What compels us to get out and adventure, the thrill of seeking something we don’t know, the constant search for adrenaline, the ability to get away and be by ourselves in the mountains?

In this instance it was all of them. We weren’t necessarily going somewhere we didn’t know, but we were going at night. This change in the time of day can make a place you know feel wildly different. I came up with this idea to capture ski imagery at night and light various scenes at night with flashes. I pitched the idea to my friend, Mauri Cambilla, and he was immediately convinced. Next, I pitched it to Elinchrom, a company who makes flashes that I’ve used for a long time. They were keen as well and asked if I could shoot with the THREE, their newly released piece of gear. This gave me an outlet and a timeline when I needed to do this shoot by.

Generally, I knew the shots I wanted to create, and what I wanted the end result to be, but first needed to find the location.

With the practicality of going out in the dark, and bringing flash gear, the location needed to be somewhat accessible. While normally we might be able to go trudging around in the mountains for hours, in this case we wanted to find something a bit closer. We settled on two areas, both of which I had been to before and was reasonably familiar with, but as soon as we got out in the dark, it was easy to get turned around and second guess if you were going the right direction.

The 2024 season was sub-optimal in British Columbia. Low snowfall and January rains had left us with a shallow snowpack, adding a level of difficulty to this shoot I wasn’t expecting.

The first night out ended up being mostly a bust. We started just before sundown, put on our skins and headed out. Almost immediately we realized this area wasn’t going to be the best option. Going through the forest we were bashing through undergrowth, and stepping over logs. Normally these conditions were something we would see in November, and come February when we were shooting, we would be walking on meters of snow. We kept moving hopeful we would find something, but expectations were getting lower as we moved and finally, we made the decision to turn around, and head back to a meadow we had passed through on our way out. If we weren’t able to get any actions shots, I at least wanted to capture some touring shots to help round out the visual story.

This meadow was shaded by a mountain, and never got any direct sun this time of year. The trees were still coated with what little snow had fallen this season. I got my lights set up and we got about shooting. Anywhere the lights shined was bright, but would immediately fall off into the darkness of the nighttime forest. With it being a calm cold night and no wind to disturb the trees, every sound seemed to carry through the forest, and gave the sound that we were being watched by some animal.

Next day, a new attempt. We jugged the fixed ropes to the last point of the previous attempt.We continued navigating the wall, seeking the most feasible passages. A couple of times, we had to reconsider our line as we reached dead ends, but we always found a way to keep moving on the granite. As we climbed higher, the shadow enveloped us with its icy presence. We encountered a diagonal chimney with quite a bit of ice and very difficult to protect but of a low grade. It was a matter of climbing carefully to avoid slipping and suffering a fall that should not happen, especially at this altitude.

After capturing a variety of images, it was back to the truck and regrouping and making a plan for the next nights. At this point I had all the lifestyle images I wanted, but the images I really wanted to focus on were the action images. I knew these would be more difficult. Capturing a great powder shot in the day can be challenging and you have the advantage that you can shoot a sequence and capture multiple images per turn and then choose the best one. When shooting with flashes you are usually limited to a single frame as the lights need time to recycle. Timing needs to be exact, and once a track is in the shot you need to move everything to try again.

The next area we planned to go we utilized the help of our friends at evo and The Journeyman Lodge. This is a beautiful backcountry lodge in Whistler, British Columbia, with easy access to amazing terrain a short tour from the front door. By staying at the cabin it allowed for an easier approach to the mountains, and we stayed a two nights allowing multiple nights of shooting. By going out just before dark we were able to maximize our time shooting, and since we weren’t far from where we were staying it allowed us a reasonable return when done shooting.

These next couple nights the snow proved to be much better. While still not the traditional deep snowpack of the Coast Mountains there was a least a little bit of fresh fallen snow.We did an early reconnaissance mission when first getting to the lodge to find a few specific locations for the evening, and then came back and chilled at the lodge until later in the afternoon. Just before sunset we regrouped and headed back out. We got back to where we wanted to shoot and waited until the light was gone before starting to shoot.

Being that the snow wasn’t super deep almost made shooting easier. There was enough snow to blow up in the air, but not to much that moving around became difficult. After each shot I would hike up, move my flashes and reset them and then come back down to where I wanted to shoot from.As per usual when working with lights it took a bit of time to get the exact shots we wanted. With so many moving parts, it would take time to capture the shots, and some worked with others being complete misses. It’s really easy for me to get in the moment when shooting and not really be paying attention to the time, or anything around me.

After being in the cold, and running the modelling lights consistently the flash batteries died. I was surprised at first as it seemed really quick, then I looked at my watch and realized we had been out shooting for hours. We headed back to the cabin to warm up and review the shots we had captured. Being that we were shooting in the early winter, it gets dark so early that even though we had shot so long, it was still reasonably early.

After that first night I was excited about the images we had captured. While the stress had been building throughout this shoot due to the conditions the season was providing, I was comforted in the fact that I now had the action images to complete the story.This made the second night a lot more fun. Since I knew I already had the shots I needed, it allowed me to try some shots that were a bit more challenging, with a higher rate of missing the exact moment. Again we headed out just before dark and lined up a location.

The first shot we did ended up being my personal favourite of the entire shoot. It had a longer in-run for Mauri to ski in on, and then follow a ridge with a turn. The shot was wider so I needed snow to be blowing up the entire way, or it wouldn’t look like Mauri wasn’t skiing fast. With all these variables it added more room for failure, but we nailed it exactly how I envisioned and the night progressed from there. Each moment seemed to come together how I planned and we were able to try a variety of things we hadn’t from the first night.