Tag Archives: sports
Purveyors of POWder – BigLife
The BigLife Magazine article is out, featuring the photos that I shot at Park City Powdercats both last year and the year before. 
The Fastest Indian
Fly Fishing on the Snake River – Jackson Wyoming.
So this spring we found ourselves all over the upper MidWest exploring the Yellowstone National Park region down on through Jackson, Wyoming and the Teton National Forest. While we were there I had the opportunity to shoot several different fly fishing shoots both still and video on the Snake River.
The first shoot I connected with Reel Deal Anglers owner Rhett Bain who connected me with his head angler Brian Chamberland. We were here during the spring time which presents several challenges. The first is there is heavy snow melt pouring down the mountains so many of the rivers tend to be washed out, running heavy and brown. The second, more dangerous challenge is this is the time of year when all the Momma grizzly bears are coming out of their winter slumbers with their new bear cubs and sightings are frequent. These bears are quite beautiful when viewed from a safe distance but to surprise them and wander between mom and her cubs could be a deadly mistake.
Given these factors we chose to do a float down the river in an area that was less blown out than other areas around. We launched on the Snake just below the spillway from the Jackson Lake dam one crisp May morning just before dawn and headed out to make some great images and video. Unfortunately while the early morning light is great for photos it is not necessarily great for fishing here on the Snake as they have better luck later in the day when the light is directly overhead. I opted for the better light for this shoot in lieu of actually catching fish in harsh mid-day light.
In the end while we didn’t actually have much luck bringing in the big one, we did manage to get some really great images and footage. Thanks to Rhett and Brian and our angler that Brian brought along as well! If you are ever in the Jackson area and want to go out for a great fishing experience make sure to give them a call. (just let them pick the time if you actually want to catch fish and not just make pretty pictures) 😉
When Life Gives You Lemons….
There is the old adage, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” I find this is something that I have to put into play quite a lot in my life, even more so now that we find ourselves on our ongoing “adventure of a lifetime” roadtrip across this great country of ours. Traveling across the land hauling your life along with you is exciting but as you can imagine, it presents some challenges.
For all the prep and planning we do, life on the road can throw you curve balls when you least expect them and you have to just roll with the punches and see where it takes you. Often times if you look for the positive you will find opportunities will present themselves…. There is nothing I like more than times when you find that you have mistakenly taken a turn down the “wrong road” or had a issue that waylays you, rather than becoming a problem… it puts you in a place you never expected, which turns out to be exactly where you were supposed to be. What I mean by this, is an opportunity or an experience presents itself that you never would have had, if it had not been for that problem or mistake that got you there. Some call it Kismet or even Destiny. Whatever you call it, if you keep your eyes open you find some pretty cool experiences and photos to be made. See the photo below which I created on the one such incident…
Earlier this fall we were just wrapping up spending the last 6 months bouncing around the Pacific Northwest, up and down the coast from Northern California to Canada. Now setting our sights on Utah, I had mistakenly turned East too early, and instead of taking an easy cut across the mountains in a valley, we ended up on a very narrow, twisty & windy road through the Shasta Trinity Mountain range. This makes for a white knuckle ride when you are pulling a 42 foot rig…. 31,000 lbs of fun as you make your way over hills and around narrow passages. Not only was it a scary drive on it’s own, but the skies were jet black as an impending storm was about to hit. Just when I began to really curse myself, trying to decide if I should turn back or press on through, I decided to pull over next to the river that was following my path just before the skies opened up to dump rain on us.
What I saw when I got out (that I could not see while driving) was the view down river to our rear. Here was this AMAZING mountain river location with the most incredible light shining through the oncoming rain that was falling. I am lucky that I always try to have my camera ready and I was able to capture this amazing scene as it unfolded before me. The only thing missing in my opinion was a fly fishermen to complete the scene… I decided to add one in later in post with Photoshop on a later date which completed the photo you see above. It made for a killer book shot and will also no doubt bring in some decent stock sales opportunities down the line. I call this shot, “When a wrong turn puts you exactly where you are supposed to be.”
Update: This shot led to inquiries in the coming year from Orvis Fishing Rods and for a Pharmaceutical campaign. Nice!!
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Another amazing opportunity that came from a bit of misfortune was when we were on our way from Park City Utah, to our March/April homebase of Breckenridge Colorado. About 1/2 way there, in a little nothing town called Meeker CO, we had a mechanical issue with our tow vehicle which forced us to stop. As luck would have it, there was a nice little RV Park just opening for the fishing season right on the river about a mile from where we broke down. After checking in and getting the RV set up we set out to investigate our surroundings. What we found was the deserted little town of Meeker that resembled more of a ghost town than anything. It was during dinner at a local diner that we asked the proprietor what there was to do in this town, as we were going to be here a few days… It was then that he mentioned that “every one is out at the dog races” for the weekend.
Turns out he was right because by the time we had finished with our dinner, the little town was suddenly bustling with activity… being overtaken by teams of people returning from the event with their dogs. After talking with some of them, I learned that this was the weekend the final races for the season where taking place about 40 miles away in the White River National Forest. 
