I was just doing some work preparing for my 2009 season and came across a Ryan Leech ad that Norco ran with one of my images from 2008.

It’s a shot I took just outside Toronto in April.   My good friend and riding buddy, Bob Bonner, can along to help me on this shoot.  He’s a true friend; always willing to lend a hand.  It was an early morning shoot and quite cold.  We had a lot of fun, as Is always the case when working with Ryan.  Here is another image from that frosty morning.  It was one of my first shoots with my D3 and I remember fumbling with the dials trying to get everything set.  Frozen fingers and a new cam; perfect combination!  This was also the first time I saw what this camera could really do.  The image below was shot at ISO 2000.

I was stoked that we were shooting trail riding for this shoot. It seems Ryan and I are always driving around trying to find trials or street lines for him that would make a nice picture.  It’s much more challenging than you would think.  Finding something that looks good as a still is really hard.  It’s also very difficult to do the trick or line justice in a single frame. I had to fire two sequences of this 180 off the net to get the frames I needed to really demonstrate what was going on.  Making the viewer see that he was turning around 180 degrees and landing on a narrow board was paramount if this image was to be successful at all.  Sequences are often the best way to approach this sort of situation.  One frame would not do this justice.  That was the case for the picnic table image below as well.

Later that same week, we shot at one more location further North.  Ryan and I headed up the night before so we could get first light the next morning.  We drove up and went for a quick ride to scope out the trail.  We then had some dinner and watched the hockey game.  It seems we are always shooting together around playoff time and this has become a tradition with us.  Always a good time.  Our hotel missed our wake up call the following morning so we woke in a panic racing to catch first light.  We got there in time and got some more great images.  Norco ran another ad from one of those images earlier in the season.

I have been working with Ryan for almost 10 years now and we have a great relationship.  We started working together for the first time while shooting his segment for my second movie, ES2 – Fully Loaded.  He’s a great guy, a super talented rider and a joy to work with.  I am looking forward to working with him again this summer.