Downtown Showdown

I know, I know, I'm blogging this backward, but bear with me. Saturday, before Sunday's Main Event shoot at Sugarloaf, Mark and I hit the first (annual?) Downtown Showdown in Portland's Monument Square.

15 skiers. 15 snowboarders. A custom staircase and homemade snow by the hosts, Sugarloaf and Sunday River, in the middle of a city.

Dear whomever is in charge - please, please, please make this an annual event. Thank you.

It was quite the experience. Where do I start? We'll leave out the part where I almost got decapitated by a skier, making sure to mention that Mark did indeed, get totally cleaned out by one (it's actually amazing that no photographers were injured in the making of these images).

As many of you know, I'm not much of a snow athlete. I don't ski, I don't snowboard, nothin'. It just never seemed worth risking a baseball season over.

So with that disclaimer outta the way, I have to say, these guys were good. (But, like I said, I didn't exactly know what I was looking at, nevertheless - anyone who can snowboard down a 4" wide rail and do a backflip at the end and land it? Yeah that's good in my book).

Not only that, but we got to meet another kickass photographer - Drew Smalley (dude, I want your lights) - and almost got frostbite, while capturing somewhere in the range of 2,000 frames between us.

Well I gotta run, but Artist photos to come asap, I promise.