threee deee!

i've been experimenting with my gopro cams alot in the past 2 years, so i was pretty stoked, when gopro finally released their 3d housing a couple of weeks ago. the setup is quite simple (gopro style): you just pop two seperate gopro HDs into the housing, connect them with a small cable and you are good to go.

helmet mount followcam

the two cams need the latest firmware update of course and its recommended to use similar SD cards. the settings of the left cam override the settings of the right cam (both cams need to be set to the same program however), so you always get a useable pair of stills or mp4 videos.

i couldn't shoot very much with this new toy when i was on the road for pleasure mag this spring, so i was pretty excited when we went down to karpathos this week for a short vacation. i have been shooting windsurfing with the gopro already last season, but never tried the photo burst function (which takes a 5MP photo every X seconds).
also, i was quite curious, how the 3d effect would look like in stills and movies.

mast mount

the wind was quite low this week, which is unusual for karpathos at that time of the year, so i couldn't shoot in real high wind, but at least i could try two of the basic mounts: mast top and helmet cam. worked pretty good. i feared, that the cam setup might be a bit too heavy especially for the helmet mount, but it was quite okay. the weight even helps keeping the cam more steady.
mounted on the mast, things get a bit shaky up there, but i guess, it will be good for some additional footage.

came across this full grown walrus... ;)

some friend of mine had his 3d laptop with active shutter glasses with him, so we could have a look in 'real' 3d. for now, i decided to use red/cyan anaglyph mode however, because this type of 3d glasses are still more common than the new active or passiv shutter versions.





made a small demo movie to showcase the possibilities... more to come this summer! ;)

short trip to lofoten

nice sunset at one of the most scenic surf beaches in the world!

shooting in riks is very productive, yet the weather is a bit unpredictable. as the forecast looked super shitty for friday and saturday, we decided to do a spontaneous short trip to lofoten! everybody was up for a change in the daily schedule, so michi and I got up early morning and took the train to narvik (which is only a 45 minutes ride), got a small rental car there, picked up botner an justin (we barely could fit in all the gear) and drove down to lofoten 5 hours straight!

goPro fun during the drive!

arriving in unstad (the most famous surf spot), we booked us into a nice and spacious cabin (it even had a small sauna!) and went straight for the beach. waves were a bit chaotic, but erik, justin and michi tried anyway. i knew that erik & justin were good surfers and still they were struggeling with the changing conditions. michi impressed me, he didn't surf too much in his life before and just went for it... he even managed some stand ups after justin gave him some tips... stoked!

cabin #05... that's what's up!

of course, we needed some fitting dinner that evening, so we went to leknes (to the biggest supermarket north of oslo i guess) and bought some nice salmon and pasta... fatøl for sure! :)

Erik, checking the surf

yummy lofoten fish!

the day was topped off by a relaxing sauna session and due to the never ending light, it was once again well beyond 2 a.m. before we went to bed...


next morning, the waves looked much cleaner, so michi and justin went to the beach to get some shots... erik and I had other plans: we had spotted a small patch of snow right behing unstad that looked like a giant banana and I asked eric, if he could hike it and do one spray on it... 
didn't work out perfect, as the snow was crusty and frozen on the top layer, but we got a shot anyways.

Erik on the way back from 'the banana'...

we left erik and justin behind, they wanted to get some more surfing days. michi and I drove back up to narvik again, where we met arthur, who was taking a day off as well and he also had to take care of a small infection in his eye.

so now, the last days in riks have come. we were able to do two more spots with arthur. two gnarly rock landings, but being a brave frenchman, he killed both spots!


after some victory beers, our ways finally parted, as flo and arthur were already leaving a day before us. 


big shout out to the pirates (especially flo)... it was a pleasure working with you! what a nice & productive trip!!!

riksgränsen!

riks train station (pic: michi lehmann)

my last 'real snow' trip for this season is bringing me up high above the arctic circle. michi an i flew to stockholm and took the night train from there to riksgränsen. i never been up here, so i'm super stoked on that trip. its also our first trip with the pirates crew!


the train ride was easy, we slept very well in our bunk beds. its for sure a nice way to travel. we arrived relaxed in riksgränsen. flo had already checked a room for us, nice!


the first night was a bit strange, as the sun goes down at 10:30 and rises again at 3:30, but it never gets dark. of course, we didn't bring sleeping masks, but a black beanie is doing a great job, too! :)


we were shooting alot now the first couple of days, as the weather was almost perfect and we tried to catch every possible minute.






