Steve-Z.com

A large chunk of the crew recently moved into a big house out in East Boulder. At the housewarming party my friends at Green Guru brought out a big stash of their vinyl supply to make a giant slip and slide! I lent my photo skills to capture some of the water sprayin’ body flingin’ action! We started things off with some races: kinda like slip-n-slidercross.

While it was possible to go down just on bare skin, random bumps and rocks in the field led to many bumps and bruises, as you can see me finding out right here.

Thermarests offered a much smoother ride.

Justin doing his crazy action redneck impression.

I had a 4 strobe setup that I was able to ride out to the farm with in a small backpack.  I never was really sure how the photo was going to come out, based upon how far down the run the sliders were.  Love how Billy is blacked out with water spray illuminated in his face in this shot.

Unfortunately, no ladies lost their bikini tops in the making of this photo.

Awesomeness^3

The giant tube was brought out near the end, but it didn’t offer quite the speed that we were looking for.

FACEPLANT!

Not to be outdone, I made a few attempts at surfing the Thermarest. This is the look of me being psyched that I’m actually staying up for 5 seconds.

As you can see, this was a pretty rockin’ way to spend a summer evening.  I’m sure we’ll be setting this up bigger and better in the future.  I think that a first slip n slide descent of the First Flatiron should be next on the list.

Hi. Steve here. I have a ton of new photos and posts to publish from my latest adventures. But first things first. I gotta change the name of this website! This is a blog of personal photos and adventures, and as a result it is a steadily morphing entity. As I evolve as a human and as a photographer, the look and feel of the site needs to change with me.

“The Dark Side” was a name that I impulsively came up with a couple years ago one late night when I was changing both of my blogs to my new ProPhoto WordPress blog template (great template, there is a discount coupon at the bottom of the page!).  My professional websites took over an all-white theme, and I thought it would be fun to have my personal site reflect the opposite of that. So I just started calling the two, the Light Side, and the Dark Side. It was never really a well thought out plan, I will admit. One was white, one was black. One was professional work, one was personal work. It was really supposed to be temporary, but, I’m pretty busy with all the tons of things to do with this photo biz, so I just never got around to changing it, mostly because I never really thought of anything else to call it.

What is the purpose of this site anyway? Do I really need it? Does it really matter?

To me, it does. I love photography. I’m passionate about it, and addicted to it. I love taking photos when I’m on my adventures. Sometimes the photos are just travel snaps. But once in a while I get a really cool shot, the kind that I’d like to hang on the wall of my house. So I feel the need to put them out there and share them with the world, rather than have them live a cold and lonely life on a computer hard drive. I want them to see the light of day. I’d like to set up a cart where they could be purchased . . . but that’s a whole nutha project.

I need a new title that is more representative to the photography work that I publish here. In all reality, there isn’t much that is Dark about my photography. I’m more interested in beauty than sadness. I do have a quirky sense of humor, no doubt. I love what I do and I do have some pretty cool adventures where I have a lot of fun. The Dark Side had some people thinking that they were going to see horror movie stuff or something! So I need a title that is smart and clever, and possibly hints that this is a photo blog featuring photos from my travel, biking and snowboarding, and other random photos I take in my free time. There is also occasionally some technical and educational info for photographers, although I don’t seem to manage to find the time to publish a quarter of the articles that I think of in my mind. How do I sum all of that up in a title? How do I sum up 39 years of me in a couple words?

Until I come up with a cool new title . . . I’m just going to have a clean white sheet of paper.  The Great Title-less Blog! I just couldn’t stand the old look any more and had to change it immediately! I made a Facebook comment about changing the name; in a dream world someone will come up with a clever name for me! I’m not counting on that though. My best ideas usually come from an unexpected moment of clarity, and will just pop into my head when the time is right. As for now, I’m going to throw out the idea that I’m ready for the new name to come to me.

As for the photo . . . It’s just a funny self portrait that I took on my recent trip to Washington State. My chin is all distorted and enormous due to the distortion of my Nikon 14-24mm lens. I love to take beautiful pictures. But I also like taking funny and somewhat distorted pictures as well!

If you actually read all of this, thanks. I hope you keep coming back for years to come, as this blog will still be around, although the format may completely different. Evolution is like that.  Cheers, Steve Z.

