Wed, 01/06/2010 - 3:09pmKodak Courage; everybody say cheese!

You’ll do a lot of things on a snowboard. Get some air in the pipe, spin off the jumps, charge down the home run or press your way through the dome. For the most part you’ll do it all for fun but every now and then, your mate’ll pull out the camera, or phone, or whatever, and Mr or Mrs Just-having-a-good-time-with-my-friends will transform into Mr or Mrs Big-balls-who-wants-to-look-cool.
What I wondered was when this perspective is taken to a professional level, how much of what we see in the magazines is real snowboarding and how much is contrived for the lens? Afterall, if an obstacle or feature is only being ridden because it would make a cool photo, is that really snowboarding?
How many times have riders across the globe kicked themselves for doing something they wish they hadn’t and how many times are they sooooo stoked they did because the pressure of the onlooker, and the camera, made them push through a mental barrier, and on to greener pastures?
I’m always interested to know what kind of riding pro snowboarders would do if snowboarding had no professional requirements; would it be pow turns all the way down the hill, or a mellow box at the SNO!zone; or would it be do-or-die rails in Quebec and 50 degree chutes in Alaska?
It’s interesting that Chris Chatt is most looking forward to super mellow, and geekily technical, rail sessions when he’s back in action, and that JP Walker wouldn’t even consider hitting half the stuff he does if the camera wasn’t making an appearance.
All of these thoughts were hammered home when we were competing in the Vans Photo Awards at last season’s Wängl Tängl competition in Mayrhofen, Austria.
The photo competition relies on teams of two riders and one photographer producing an epic shot in order to win a stash of cash stumped up by Vans.
The first thing Rich Hookes on our team wanted to do was 5050 a centuries old stone bridge, 20m above a rocky river, deep in the Zillertal valley. I have never been so afraid, and self-conscious as a photographer, that a rider is doing something really dangerous just to get a photo.
Not to be outdone Henry Jackson wanted to do a handplant deep in avalanche debris that as you will read is not a great idea.
It was sobering to hear, a few days later, the plight of the Benelux team. After building a river-gap jump their rider Frederick 'De Witte' Van Den Bossche caught the speed wrong, had no space to eject and had to just do his best to make it over the gap. He didn’t succeed and landed on the other bank, breaking two ribs and puncturing one lung in the process.
According to photographer Michiel Rotgans, “The jump had been working out ok but the in-run was just a stroke of snow. Before you got to that you had to decide if you were going to hit the jump or not as the speed you had by then would have carried you into the river.
“Frederick went wrong at that point and just tried to make it over the river as best he could. While it was an accident, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
“In two years that’s the first time someone has been injured in front of my lens. I never realised that somebody could end up in hospital trying to make a shot.”
So it’s not all gravy. We caught up with a couple of pro riders to get their thoughts:

Steve Gruber
"The last time that I can remember a shoot I did more for the shot than for the feeling of riding, was when we (Friedl Kolar, Chris Kröll, Klaus Hofmeister, and photographer Scalp and filmer Hemrik) built this quarter-pipe arround Mayrhofen (Tirol) in old  avalanche debris that was covering a creek. It had a unique view with a river right underneath our quarterpipe.
Scalp was really keen to do the shoot the same day we dug the obstacle but we were right in an avalanche run-out zone and there were still tons of snow on top of the mountains. That was what had actually created this bizarre area weeks before.
Some locals had already come up to us, to let us know that it was a very bad idea  and a super dangerous place to hang out,  and that when the big slide comes down… it would be like when a fly gets hit by a truck on the highway.
So with this in my mind I had to call it a day – which was quite a hassle for Scalp because he had to go back to France the next day and it was questionable if we’d get the weather again or if the quarterpipe would survive the heat.
The next day we arrived earlier and the light was perfect. Scalp was stoked and even the snow wasn’t as slushy. The reshape took us an hour and we started the session. The quarterppipe was actually small but we had fun, so we kept going for a little bit and had no idea that time passed so fast.
Again the locals showed up and were concerned about the avalanche but we still kept going because not everything was done trckwise and we were having fun – not really thinking of what could happen.
Slowly the heat was getting crazy. I had a bad feeling in my stomach that we are way past the time we should hang out there. I asked Scalp if he had the shots he needed and if we should stop because of the sketchy situation . But he still wanted to shoot some different angles and there were some tricks that we wanted to shoot as well.
Half an hour later we packed our stuff together to leave as fast as we could. As we arrived at the car the alpine police showed up and told us that they’d got a call from a few worried locals and that we shouldn’t go back there again until the mountains have no snow on them – which is usually around June. But in the end they still asked if we could sent them a photo from the shoot for their office!
A week later the quarterpipe sunk into the river but the big slide luckily never happend."

Rich Hookes
"I have had Kodak Courage, at least once that I can remember. It was in Tignes in my second season. I 50-50’d a single bar S-rail, then the camera came out so I tried it one-footed, and I did it first time! I was so stoked and my brother got a good photo of it!"

Gerome Mathieu
"I’ve experienced both the good and the bad sides of Kodak Courage. Last year my sponsors and I prepared a ‘perfect jump’ that I wanted to do another double cork on – similar to one I’d done two weeks earlier.
Two photographers and two cameramen were invited but we were not lucky: the weather was pretty bad and i couldn’t see the shape of the kicker, especially the landing. Usually i would not go for it. It seemed too dangerous and I had a bad feeling. But thanks to them I got over my fear, I was under so much pressure – I cried for five minutes after I made the double cork. And that’s the funny part!
The less funny story was three summers ago on the Les Deux Alpes glacier. I  decided to jump over an articulated loader – I really wanted to be on a magazine doing it. I was so excited that I’d forgotton the most important thing: the snow was way too slushy. When i jumped, the kicker collapsed and I crashed face first on the loader. I would never have done that without my photographers. We thought it was my last jump…"

Which all makes me realise how lucky the am rider, the weekend warriors and photographers-on-their-rest-days are, that when they shred, they’re just tearing it up. There’s no need to be eyeing up features, or taking too much care over wearing the correct clothes, or sticker placement, and, other than getting a sore ass, it doesn’t really matter how lame the tricks are you’re throwing down – it’s certainly not job-defining!
Afterall snowboarding’s about that feeling between you feet, it’s not really about what you look like, so it’s nice not to stress too much over the details, just to enjoy the ride.

“He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the word and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.”
The Road, Cormac McCarthy