国产吃瓜黑料

Every powder shot is unique. It takes a series of events beyond human choreography to capture a great one. Back in January, Alta was suffering one of its worst starts to the ski season in memory.听Then, like paddles to the chest of a dying man,听a three-day storm cycle in mid-February听blanketed the canyon in 100 inches听of snow. Subsequent storms kept refreshing things in the weeks听that followed. Despite good marketing, Alta doesn鈥檛听always get the lightest snow in the world, but it gets 15-to-20-inch听storms so frequently that it makes for some of听the most consistent steep powder skiing on earth.

Lee Cohen, an outdoor听photographer who has been shooting in Utah since the early 1980s, says that in听the uppermost reaches of the Wasatch听it鈥檚 pretty common to get 25 to 30 grade A听powder days a year.听With photography, such frequency matters鈥攊t gives you better odds of being in the right place at the right time. Of those 25 to 30 days of quality powder skiing, Lee says, conditions set up for great photography only about a third of the time.听He shot this photo of his pro skier son, Sam,听on one of those rarified听days.

Seventeen inches fell overnight. And then the sky went wispy blue with temps in the teens鈥攊deal circumstances for both powder skiing and photography. The storm also came in right side up, which means that it began warm, letting denser snow adhere to the subsurface with ever more complex and airy stellar dendrites layering above. (The opposite snow鈥攍ight with heavy on top鈥攊s called upside down and isn鈥檛 as fun to ski.) That new base is what Sam鈥檚 skis are reacting with beneath the surface. Such snowpacks are alive, returning energy to the skier. Those forces are apparent in the shot. The energy of the snow and the skier is lifting that wall. The surface snow also has a creamy element to it, which lets it bond loosely and then rise up cohesively. It isn鈥檛 true blower powder, but that doesn鈥檛 matter.

To that snow, you add a skier. To me, the best powder shots have some context to them. The anonymous arm and pole in profile reaching out of a cloud is to be used sparingly. I want to see an identifiable human form. This matters because skiers live vicariously through such images. They imagine themselves in the scene. As such, the pole plant needs to be correct. The shoulders must be square to the fall line. The elbows can鈥檛 be chicken winging. The head needs to be up鈥攃heck out the rainbowing oil slick in the goggles above. Here, Sam is using the timing of his left pole plant to set up his next right-footer. It鈥檚 actual skiing being captured,听as opposed to one听big听photo-ready turn.听We know this because there鈥檚 a second contrailing powder cloud behind Sam,听a wraith of the turn he just finished. Sam is an accomplished big-mountain skier, as comfortable on Alaskan spines as he is at his home hill.听Athletes听of such caliber lend themselves to better photos. 鈥淧ower and speed are vital, but form is the most important thing,鈥� Lee says.

Looking at the image is by no means a substitute for being there, but for someone (me) who hasn鈥檛 skied a powder day all year, thanks to injury and drought, it helps the psyche to merely see such moments.听Compositionally, the rollerball tracks draw the eye to the subject, but from my desk chair, the tracks tether me to a powder day I wish I鈥檇 enjoyed. To me, what makes this image so captivating is that the elevated tracks represent the briefest moment in time.听In the very next frame, which was captured 1/12th of a second later, they鈥檙e imploding and exploding in celestial chaos. But for one听perfect slice of time, a powder field rises, held by some unseen force听like the surface tension听that contains the oceans.