Here we are at the grand finale of Steve and Mel’s Great Sand Dunes adventure! In case you haven’t been following along, so far we’ve seen:

Chapter 1 – Sunrise Landscapes

Chapter 2 – Afternoon Planning

Chapter 3 – Dune Camping & Night Shots

Having checked out the appetizers, let’s dive into the main course; this is the one blog to rule them all; where we strap on the snowboard and find out what sandboarding is all about!

I awoke in the early pre-dawn light lying in a pile of sand.  We had camped the night out in the open dune field. I was a little chilly, and there was a slight breeze.  It was hard to tell exactly how long it would be until the sun came up, but I knew we had to get moving in order to catch the perfect light.

The plan was to descend Star Dune at first light.  While hiking, we quickly realized that we weren’t going to get to the top quite in time.  There is only a narrow window of time where the sun grated across the sand to reveal the immaculate textures of the sand.  So I pulled out my camera and started shooting some landscape shots where we happened to be.

Silky sexy smooth sand shapes show sunken shadows.

OK, enough goofing around with landscape photos. We still had some serious business to attend to. It was time for a sunrise descent of Star Dune, perfect light be damned.  By the way, Star Dune is the highest dune in North America, rising 750 feet above the valley floor. BTW, whenever possible, I like to have girls carry my gear for me.

Here we have Melissa gearing up for some serious sandboard shooting. Side note, when asked to put sunscreen on my back, she didn’t whine nearly as much as Carl did when I was in Mexico last December. True story.

Nearing the summit of Star Dune, I encountered more windswept textured sand, and a great view of the Sangre de Cristo Range.  Star Dune didn’t actually turn out to be the best spot for sand boarding, as it wasn’t the steepest slope.  Some of the best slopes were smaller, and had a steeper angle and a harder surface which allowed for more speed.

At this point in the journey, I had to relinquish my shooting duties and strap on the snowboard for some warm weather sand boarding.  Melissa has posted some of her sand boarding shots on the Melissa Welsh Photography Blog. Part of our team effort on the adventure involved sharing camera gear, photo ideas, and blog fodder.  With her permission, I’ve selected and edited a few photos that she took but did not publish on her blog to accompany my version of our sandboarding adventure.

Riding a snowboard down sand dunes is one of those things that sounds like more fun in theory than it really is in practice! First off, I was using a snowboard, which isn’t really designed for sand. This does not lend itself to high speeds.  So in order to ride the dunes with a snowboard, you have to find the steepest slopes you can find just to be able to go fast enough to make any turns.  The second part, is that when you turn, you really just sortof push sand down the hill. So you can’t really traverse too much.  However, when you get a good slope, you can build up some speed, then make 3 or 4 good turns before you hit the bottom.  Oh, then comes the hike back up!  At 8700 ft above sea level, there isn’t a ton of oxygen to assist you in the battle against sand and gravity.  While some parts of the dunes are easy to walk on, getting back up from the steep slopes usually involves getting back up some loose and steep pitches, where you take a step up then slide half a step down. Just think of excruciating post-holing and you get the idea.

While it’s not going to replace snow sliding any time soon, it’s still pretty addicting. I would get just enough of a run to experience the groove, but not enough to really satisfy my need for carving. So after every run I just kept wanting to go back for more and more!

Here I am contemplating High Dune, which is the second highest dune in the park.  Oh, and by the way, I don’t think that I’m ever going to get the sand out of my snowboard boots.

I had this idea for a really cool angle on a shot, where I come sweeping across the front of the camera, shooting up a rooster tail of sand.  Well, as I said, the sand doesn’t really perform like snow, and traversing was a real challenge.  We tried to get the shot over and over, and every time I had to climb back out while baking in the sun.  Finally the heat and exertion started to get to me, I caught a backside edge, and I suffered my only crash of the trip. Fortunately, Mel caught the whole thing for your entertainment.

But finally, we got a shot that was somewhat close to what I was thinking! Mel also posted this one in her set . . . but I had to include it here too, it’s the money shot!  Want more action and arty sandboarding dune shots? Go here!

Well that’s the end of my first sandboarding adventure. While we were there, I saw some people with boards that were designed to be ridden on sand. It sure would have made the adventure a lot easier if I had a lighter board with bindings that worked with regular boots or sneakers.  I’ve since found out that there are actual sandboards. There is even a Sandboarding World Championship! Who knew? I didn’t, until I checked Wikipedia!

