Whether intentionally or not, it seems that a handful of my Colorado friends keep returning to Moab each fall and spring. If you look back through my blog, you’ll see that I rarely let a Moab trip slip past, and thus, as my blog fills up with more and more rides of the red rock trails, I am routinely faced with coming up with different ways to present our trips. I wish I could say it’s because all the trails we ride look the same. But what can I say, we are creatures of habit, and I have found Captain Ahab and the Gemini Bridges trails to be superb. Plus, when you get to know a trail, you get to ride it faster and harder. This trip was no different, we rode the same trails.
I mountain bike, ski and backpack for pretty much the same reason, to get out and explore. Sure, I get my thrills by dropping a ledge here and there, but existentially, it’s all the same: I enjoy being in nature. But how do we as photographers show nature through the eyes of a skier, a backpacker and/or a biker? Many times I’m ripping around in the middle of the day, and although I do take photos during the washed out part of the day, those photos rarely make it on my blog. I prefer, like most photographers, to shoot during the magic hour. But when adventuring, this can present several challenges, namely, getting lost in the dark (Flashlight? Check.).
When sitting on top of a line and the light is fading, I, the man with the camera, who also loves to shred, is faced with a dilemma: Let go of the artist’s eye and just let gravity take hold or ask to go first, post up on a cool corner and try to capture my buddies blasting through the best section of trail. Now, at first I feel like I’m losing a great moment by stopping in the middle of my “flow,” but days—sometimes weeks later—when I sit down and have completely forgotten the inner conflict of whether I should have stopped or not I see the photos of my buddies and know it was all worth it.