A Wedding in Banff, Snowboarders Crash a Ski Wedding and a 2010 Olympic announcement all in one blog!!


Great weddings with nice people and good weather are always reasons to be thankful as a photographer but when you learn a few interesting things as well it makes the day even more rewarding.

Lindsay & Michael's wedding, December 27th at The Rimrock Resort in Banff was one of those. We had the weather, with a beautiful late afternoon, jet blue winter sky filled with whispy clouds. It was cold but having everything ready to go helped alot. Lindsay & Michael were amazing to work with.

Interesting thing #1
Kangaroo? Lindsay's Grandfather is the founder of the Alberta Boot Company in Calgary and gave a pair of gorgeous custom made boots to both Lindsay and Michael as wedding gifts and later at the reception when I commented to him how beautiful they were he said "Kangaroo". So there you go, according to him, and he should know, the most durable, longest lasting and attractive leather in the world is Kangaroo. Who Knew?

Interesting thing #2 Cheese Cake! Not Cheesecake but a tiered wedding cake made only of enormous wheels of gourmet and imported cheese! It looked amazing and you could smell it a mile away!! Way to go Lindsay & Michael that's something about as unique as you can get!!!

And now to the snowboarder.... Natalie and David were halfway down Standish Mountain at Sunshine Village Ski Resort in Banff.

We had chosen a lovely semi-secluded spot where Robin White was perfoming, as he always does, a heartfelt and meaningful ceremony when I happened to look uphill, behind us and noticed two snowboarders watching the goings on with more intent than I would usually expect when it dawned on me what they were planning. Sure enough an instant later they blasted, one after the other, through our little gathering, off the ledge we were standing on and down the mountainside. I just had time to fall back into the snow to get the entire scene in frame. Instead of being upset David, the groom, and an excellent skier, laughed and said "That's brilliant, good snowboarders!!

Natalie and David were thrilled recently when an image from thier wedding album was published as the Picture of the Month in The Daily Mail Ski & Snowboard Magazine in the UK, congratulations!!

Now from weddings to the Winter Olympics. It's been announced and I'm happy to say that somewhat out of the blue, or at least as a suprise to me, I have been hired by VANOC, The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee as the Supervisor of Photography-Alpine Events in Whistler at the 2010 games in February.

It will be a very interesting experience being at this event and not actually shooting race photographs but I am excited to be a part of the games to be able to contribute and in a front row seat as well!

Fortunately, almost as soon as I return from the games I will be back photographing race action with the team at the Canadian National Championships at Nakiska so I think I can keep the shutter finger from twitching until then!!

Stay tuned for further reports from Whistler. I hope to be able to post a few notes here and give my friends a bit of a 'backstage' view of what's happening.....

Here are a couple images of our team members to keep an eye on at the Olympics. I shot these images at the Winterstart World Cup Races at Lake Louise in November and December.

This is Manuel Osborne-Paradis. He is healthy and ready to go. He ended last season with a win in the Kjitfell Downhill in Norway and started this season off with a Super-G win at lake Louise.

This is Whistler's own Britt Janyk. An everyday top 15 contender, healthy and as you can imagine, trying to manage all of the emotion and pressure of being a contender and facing the Olympic Games in her own back yard!!

I will be watching them and all of the other amazing athletes on our National Ski Team and hoping for the best!

Stay tuned.