Typically every snowboard season I like to create some kind of photographic experiment or concept to execute. Always wanting to push the envelope, I find it an exercise that refreshes my creative juices. Challenging oneself is an essential piece to progression in one’s craft.

Last season I created, Snow Silho. The main objective: to feature the true style of each snowboarder on each obstacle with all the distractions (backgrounds, trees, snow, sky, colors, etc.) stripped away by making the portrait a silhouette.

The idea originated when I saw an old snowboard photo that Trevor Graves had shot of a rider against a red background but lit like it was shot in the studio. I thought to myself, what if you were able to shoot snowboarding silhouettes as if they were in the studio, but you incorp- orated the environment on location into them? Then I got to work, brainstorming different situations in snowboarding where I could do this. The key elements I kept in mind were texture, line and shadow. Once I had the different scenarios of snowboarding mapped out, I wanted to shoot the silhouettes, but the next step was to figure out how.