KH Films

I am just back from a week of work in beautiful Steamboat, Colorado where I was shooting a couple of projects for Eddie Bauer.  The first part of the week I was shooting ski footage of athletes Lynsey Dyer and brothers Reggie & Zach Crist  clad in the new ski line of Eddie Bauer/Whittaker First Ascent technical outerwear which will have its debut in the fall of 2010.  Joining me on the shoot was still photographer Will Wissman, an accomplished ski photographer who I have had the pleasure of working with over the years.  We spent two days shooting in and around the Steamboat ski area and we couldn’t have had better timing. This winter northern Colorado has not seen the banner snowfall it has experienced in recent years.  Fortunately we arrived in Steamboat right on the heels of a storm cycle that left a fair bit of fresh snow  in its wake and on our first day of shooting the skies were blue and the conditions were excellent.  Experience has proven that any ski area with decent terrain and devoted locals will have its fresh snow tracked up in a matter of hours.  Therefore this shoot was no different than any other in that we were going to have to work a bit harder to find terrain to shoot in providing us with untracked snow and good light.  Because I was not that familiar with Steamboat’s terrain and neither were any of the others on the shoot I called upon my friend, long time Steamboat local, and Warren Miller ski talent Dan Gilchrist to give us a hand sniffing out good locations.  Thankfully I made this call because without Dan’s help I would not have been able to shoot the quality nor amount of footage that I was able to.  With that said,  only having two days to shoot ski footage is very unusual.  Typically I will spend anywhere from one to three weeks shooting ski footage so as to shoot in the best terrain with the best snow conditions and in the best light.  When shooting skiing several stars have to align in order to capture great imagery including good snow, good terrain, good weather, good skiing, and good camera work.  More often than not you don’t wind up with all of these elements at play so you have to continue shooting until the mix is right. Fortunately for everyone involved we had a fantastic couple of days shooting.

The later half of the week I was shooting for the 2010 Eddie Bauer Christmas Holiday campaign.  This was a bit of an unusual shoot for me as this shoot was primarily designed as a still shoot and I was to working along side NYC based still photographer Didier Gault . I have worked along side plenty of still shooters before but typically they are on board a shoot I am directing and they work into my shoot.  On this particular shoot however I was having to work into Didier’s shoot and as I expected it was a bit of a challenge.  Unlike cinematographers, still shooters only need their models or “talent” to walk a few steps or move through an action only so far as they shoot several frames to capture a good image. However in my case I need the talent to walk several steps and carry their look all the way through an entire action so as to capture the action from beginning to end.  Needless to say this was a tricky scenario for me, especially at first.  Several times as I was capturing a great moment my camera would get bumped by Didier as he moved over to shoot from a different angle or the hair and makeup folks would walk into my frame to make an adjustment to the models.  Most difficult was when Didier or the Art Director would say “Great, got it!’ and the models would fall out of character right in the middle of my shot.  The fact is this was nobody’s fault in particular.  As photographers and cinematographers we have different needs  and the only way to blend the two shooting styles in my opinion is to either have two separate units shooting or double the length of the shoot so as to allow the still shooter to get what they need and me to get what I need.   Despite the challenges, Didier and I developed a rhythm and we were both able to capture great imagery of our models.

We shot at some beautiful locations including the 1,717 acre Marabou Ranch located just outside of Steamboat. At our disposal we had amazing landscape, dozens of horses, a beautiful barn, corral, and all things ranch.