My first thought was “this could make for some interesting photos” and decided to ask how to get there. The exact directions I got from 3 different people were, “Just drive down this road a mile and turn right at ‘the sign’ and follow that road 39 miles until it ends” I thought to myself, “Umm…. Ok. That doesn’t sound weird at all” as I looked on the map at the tiny road to nowhere. So the very next morning despite any reservations, I set off by myself in good faith, driving the 40 some miles down this tiny road taking me farther and farther from the tiny town of Meeker into the wilderness…. all the while thinking, “this must be some kind of joke”. After about an hour, low and behold the road ended as I had been told it would and there in the middle of the woods was this mini winter festival of dog sled enthusiasts and about 100 dogs. You knew you were here as you pulled up because of the sound… ALL the dogs are barking! It’s quite exciting walking around and seeing everyone getting ready for the races. I have never seen dogs so excited about getting ready to run. As their handlers get them harnessed up and hitched onto one another they are loosing their minds, barking and tugging at their leashes. They actually have to tie them off to their cars or they would just take off without them. 
All in all it was quite a cool experience & you won’t find a nicer group of people. Everyone was interested why I was there and who I was shooting for. I got a quick lesson on the happenings of the day and intros to the folks running the show from the Rocky Mountain Dog Sled club. I even met a nice older gentleman named Mike who was having his 70-something birthday that day and heading out on the course racing his dogs. He’d been racing for over 35 years and not about to slow down now.
As I clicked away watching group after group of dogs heading out onto the trail towing their various handlers on sleds and skis, (Skijouring) it struck me yet again how cool this is… here I am stuck in the middle of nowhere with no-one who can even look at my truck until Monday and I find myself with this opportunity to shoot some amazing sled dog races, continue building my book and meeting some really great people in the process. Turned out to be a great weekend! I love my job!
Update from the Road – Part 1… Spring 2016
Well it’s been a while since my last “Update from the Road” and time has just been flying by! When I last left you we were on our way to Park City, Utah to catch the tail end of the snow season with plans to shoot a bunch of winter and mountain adventure sports. Today is the 6th of May & I’m typing this on a plane returning to Utah from a job we just shot in Orlando, (more on that later) & reflecting on the last couple months. Once again, our time here seems like a blur.
So much has happened…. If you’ve been keeping up with my blog entries, you read about my shoot with Park City PowderCats. If not you haven’t had the chance to read and see the photos yet, you can read about it here. It was such an amazing couple of days on some of the best snow imaginable, making some really cool images images and I also had the opportunity to meet some really great people.
We also shot with RAMP Sports which is a really cool ski and snowboard manufacturing company based right here in Park City Utah. They have a very unique culture and make awesome hand made skis & snowboards using a very Earth friendly sustainable process using bamboo as a base. All their products are not only green but they are also certified “Made In America” as they are hand made right there in their shop. I spent the day shooting a bunch of their employees at work and captured the various stages of the process of making these killer skis & boards. Later that week I spent the morning skiing up high at The Canyons, shooting their CEO Mike on one of the last powder days before the closing of Park City for the season. I’ll post the images here on the blog as soon as I get the all clear from RAMP as some of the shots are proprietary in nature. In the meantime, here is a little teaser of one of the guys grinding the edges on a snowboard.
It’s different up here… It’s interesting being in a resort ski town and seeing the changes that occur after the resorts start to close. The days are warm, the grass gets green & leaves start budding and flowering on the trees… which in itself is just like anywhere else in the spring I guess, but with one major difference… While the lower elevations warm up quick and soon resemble spring, it is still cold up high on the peaks. Often times it will be warm and sunny and you look up at the mountains and they are covered in clouds…. Cold and clouds means SNOW! That’s right, there is still fresh snow up at 10,000 feet and higher and folks are still hiking and snowmobiling in and doing back country ski tours. Just this past weekend Snowbird, (where we shot last week) got 19 inches of snow over 2&1/2 days. You’d never know spring has sprung there…. yet 15 minutes down the valley the sun was shining and it was a beautiful 60 degree day.
Spring has sprung! So as time presses on it would seem spring is here to stay. As things in the lower elevations are warming up you start seeing people switching gears. The snow toys get put away and out come the summer toys and along with them, the road cyclists, mountain bikers, golfers and fishermen. You know what that means? Summer is right around the corner!!
We teamed up with fly fishing guide Joe Mitchell of Stony Brook Fly Fishing recently to shoot some cool fly fishing stuff on the lower Provo River just south of the Jordanelle Reservoir dam. With the increased snow melt streaming down the mountains the rivers are running cold and fast and the fishing is great. Up and down the rivers fishermen and women are out doing their best to catch their fill of the various fish that inhabit these waters. I hope to be getting back out to get more of this tomorrow before pulling out of Park City to continue our journey. I’ll be posting images soon from these shoots so stay tuned! For now, here’s a little teaser.
