Snowboarding has always been a part of my life and photography career. As we all know, winters seem to be getting shorter and shorter so I wanted to find something that has a similar feeling to the fast pace of snowboarding to fill in the growing seasonal gaps. As the weather changed, shooting mountain biking felt like a natural progression. 

If you ask any snowboard/ski or mountain bike photographer why they do it, being in the mountains is always one of the main reasons. But how you shoot in the mountains can require a different approach for each discipline. With snowboarding, I find it much easier to compose an image with more negative space than with mountain biking. That, of course, all depends on where you are, but generally with snowboarding you are shooting against a white backdrop, or a backdrop that is overall less busy. When shooting mountain biking on the East Coast, it is a lot harder to find a composition that is a blank canvas—you’re usually dealing with dark woodsy trails and numerous hot spots of the sun shining through. What makes shooting mountain biking so intriguing to me is that challenge of creating the negative space you are pretty much handed in snowboarding. 

That’s why being involved in Peter Jamison’s “Carpe Diem” film with YT was such a treat. Working with an athlete like Jamison who is also a creative himself—Jamison is a photographer and filmer—made everything that much better. He knew every berm he wanted to hit, every trick he wanted to pull off, and every shot he needed to make the edit what it was. Having a vision is almost half the battle when it comes to filming a full video part and Jamison had that vision.

The images—one of which was highlighted in the Chroma section of the Winter Beta print issue (the image at the top of this post)—offer a glimpse into the project, shot last July in Killington, East Burke and Highland Mountain, Jamison’s former stomping grounds. 

Photos by Peter Cirilli.

Watch the full ‘Carpe Diem edit HERE.