Overall it was a great first dune experience. It’s a pretty cool adventure to head to the beach, strap on the board, get a great workout, all while working on your tan. I’m definitely looking forward to heading back sometime with someone else who has a board so that I can both ride the dunes and shoot some action shots. Maybe I’ll even get a real sandboard. Who’s in?

June 5th was National Trails Day, and I lent some photographing skills to help promote the creation and maintenance of our local trail network. Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance hosted a big trail building day at Betasso Preserve. In case you didn’t know, Betasso is getting a brand new loop, called the Benjamin Trail, that will double the amount of trail in the area, and provide an alternate entrance from Four Mile Canyon.

This was the third trail building day out of the year out at Betasso. There are many more days required before the trail will be open for riding. So do your part and gather your friends and come out for the next work days. As a bonus, there will be food and beverages and beers to be had at the end of the day. Check out BMA’s website for the latest schedule and calendar of events.

I did my first two rides in the high country this weekend! The trails are running sweet in Ned, with the exception of the higher stuff which is still clogged with snow.  I got turned around on School Bus by snow drifts.  But I did ride the new Re-Root section of Root Canal.  It’s pretty sweet and even has a couple rock features.

I was riding solo so I don’t have any action pics.  Just a couple tilt shift still life portraits of the Bianchi SS.

I was invited to play with a sea kayak yesterday, so I immediately jumped at the opportunity. Zihuatanejo Bay was pretty chopped up in the late afternoon, so I wasn’t about to attempt any photos while on the boat. But I did take a beach break and snapped a photo of the boat and some great clouds. Cover shot?

I headed up to Keystone today for my second day on the slopes this season.  For the most part the mountain is a man-made, icy, Strip of Death.  But it is fine to get the ski legs going, I’m going to make an attempt at getting some powder telemark turns in addition to snowboarding.  I brought the pocket G10 camera to grab a quick shot for the blog.  I was super lucky, just as I pulled up, 2 guys went huge off the big jump.  The shutter lag on the camera makes timing these action shots pretty tricky, but I got pretty lucky on this one!  I took 2 shots and was on my way.

Here I am on the ski lift at Copper Mountain for Opening Day 2009! I think this is my first Colorado opening day, as I’m not usually a fan of battling the crowds on the Ribbon of Death! But, my friend Doug from Elevation Outdoors scored us some tickets, so I thought it would be fun to get some early season runs in. My legs have a longer way to go to get in shape this year after basically no biking all summer. Anyway, I took some pics with the G10 point and shoot. Here they is, in full straight out of the camera pore showing glory. 

This post is an oldie, but a goodie, so I’m going to recycle it!  I haven’t been posting any mountain bike pictures because I don’t have time to ride any more, so let’s just reminisce about the good old days of unemployment!

Back when I bought my first camera (a Canon 20d), I pulled it out of the box and went straight to Moab for the annual Ellsworth Owners Retreat.  I really didn’t know what I was doing at the time, but I got a pretty cool sequence anyway.  Yeah, I should have used a faster shutter speed!  Any way, this drop is really nuts!  It is way bigger looking when you are there, because the rider has to bomb down another 30+ vertical feet of steep runout past what you can see here.

I hired a new employee.  His name is Steve. Steves are cool. I was explaining to him how RadioPoppers PXs work, and that I can shoot off-camera flash way over the camera’s synch speed using High Speed Sync.  To show my point, I took this shot of him at 1/8000 of a second.  Because I wanted to be sure that his backlit leg hairs were as sharp as possible. I took this shot with 2 Nikon SB-800s at full power, with a Nikon D700, Nikon 24-70 f/2.8, 1/8000, f/4, 640 ISO. How cool is that for a first day of work? Steves are cool.

.: Nikon D700, Nikon 24-70 f/2.8, 1/8000, f/4, 640 ISO :.

It has been a hectic July for me workwise.  Sad to say, I haven’t done a single ride! But I’m rectifying that this weekend by doing some rides up in Keystone. Here is a shot from the Colorado Trail high above Keystone.  I lugged the tilt shift along and had a great day taking some trail and nature photos.  More posts to come in the coming days.

Rob came to town for a week of riding and hanging out.  The week he chose to come to Boulder coincided with my busiest time of the year.  I didn’t take many photos.  Here are two.

