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I've been producing some videos lately, but for the most part they are just talking heads for BuffzoneTV. So I figured I'd post a few photos from the last week or so. Been shooting some fun stuff really. One day I was paid to hike 14,000-foot Grays Peak, another day I roamed around in the heat by the creek and most recently I shot photos of a national skateboard event.
It was a six hour hike to the top with all the stopping to shoot photos and talk with folks. It seems like there is a magic line on that mountain at about 12,500 feet above sea level that the air vanishes. Despite being a fairly active person I was sucking air. Chasing people up the rocky summit to get photos was good fun, but I didn't put on enough sunscreen. There's also no atmosphere to protect you at that altitude either.
There were folks from the entire range of experience climbing 14ers. Scott Otteman, top, has summited all of the recognized 14ers in Colorado and was teaching his seven-year-old son to climb some of those same peaks. It was their second 14er in as many days. Robert Vinopal, on the right in the bottom frame, has climbed Grays Peak every year for 21 years, and was hiking with a friend, George Kikel, who was making his first summit of a 14er. Along the path there were folks from more than seven states on a Thursday afternoon. So getting paid to do something that folks travel hundreds and even thousands of miles to spend the day doing made for a pretty good day. But the burger at Tommyknocker's in Idaho Springs was pretty good too.
It was pretty hot last week in Boulder. I was simply told to go find some "weather art." So with the mercury creeping towards 100, I started driving around and found several folks walking with tubes towards the creek. I know it's an easy route to go. Just going to one of the most popular free ways to cool off, but it's late in the summer, several students were back in town for the start of classes at the University of Colorado and we as a staff had used up just about every "hot weather" photo option already. In an effort to keep it fresh, I decided not to shoot people on tubes in the water so literally. I did shoot the literal photos, and one did run, but luckily my editor picked one of these to run as lede after sweating a ton hopping around from rock to rock.
This past Saturday I was assigned to shoot the Seismic US Nationals of Slalom Skateboarding dual slalom races in Longmont. In most respects, being a former junior high scrub skater, I was too busy watching the action instead of making photos. One of the most interesting races was a 14-year-old kid from Longmont, Joe McLaren in the first photo, racing a 43-year-old father of three from Atlanta. The racers start at the top of a four-foot tall wooden box with a ramp leading them onto a street lined with plastic cones spaced between six and 12 feet weaving left and right down an about a six degree pitch. They race head-to-head twice with the fastest total time and least number of cones knocked over winning. The "kid" screamed through both sides of the course and went on to win the Open Division and a cash prize. I wanted to shoot a video just to be able to show the level skill and speed, but most of the gear was being used already and I didn't feel like doing double duty on deadline. Been doing that a bit too much lately. It's too taxing at times. Maybe next year.
