Zak Shelhamer.

TruckeeRiver-2, originally uploaded by ela1974.

What can I say about Zak? Well, he is a great guy with many talents. He snowboards, shoots photos (acts as my assistant from time to time) and likes to play around with video as well. Here he is sending it off the bridge in complete control. Atta boy Zak!

Eric Willet

TruckeeRiver-3, originally uploaded by ela1974.

I love shooting with new people...and this is one snowboarder to watch out for here in the near future. Eric is from Colorado and an insane snowboarder who has been placing top 10 in this years most major snowboard events. Such as the Dew Tour and The open snowboarding series prented by Burton Snowboards.

2009 Winter Dew Tour: Northstar at Tahoe Day 1

This is the last stop for the Winter Dew Tour and it couldn't be a much better setting. Northstar at Tahoe is hosting the final event here in our own backyard. Being the last stop, there is a total of 1.5 million bones of prize money being handed out for the winners of all disciplines. Snowboard Slopestyle & Halfpipe as well as Skiing Slopestyle and Halfpipe in both mens and womens divisions. Today My main focus was Mens Snowboard Slopestyle qualifiers as PorterTahoe.com had serious interest in routing it's team riders Chas Guldemond & Brandon Cocard. They both made it in and this is Brandons 1st major final in his rookie year of competition in the professional ranks. Congrats Brandon & Chas! Tomorrow is the finals and we'll be doing a much more in depth post. Zak Shelhamer and myself are covering our snowboard competitors closely and have lots of different footage to put together for you. Instead of waiting for us...get on out to Northstar at Tahoe and see all the action for yourself. Its gonna be a great time!

The Storm Clears

It's been snowing for over a week now in Tahoe and the results are phenomenal! There is seriously over 7 ft of new snow on Donner Summit. I headed out today once again with Mike Basich & Andy Finch for some bluebird powder snowboarding. The drive up was unbelievable on Historic Old 40 as the sun, clouds, sky & mountains made a beautiful setting for our day of adventure. In the process, we ran into local photog Dalton Paley and ski bum Skogen Sprang. We all rode together and got some great photos.

The Storm Clears

Valentines Day Wedding

We got more new snow in the Sierras and it sure did create a great backdrop for a Valentines day wedding. Tanya & Chad got married in South Lake Tahoe at the very popular Regan Beach. The heavy snow subsided for a few hours just in time for their special day. Thanks you two for being a joy to work with.
ericasistinphoto.com

US Grand Prix of Snowboarding: Boreal Mountain Resort

My job at PortersTahoe.com allows me to get out on the hill and try some new ideas & play around with my photo gear. This weekend was eventful as the top Halfpipe riders in the world descended into Tahoe. Here is an album of some of the shots I was able to get on Saturday.

The blue sky was awesome, and in order to enhance that, I decided to play with a CTO tungsten gel over my flash head and set the WB on my camera to tungsten. The tungsten setting is much cooler and is around 3200 K which is equivalent to your ordinary household lightbulb. Mixing these elements together, I was able to get some real saturated blues in the sky. It's fun to experiment and try new things.
On Sunday, the boardercross took place and I got myself into a more traditional sports shooting mode in order to document all the high speed action.

I love the fact that I can go out and work on these aspects of my craft and just try to engage in new things....working with top notch athletes doesn't hurt as well!