JAPAN EARLY BIRD

The view at 5am from my hotel room. Ready to go to the spa and for a day of hiking through waist to chest deep snow. Not the worst thing in the world, but it will burn calories faster than a European stomach can digest traditional salmonella hot pot made in Japan.

OUT-TAKES DAY 1

I fell behind with updates from our trip to Japan, I'll be catching up with some posts during the next weeks. To start things off, here's a out-take from day 1.

Japan arrival

On the way to Japan I got paged a few times between flights and had to prove that my Profoto flash is travel safe. That's nothing new, but this time I had to go through the procedure way too many times. Highlight was a committee of five persons standing around my bags with rules and regulations for a good half an hour.
But now, I'm off to Hokkaido to shoot some snowboarding, dang!

Air and Style and ISPO and Air and Style

A lot of people working in the snowboard industry had a busy time with one Air & Style Contest in Innsbruck, the ISPO tradeshow the next couple days and the Munich Air & Style following up.
Here are some shots and captions:

the legendary venue in Innsbruck

ISPO, entrance West - my photos printed big, right over the entrance, on the inside and the outside

the HEAD Snowboard booth had a lot of my photos hanging on the walls. Top right is the shot that's at the entrance as well. Bottom left is Christophe's beer and bottom right are some travel photos setting the mood for the travel bags corner of the booth.

the setup at the Air & Style in Munich

Top left to bottom right: Jamie Nicholls stoked me, first killing it on the jump in Innsbruck and then getting second in the Rail competition in Munich. David Benedek came to witness the double cork craziness that he started three years ago in the same stadium. Peetu must have knees of steel or how do you explain his stomp while having the flue? The deserved winner and Sepp Blatter of Snowboarding, but in a good way. And the iconic Munich stadium.

LET'S HAVE A BEER

Now that's creative use of a photo, Christophe Schmidt has his own signature beer. Swing by the HEAD booth at the 2011 ISPO in Munich and have a drink with us!
I shot this last summer and was surprised to see the photo now in use. Props to HEAD, it's such a rad brand!

Looks like I'm having a Bavarian theme week here on the blog, first the music now the beer.

frequency - The Snowboarders Journal

The above page is taken from the current issue of frequency magazine, a photo I shot in April with Christophe Schmidt in Park City.

I'm a big fan of the mag, okay, it costs about four times more than the average magazine, but it's really worth it. Great photo editing, interesting stories and an overall different approach. Definitely something I appreciate a lot. And it's only published four times a year, so actually you don't spend more money on it than for another mag, it's a win-win situation. ...right?

RECORDING

Vor ein paar Tagen habe ich die Jungs von Blumentopf im on3 Studio des BR besucht. Dort haben sie einige Songs von ihrem aktuellen Album zusammen mit einer Blaskapelle aufgenommen. Das Ganze wird es schon ab dem 11.02. in Form einer vollgepackten Single im Handel geben, vorab munkelt man taucht sogar noch ein exklusiver Download-Track auf. Ein Auge auf die Facebook-Seite und den Blog zu werfen lohnt sich. Für die Kapelle wurden die Lieder eigens umgeschrieben und anstatt Samples gab es Notenblätter. Hier ein paar Bilder...

Blumentopf mit der Blaskapelle Münsing

Blumentopf on stage usually looks like in this video. Every live show is an amazing experience.
As true artists they're onto something entirely new and recorded a Single together with a Bavarian marching band. I tagged along and shot some photos of the recording session.

NEW WORK

There's some new photos added to my snowboard action portfolio @ www.christianbrecheis.com

Fredrik Evensen in Folgefonna, Norway

Es gibt einige neue Fotos in meinem Snowboard & Action Portfolio auf www.christianbrecheis.com

PHOTO FLASHBACK

I was just going through some snowboard shots from the past few seasons and came across the photo below. I thought I'll blog it as a homage to finish photog Pasi Salminen's photo flashbacks on ettala.com where he actually just posted his 33rd(!) well known picture of Eero Ettala. Well wishes go out to Eero over the internets, he just had his acl surgery. Watch him here getting the diagnosis while setting a new Doodle Jump record on his iPhone.
//UPDATE: check out some footage from his surgery(!) and another Doodle Jump highscore(!)

Eero Ettala in Talma, Finland. The little sunlight on the trees in the background is the most light you're getting up there in January.

Visit the snow & action section of my site for some more snowboard photos...

WORK IN PROGRESS

Recently I stopped by David's place where he was working on his book and shot a few frames.

Personally I can't wait to see what he's putting together, it's an exciting project. Here's some general info:


CURRENT STATE: SNOWBOARDING is a book that will be released in 2011.


Attempting to document the sport's current state and potential path into the future it will feature interviews with some of the most influential characters of the past 2 decades. Designed and curated by David Benedek.

Make sure to get your hands on the first run and pre-order the book here...