Fan Mail

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I'm luck enough to get some fan mail, maybe a even a couple emails a week, from an inspiring photographers. Some ask the same questions I feel I've answered many times:  'How did you get started?' and 'Do you have any tips for me?', others just drop a line to tell me I'm killing it.  All are very flattering to me.  Believe it or not, it's hard being a single female photographer on the road switching crews all the time.  I lose sleep over bad decisions, not taking that angle, moving over three feet, choosing the wrong spot or crew.  These things are so insignificant to the bigger picture, yet they seem so important to me. Even when I have the best day ever, I always feel like I could do better. But I guess that's what motivates me to do the best I can, so to receive this sort of mail is fueling. Unfortunely, I don't have much time to reply with much more then a thank you. I appologies for that, and hope people will continue to send me mail.  With that in mind, I do answer alot of those questions in interviews such as this one:

ESPN

This one from Cloe, I got this morning I thought was really cute.  Thanks Cloe, hope you don't mind me blogging it.

" Dear Ashley Barker, First of all, hello my name is Cleo. Your photography truly amazes me. I'm a tenth grader at Vancouver school of arts and academics. In focus photography, and hope to be a professional photographer someday. I don't even know for sure if this is Ashley Barker, and you probably get hundreds of fan mail everyday. I just wanted to say you inspire me. You have an amazing talent with your photography. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Cleo _____"

 

Keep shooting and have fun.

Sarah Burke RIP

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An Excerpt From Winter: Sarah Burke and Rory Bushfield

Let us dedicate this day to Sarah Burke, an inspiration to women, athletes and snow lovers all around the world.  This amazing female will be missed by sooo many.  My heart goes out to all her friends and family.  Let us be grateful for having had her be apart of our lives and sport.  While we shed tears in her memory, remember she would only want you to live yours to the fullest, as she did.

 

Burke, a pioneer in both women’s ski slopestyle and halfpipe, was a driving force behind the sport’s inclusion in the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia in 2014. Born in Midland, Ontario, Canada and living in Squamish, British Columbia, Burke was a four-time gold medalist at Winter X Games. She also won the 2001 U.S. Freeskiing Open in halfpipe and second place in slopestyle. She won the first ever world championship halfpipe event. She was awarded an ESPY in 2007 for Best Female Action Sports Athlete. She also had five World Cup victories on her resumé, including two earned last March at La Plagne, France. She won the 2005 world championships at Ruka, Finland, and finished fourth at the 2011 worlds at Park City.

Burke crashed Jan. 10 in Park City, Utah, while training in a halfpipe. The Olympic gold-medal hopeful and four-time Winter X Games champion tore one of the major arteries supplying blood to her brain and went into cardiac arrest.

She underwent surgery and spent nine days on life support at the University of Utah Hospital. But Burke had suffered irreversible brain damage after the fall because of lack of oxygen and blood to the brain.  She passed away Jan 19th 2012 (yesterday)

Check more on her story here

www.giveforward.com/sarahburke was organized by her agent, Michael Spencer and has marked a goal for $550,000. Her husband Rory Bushfield, a fellow skier from Alberta whom she married in 2010, is listed as the beneficiary.

As long as we live, she too shall live, for she is part of us, as we remember her.

We like to Party..

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Because you may as well spend the first day of a new year feeling like shit, with your friends.. These ones know how to party..

 

Happy New Year.  Hopeful you don't remember to much more of your night then i do.

If you want to see 400 skier fag party photos, click here

Thx for the party boys.

TWS Feb 2012 Cover - Lucas Debari

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Sometimes things look easier then they appear.  In reality that's a snowboarders job.  They make it look easy.   This shot seems that way.  We sledded to the top of this bowl and boot pack out.  The avy danger was extremely high, which always makes it a challenge for the riders and terrain selection. In this case, it made it equally as difficult to find good angles that didn't put me and lens man Gary Pendygrass in danger.  My knee was bleeding, bruised and barely working  from a snowmobile spill, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and make it work.  I saw this spine beside the feature with a tree at the top. I knew I had to get there.  This was a nerve racking angle. The wrong movement or shift in snow was gonna mean getting sucked into the spine, the exposed area and out of a position I wouldn't be able to get back into.  Getting my camera out of the back was another funny challenge.

Lucas is one of my favorite riders.  He's young, genuine, and charges.  He's mountaineering and climbing skills give him the ability to get into things overs wouldn't dare to get themselves on top of.  Here, Debari is airing to this pillow tree type feature you see him air out of.

Thanks Lucas, Gary and Mary for your patients and great day.