we started shooting on friday 13th. not the best omen for the first day in the backcountry on sleds again, especially whan you have to cross several water ponds that grow bigger and bigger every day from the melting snow. the guys had found a nice spot for a quarterpipe and we were able to do a complete tooltime feature that very first day with danny larsen and arthur longo!

michi, finetuning the quarter...

the next couple of days were a mix of good and bad luck, but we can not complain, as we got shots every day and the crew is really motivated to be as productive as possible.

walking on water... :)

one highlight for sure was a quarterpipe session, that gigi rüf and björn lindgren organized. the spot was close to ingemar's quarter at the border right on the backside of the resort. we got some BBQ stuff and took the last chair only to find a big crew already waiting for us. the nike crew had already been shooting in riks for a couple of days with gigi, nicolas and justin bennee. danny kass also brought his posse with eddie wall, eero niemela and dustin craven!

gigi testing the quarter, while we fired up the grill!

we had a nice session up on the mountain with a tasty barbecue (bennee, the name of the cheese is 'haloumi' :D). 

what a crew!

as we came back late and the bar aready closed due to sweden loosing the hockey finals, we went to a small secret bar in a cave. 12 guys, 2 bottles of whiskey, eddie wall and his guitar. what a night!

the sickest location for a bar!

yesterday, erik botner joined the crew and danny had to leave us. we did a nice kicker to rocklanding spot in the resort. gnarly shizzle, arthur backflipped it!

sick shit!

stay tuned for mor coming up the next couple of days!

bella italia - part 1

hotel pier - beautiful morning view from in front of the room :)

seems like italy is gonna be my favourite place for the next weeks... after a really successful shoot in val senales last weekend, i went down to lago di garda this weekend to start the windsurf season. the lake is still bitter cold (around 10°C), but the wind was excellent! what a nice start!

beautiful riva del garda...

i really love the way of life in the northern part of lago di garda... steep rock faces, falling almost vertical into the lake, nice architecture and - of course - great food!
so we were strolling through limone, riva del garda and torbole, went shopping alot and had a really relaxed weekend in our favourite hotel down there.


windsurfing was great, best 4 days in a row since quite a while! its always inspiring to watch all the italian riders throwing their moves right in front of the hotel like 20 year old Mattia Fabrizi in the short clip below... 





now its time again for another shoot in val senales before i go back down to the lake!

german halfpipe championships

Christophe Schmidt, old and new german HP champion! congrats, vogi!

yeah, so stoked! good things came quite unexpected, when it was announced in january, that the 'pipe aid' movement (dedicated to bring back a hafpipe for germany) finally succeeded at Oberstdorf with the help of red bull and some other sponsors. of course, it was logical to hold a german championships again (after 4 years without a halfpipe on german soil).

the smalls on their way up

so last weekend, it all went down and i have to say it was a banger! soooo many of the old crew from back in the days came to ride and to compete. it almost felt like a highschool reunion! the pipe was good & the spot at Nebelhorn is just perfect. weather held on (at least for the first couple of hours) and the whole thing on the mountain was a blast!

Xaver, Cab5 Shifty

Mini with his actual board and his very first one. he is still riding both of them... siiiiiick!

after some beers at the pricegiving down at the 'Out Of Bounds' shop, it was time for alot of talks with old friends. we all had a nice dinner at Primavera Pizza and went to Hörbar afterwards for more drinks.
sorry i don't have shots from the night... i was having such a good time that i just forgot to take pictures :)

nice trophies! vogi like!

thanks everybody for a nice reunion and a nice comp.
i guess, everybody's gonna be back next year!

tokyooooooooo!

staying in tokyo for the last two days of our japan trip was a really good idea. this city is just the bomb! our hotel was literally in the city center near shinjuku station, so we could just go out and walk most of the stuff we wanted to see.

our cubicle was quite big, at least by japanese standards. and it was a room with quite a view (see pic on top)

goh and ron, both working for 'championsvisions', our distributor for isenseven in japan, took us on a small shop tour before diving into tokyo's nightlife. it was really interesting to see, how many snowboard shops (and we are talking proper ones with all kinds of fresh stuff) can exist (and obviously do good) within a 200m radius. the riders did some signings and it was nice to realize, how good the movie has been selling in japan this season (in fact, place 2 among all available snowboard movies!!!).