On my final day in Steamboat, I headed southeast out of town past Stagecoach Reservoir to Kristi and Danny’s house. We shot an epic Sport The Dress™ session in the mountains near their home. After the shoot I headed back to Boulder the back way, over Gore Pass. On the way, I was hoping to find a trail suitable for mountain biking, without any real knowledge of the area or a map.

After a while of rallying down the desolate but well graded gravel road in the WRX, I came across a trailhead for an ATV trail. It was well packed down and looked like it would make for a solid mountain bike surface. So I headed up the trail and embarked on a solid 2 hour granny gear climb. It was pretty challenging with muddy areas, stream crossings, and roots, but I was able to ride almost the whole thing.

Once at the top, there was a great view at the top of this erosion slide gully thing. I have no idea what it’s called, but it was really deep! You can see the area where I started, at the far left, behind the pine tree, in the base of the valley.  It probably took me only 15 minutes to get down, but it was a ripping descent!

On my second day in Steamboat I headed a little farther out of town. Steamboat has had the same wet spring weather that we’ve had in the Front Range, so most of the high elevation trails were reported to be pretty swampy. I rode up the Hot Springs Trail to Lower Bear Trail and back down again.

I really enjoyed both trails.  They were not really all that difficult technically. Lower Bear is a granny gear climb, but nothing too severe.  During the entire ride up I was dreaming of video-ing the descent, inspired by my previous days adventure.  I rigged up a Manfrotto Superclamp to my stem and mounted my Canon G10 camera on top, with a plan to record the gorgeous descent.  I wasn’t really sure if the camera was going to survive or not.

Climbing up through the Aspens, the camera mount system seemed to be withstanding the vibrations. . .

I stopped at this overlook, turned on the camera, hit record, and descnded the trail at about 85% speed, trying to be as smooth as possible. About 1/3 of the way down I realized that the camera was rattling. The tripod mount was coming loose from the camera body! Bummer.  The video was really shaky with a nasty rattling sound. Too bad. It looks pretty cool, but also really amateurish at the same time. So I went back to the condo and promptly ordered a new helmet cam! Stay tuned for real videos coming in the future!

On my first day in Steamboat I did a local ride straight out of town.  The thunderstorms were threatening, and I needed to get a quick little ride in before the skies opened up.  So I headed to the base of Howelsen Hill, and started climbing the rod up to Emerald Mountain.  There is a pretty large network of trails up there.  I pretty much just wandered around, poking in and out of various tasty bits of singletrack.  I did find a map HERE, that gives one possibility of linking the trails together.   This is the view from The Quarry.

The singletrack in this area is super tasty, mostly buff and fast. The twisty parts in the aspen groves reminded me a lot of Park City riding. The timing was right for wildflowers too!

The trails were fast and flowy.  These pictures don’t do any justice to the experience.  It was here that I decided that I need to get a helmet cam to really capture the experience, I didn’t feel like I could show what the trail looks like with still photos . . . so look for videos to be showing up sooner or later.

I was riding solo this trip, which makes it a little tough to get the action shots. :>) So here are a couple landscapes that I took along the way.

OK, I’m long overdue updating this site. I’ve got some new employees that have been keeping me busy doing ‘real’ work. But I’m here in Steamboat taking more mountain biking photos, so I really have to get these old pics off the camera. 2 Sunday’s ago, Ryan and I rode the Ceran St. Vrain trail up to Miller’s rock. On the singletrack on the way out, there is an angled rock that is perfect for launching. Getting the timing right for action shots with the Canon G10 is tough, but sometimes you wind up with an interesting composition. In this case, it’s me with my head cut off.

The international climbing community was rocked this week when it was discovered that Boulder local Jonny Copp was killed in an avalanche while attempting a first ascent in the Himalayas of China. I knew Jonny through some other friends, and am saddened that the mountains have taken another friend of mine in the course of a year. Jonny was a professional climber, adventurer, photographer, and originator of the Adventure Film Festival. As a tribute the Boulder Theater put his name on the marquis on Sunday. You can follow all the updates, and the status of the grim search for his other two trip companions, Wade Johnson and Micah Dash, on the Adventure Films Blog HERE.

Greetings sports fans! While some of you might not follow all of the happenings over on Steve Z’s Light Side, here is a post that you don’t want to miss! Sport The Dress™ session up at Arapahoe Basin. Check out the full post HERE.