Marc Salas, Nollie Back Tail to Fakie, Are, Sweden © Matt Georges

Our French senior photographer Matt Georges once again shares his thoughts, doubts and passion about snowboard photography. Not only do you get to fix your eyes on a banger, but hopefully you also learn how to take better photos yourself!

Marc SALAS – Nollie BackTail to Fakie – Are, Sweden

Aperture: f/4,5
Speed: 1/100th
ISO: 400
Camera: CANON EOS 1D MARK II N
Lens: Fisheye CANON 90mm Tilt-Shift

2 Flashes connected with Pocket Wizards Radioslave

I’m not so sure about the flash at the bottom right behind the car window…

THE TECH

When I go on a trip I try to think about a general feel or style I want to have for my photos. For this trip and because it’s only night time up north in Sweden at that period I knew we will only shoot with flashes and lights so I bought those “stars filters” to make obviously all the lights look like stars, wishing it won’t look too cheesy at the end. Well I was right because I really think it looks cheesy at some point, especially in colors with the flare added. It can work in Black and White thought so I shot a bunch for the rest of the trip. On this photo I had set up 2 flashes as backlights to get this silhouette feel and to had two more “stars” to the composition. I’m not so sure about the flash at the bottom right behind the car window. At first I thought it looks cool but the more I see the photos the less I like it. The rest of the stars are random lights. I have used a tilt-shift lens but as a normal 90mm which is really sharp. The composition itself is pretty simple and the photo is kind of cut in two parts from the top left to bottom right.

THE CONTEXT

That was the first trip of the season, beginning of december in cold and dark Are, up north in Sweden with the Euro Forum team 3 winters ago. I remember Gerben Verweij from Holland drove all the way up with his trailer full of lights, generators, shovels, winch etc. for a solid 48hrs, drinking at least 50 cans of energy shit and probably smoking 6 packs of cigs. Who said snowboarding is a healthy sport? Anyway, we started the trip with this very good looking but unfriendly wooden rail and had to freeze the wood with water before hitting it. Marc has this Spanish mellow touch and got this smooth skateboard south style when riding and nailed this tech trick pretty quickly. He even did it few times to get other angles. Thanks Pollo!

Check Matt’s website. And if you want to see the previous ‘Behind The Shot’ articles, here’s the tag.

Per Loken, Handplant, Avoriaz, France © Matt Georges.

For this new Behind the Shot, we welcome for the second time our beloved senior photographer Matt Georges, who’s not only good at taking epic photos, but also pretty handy at explaining how the magic works – to a certain extend, a piece of mystery and randomness is always good innit!

Per LOKEN – Handplant – Avoriaz, France

Aperture: f/3,2
Speed: 1/160th
ISO: 320
Camera: CANON EOS 5D MARKII
Lens: Fisheye CANON 15mm

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When shooting I often think about how it could work well as a spread in a magazine.

THE TECH

When shooting I often think about how it could work well as a spread in a magazine. I really enjoy shooting pipe cause there are lots of lines and symmetry to play with and it’s even better when it’s puking snow.
To make this shot I have used 3 flashes: One down the pipe to light both walls and snowflakes in the foreground, one on the top left to light the rider, the right wall and also more snowflakes in the air, and the last one close to rider to light him up from the lower left side. I have over-exposed the pipe because I wanted to have a monochrome style image and not much details in both snow walls.

THE CONTEXT

We were shooting for the Rip Curl movie few years ago and planned to do a night pipe session with tons of lights, few generators and a pretty big crew. Unfortunately it started puking snow like crazy and in less than half an hour we got 10cm in the pipe and couldn’t do anything due to speed issues. The session was already pretty much over before it even started and we had to re-pack everything and wait for ages in the snowstorm. Luckily for me, Per was keen to do few handplants so we set it all up quickly and get the shots in few minutes. When shooting a handplant it’s absolutely necessary that the hand has to be on the coping of the transition, but as Per is really good at that, it only took couple of tries before heading to some warmer environment.

Check out Matt’s website.

Find the previous Behind The Shot here, and especially Matt’s first explanation here.

Peetu Piiroinen. Photo: Matt Georges.

Download yourself this sweet shot of Peetu Piiroinen firing off a hip, set it as your desktop wallpaper and your Friday will be a little better. Scroll down for the links…

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Photo: Matt Georges

Jazz up your machine by downloading this free desktop wallpaper of OG French boss Nico Droz. Links to a couple different screen resolutions are below…

If anyone’s name is synonymous with the resort of Avoriaz it’s Droz’s, and the man knows the spots there like few others. On a Videograss trip there, the crew relied on his local knowledge to secure the goods and, predictably, they scored. But being a sly old dog Nico managed to snag a couple of keepers for himself, too…

You know the drill – click the resolution you need below, “save as” and set it to your desktop. Bang!

