the final cut sorted a bunch of his best friends couldn’t pick it was him so I’ll take that as him being deep enough in character. Thanks also to Kenzie and Eric for being willing to help with stupid things I want to do and watch out for the next few versions I have sitting in a note but if they get done sooner or later is a question that will be seen later.
During the cold of last winter I got the chance to head back to Canada for the first time in eight years, we spent a couple days in my old stomping grounds of Whistler before heading to Revelstoke, a mountain I’ve been looking forward to for a long time and it did not disappoint. From Reve we took the ferry down to a little cat skiing operation an hour or so South and as soon as we got into the hills it was obvious why magazines and movies have been shooting Retallack for the past ten years. The footage is pretty much all gopro as we we’re shooting stills and trying to make the most of the trip slamming as many runs as possible.