it was cool to see, how stoked people are on isenseven in japan. doumo arrigatou!

peter and kevin, checking out their new headwear for 2012. and we met grilo (left upper corner) ;D

as we were quite hungry (and peter, kevlar, fips and alex had started a bet to drink 15 cans of asahi), we asked goh and ron to show us some nice sushi place and we headed to a small restaurant right around the corner of the 'snowboard shop district'... really good shushi and a funny chef and an even funnier waitress, who could not believe, how kevin was treating his shushi... :)

the crew, raging through toyko's subway...

after we all stuffed ourselves and already pretty intoxicated, we demanded karaoke and it didn't take god and ron long to find an excellent place: small room, high above the streets with an incredible backdrop against one of tokyo's main roads. insane! needless to say, that we spent more than three hours at that place!

if i remember right, this was 'it must have been love' by roxette. classic! insane backdrop!

the next day started late and we finally had some time to check out the countless camera stores, boutiques and some of the more weird stuff... well, pictures say more than 1000 words:

so many people all over the place!

so many girls all over the place!

so much gambling all over the place!

so much rubber all over the place!

we all had a nice last japanese dinner after the shopping. sashimi at its finest!

yummy... i definately gonna miss japanese food!!!

time for us to leave beautiful japan. it was a sick trip and we definately gonna be back soon! :)


thanks iku and tobi for arranging everything and goh and ron for showing us around in tokyo! doumo arigatou gozeimasu!

asahidake - lots of snow, lots of crews...

asahidake was next on our japan trip. its famous for the shit loads of white stuff it gets every season between january and march. asahidake mountain is the highest peak on hokkaido, so its only logical, that the cold northwest stream from inner russia, that picks up moisture over the japanese sea gets rid of its load along the mountain ranges of hokkaido again and especially at asahidake. there is no 'bad weather' in asahi, as its either nice weather or snowing (which we didn't consider as 'bad') ;)
asahidake has become famous through nicolas müller and kevind pearce's part in absinthe's 'neverland'.

somebody dug out our car every second day...
i so wanted to know the total amount of snow that fell during our 5 days stay...

arriving late in asahidake, we met the head crew with riders christophe schmidt and shayne pospisil, photographer christian brecheis and teammanager bernd pösl and had some brewskies after the long ride. and guess what, it was puking again outside! by the time, we left their hotel again, it was already 20 cm on top of our car and it wasn't even midnight! the head guys gave us some last minute tipps, as they were leaving the very next day. soooo many crews shooting in asahi in the past days, that it was almost impossible to find spots that hadn't been done before.

view from asahidake gondola

asahi only has one gondola and the terrain is much less steep that we had expected. except from some steeps atop of the mountain and some ridges in the lower parts, its quite flat. the gondola only makes sense to go fun riding or when the weather is clear (didn't i say, there is no 'bad weather' in asahi? :D), so we instead been hiking most of the time, which was ALOT. hiking waist-to-shoulder-deep pow is just fun and amazing for the first ten steps, after that it gets extremely annoying, especially without snowshoes. damn ANA, they have a baggage allowence of only 35kgs per person, which means, we had to leave our snowshoes  at home and the rentals up in asahi were 35 bucks a day...

one of the few spots, that hadn't been done before...

culinary highlight for sure was the small kiosk at the gondola base, who offered a wide variety of japanese snacks like 'sausage on a stick' or meat buns with some rather secret ingredients and of course all sorts of japanese candy, my personal favourite being strawberry 'air-chocolate' in a ice cream cone. totally looked like an ice cream, tasted like an ice cream...

sorry for this colour shot amongst all the b/w stuff, but i had to show these items in full colour ;)

we had some great days in asahidake, snow was incredibly good and it was well worth the trip. shooting there ain't easy though. five days of hiking (i was tracking more than 20km on my GPS) through deep pow was showing us our limits. also the myth of asahi has already attracted alot of crews (and i guess it will be rather more than less in the next couple of years). 

our hotel offered fresh kimonos every day. unfortunately, it wasn't allowed to wear these at dinner...

time for us to kiss the pow pow goodbye for this season. guess, we not gonna have any conditions that only come close to asahi back home for this season...

kevlar throwing down some steezy cab 7s

tokyo will be next for two days, before we return home!