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Give your desktop a new coat of pixels this Friday. Download this free snowboard WALLPAPER of Kalle Ohlson half Cabbing in Helsinki. Links below…

Shot by Matt Georges, this was in Helsinki last winter while filming for his heavy part in the Pirates movie, UNIQUE8. 

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Download yourself this sweet black & white of Markus Keller owning the Kitzsteinhorn pipe, set it as your desktop wallpaper and your Friday will be a little better. Scroll down for the links…

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Onboard’s senior snapper Matt Georges mixes up his photography equipment  on a regular basis. For one angle he might use the pimp daddy Canon 1D Mk. IV DSLR and then pull out a Poloroid camera made before you were born for the second. Watch him talk you through what’s in his pack.

Should you want to give your computer’s desktop a new lick of pixel-paint with some of Matt’s epic work, make sure you check our snowboard WALLPAPER section where you’ll be able to find a host of his bangers.

Marko Grilc. Frontside 540 Nose. Photo: Matt Georges.

Download yourself this epic Matt Georges banger of Marko Grilc sending it at our Send Off Session, set it as your desktop wallpaper and your screen-staring time will be a bit more bearable. Scroll down for the links…

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Sylvain Bourbousson – Frontside 5 – Stranda, Norway © Matt Georges. Click the image to see it BIG.

Behind the Shot is a new regular on this site, and will bring you every week or so an iconic shot from an iconic photographer, where he explains the context of the photo session, as well as all the technical aspects you might want to know about. You are a snowboard photo geek? This is for you!

Let’s start with one of our long time senior photographer, Matt Georges.

Here’s his breakdown:

Sylvain Bourbousson – Frontside 5 – Stranda, Norway

Camera: Hasselblad FCW2003
Lens: Carl Zeiss T* 150mm F.4
Film: FUJI 400VC
Speed: 1/1000e
Aperture: f16

The Tech

With the old medium format cameras, you can only find fixed lens, no zoom. So you need to get your legs out and find the right angle and distance for the compisition of shot you want to have. Here, I used a Carl Zeiss T* 150mm f/4 lens, giving a 6X6cm format, which pretty much correspond to a 100mm lens for a classic 35mm format.

When I shoot with the Hasselblad, I often shoot from the ground. It give me the texture I want for the foreground, and gives more pop to the rider. I learn that through my years of shooting skateboard photos, laying down in dog piss more often than I would like…

In my composition, I pretty much respected the 1/3 rules, at least vertically. It gives a certain rhythm to the shot with a distinct fore ground, second ground, back ground. Since I was shooting with a negative film 400 ISO that captures a lot of light, I needed a high speed to freeze the shot – minimum 1/1000th second – and with the sun striking, I could play a lot with a large depth of field and a closed up aperture like f16. The wide depth of field place the subject nicely into the scenery, and everything looks sharp although I did the focus on the kicker in the first place.

The Context

The North of Norway is a real nightmare when it comes to weather, and you’d better be ready to have some down days. Sometimes you wait for a good old week before you can get lucky enough for a sunny window. And sometimes when the light comes, it arrives together with the wind, which is not great for the riders. In short, it’s pretty tricky. So we had shaped a kicker during the storm so it would be ready in a blink for the first ray of sun. It had taken us 2 solid days of shaping under snow and rain, with the Absinthe crew filming for Twelve back then. The crew with me was Sylvain Bourbousson, David Bertshinger, Mat Schaer and filmer David Vladyka. A week after the shape, it was finally time for Bourbousson to guinea pig it with a nice and ballsy Frontside 5. He took it pretty much full speed despite the heavy wind and flew quite dangerously. There were rocks and ice patches all over the place. Basically, this is the one and only shot that got done on that lovely spot. A real shame. Really gutted, we decided to bail and move North to try and get some stuff down toward Narvik area. If the worste comes to worste, at least we’d have new bars to drown our sorrow in…

I would have loved to have more time and better conditions to shoot that spot, it just looked insane didn’t it! But who knows, we might be back one of those days! But what’s even more sad about this, is that this diptic collage should have made it into last year’s Onboard Photo Annual… That’s if some friend at the mag I won’t say the name – he’s bald and speaks funny – wouldn’t have forgotten about it. The shot didn’t make it into the final selection. Double bummer. But revenge taken, it’s now here on the site for your enjoyment!

Check out Matt’s new website.

Download yourself this sweet Matt Georges banger of Quebec boss Ben Bilocq firing off a round in Avoriaz, set it as your desktop wallpaper and make your time behind the machine more better…

And if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure you check out Ben and his Deja Vu homies in the Prologue: Part 3. The best thing you’ll watch all week.

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