As my regular readers will know I work as a ambassadore for engineering and science trying to promote it as a cool subject to study at school for kids and teenagers. The other day I jumped at the opportunity to go on a professional photo shoot with Richard Cannon – one of the UK’s most highly recognised portrait photographers who has worked with the likes of Sir Alan Sugar! The photos are going to be part of a big display at various science musemums. This idea and setting being to have them in a natural enviroment well…for snowboarding that kinda requires snow so the snowdome or a dryslope was going to have to do until the heavens opened and answered our prayers for a proper UK snow shoot!
I arrived at Reading station at 11am to be greeted by Richard and his assitant James (who spoke very nicely and is going to get a roller as his first car – how sick is that! You rule James!) who went on to inform me we were heading off to a deer reserve in Kent where they had fresh powder! So off we went and when we got there the shear beauty of the English countryside under a blanket of snow with stags stood there was awesome! We started off doing just a few basic portrait shots of me sitting down looking cool with my snowboard as you do. After this Richard wanted some action shots and James the fab assistant had to act as my human drag lift to pull me in for a flat land jump as high as I could for the camera. I was surprised how high my new True Deviant could pop on the flat – WOW! Richard suddenly shouted ‘your amazing…you look just iconic in this photo!’. The first fast paced shot and it was perfect. Lots of height I was looking ahead wide eyed and my hair was flowing as if hitting a huge kicker somewhere in the Alps. Richard’s ability to light the shot was fascinating with the white of the snow contrasting with a somehow deep purple he managed to create from the snow.
After the push and jump hits I was messing about doing a few flat land jibs and was very impressed that I could do the walky bouncy thing on my new board easily. I was stalling on a few logs which was great fun. Once the boys were ready I was hiking this time up a steep hill and then spraying the camera with the English powder! It was hard work but a thurally enjoyable experience which left me with a smile on my face each hike.
Once Richard got the shot he wanted we went for the tree lines! This was totally sick as there was about 6-12inches of fresh untracked powder and I was the only one there! They took a shot of me going between two trees as a longer range shot than the others but eventually Richard got one he was happy with.
The there was the run down and I had already spotted a nice 6ishFT cliff drop I wanted to hit which was awesome, until mid air I realised there was a young stag feeding underneath. Not your typical scenario I know so I kinda stacked the cliff drop a bit to avoid hitting the stag as that would of hurt having a 50KG Liza land on you!
Fortunately I was not hurt and a few bruises so my Osteopath has clearly fixed me good following my car accident.
So now its just the waiting game till I can see the shots. Richard has a lot of other people to visit for the event and the photos will be unveiled there – I just hope my hair looks good! I will be sticking them on here soon as I get copies!
That night as always it was time for the ledgendary local pub quiz and as I had got back late I was still in all my riding gear everyone probably thought what a loser well…who was the losers when everyones cars got snowed in and people had to abandon them and get cold while I was lovely and warm and dry :-p
Filed under: ETB, UK Scene, ETB, fresh, liza brooks, Photoshoot, Research, Richard Cannon, Snowboarding, STEM, true snowboards, UK Scene, UK snow |