Meanwhile back at the office…. The nice thing about being here for an extended period is we have been able to take the necessary time to shift into a different gear and hunker down and do the all important job of marketing. As any photographer will tell you, while we would all love to be shooting all the time, most of our time is spent feeding the machine and beating our own drum doing the various things that we do to keep the work coming in. After all, if all you did was travel and shoot photos, but never put in the hard but necessary work of getting it out there to the right people to see, the proverbial well would run dry pretty quickly. Then you are no longer a photographer and his family on an amazing photo journey but just a dude in a trailer who can’t afford to go anywhere. or even worse… a guy “living in a van down by the river!” – Chris Farley.
Well, the flight attendants are telling us we need to prepare for landing which is my cue to bring this post to a close. We have lots of other news and information to share so the next post will likely be just around the corner. Tune in next time… (later this week) when I talk about what it takes to make a journey like this not only possible but profitable. I’ll be sharing some details about marketing & promotion and the results we are seeing from all our efforts.
So as they say in Germany… “All feet are the same!”
*Update…. what the heck does that mean? Why is he talking about Germany and feet?Sorry… Bad language joke: if you say “All feet are the same” in just the right way, it sounds sorta like Auf Wiedersehen (German for Goodbye) & that is exactly what I am doing! 🙂
Park City Powder Cat Guides – The American Worker #8
This entry into The American Worker Series led me way up high to some of the very best back country skiing terrain available in the country. I was very fortunate recently to have been invited to join the guides of Park City Powder Cats on the beautiful 1000 Peaks Ranch in the high Uinta Mountains just east of Park City Utah for two days during a storm that dumped well over foot and a half of fresh powder on of some of the most epic terrain I have ever ridden. Over the two days I met some amazing people and got some really great photos while getting access to some of the most epic skiing and snowboarding terrain one can find. *Note- Some of these images need to be seen large to really get enormity of the terrain…. click the image to see a larger version.
For those of you that have not heard of back country Powder Cat skiing, you don’t know what you have been missing. Instead of skiing within the boundaries of a ski resort and being herded with the hoards and masses up ski lifts where you are lucky if you get one un-tracked line on a powder day, you are instead being brought up a private mountain in a heated Powder Cat coach that delivers you and 9 or 10 other lucky skiers and snowboarders to the top of some of the best un-tracked terrain in the country. At Park City Powder Cats they have over 43,000 acres of private land to choose from. That is an area larger than Vail, Aspen and Killington Mountains combined. What that means is you can go for days and days and never have to ski over someone’s tracks if you choose not to. We are talking HUGE bowls of steep and deep riding in some of the lightest and fluffiest powder I have ever experienced, which says a lot as I have well over 20 years on the snow.
A warning though…. a few good days here will literally ruin your experience at even the very best ski resort out there. It sets the benchmark way high and everything else pales by comparison. 🙂
So epic skiing aside, my reason for being here was to shoot the people that make it all happen at PCcats. I wanted to document the hard working ski guides, snow safety and drivers that take people out day after day into some of the most incredible, (yet potentially dangerous) areas to feed their nonstop craving for fresh un-tracked powder. Over our two day shoot I had the pleasure of shooting and riding with their amazing guides Johnny, Jason, Chris and Nancy. These folks have the best jobs in the world and they are very good at it. Their ever present positive attitude is infectious. Though I guess it would be easy to be positive given the venue in which they work!
It’s not all just “atta boy’s and good jobs” though, in addition to making sure people have a great time, this hard working team’s most important job is one of making sure your experience is a safe one. You have to remember that this is the back country and it can be extremely dangerous if you do not respect it and know what you are doing. Avalance potential is ever present in the back country and it is paramount that you know what to do and not to do. Every skiier is given an avalanche beacon and a safety briefing in the morning before leaving base camp. Before each individual run, they tell you exactly where to go, or (more importantly), where not to go to keep you safe. The guides work very closely with their expert snow safety patrols. Together they constantly assess the conditions and determine where their next run will be and exactly what parts of each peak will be not only the best run, but also how to best approach these runs to get everyone down safely without incedent.
Their snow safety team are constantly out on the various parts of the mountain during the day cutting new lines, knocking down dangerous cornices and throwing the occasional explosive charge to help mitigate much of the avalanche risk. They work hand in hand with the guides to help them to craft the perfect day for their guests and keep them out of harm’s way.
The image above shows snow safety patrollers Dave and Wes setting a charge to help shake loose any dangerous snow that might potentially be a problem to their guests. This particular shot was from Day 1 of our shoot way up high around 11,000 feet on a seriously steep grade with a dangerous cornice during one of the only moments where the visibility was good and not a complete white out. Nothing like heading out to the top of the world and throwing explosives, all in the name of safety! They have to be on top of their game and have razor sharp focus as without what they do, as the guides would have no way of knowing what each face is doing on that particular day without them.
This is General Manager and head honcho Ron. This guy is amazing. He is quite literally everywhere doing every conceivable job you can think of… from helping coordinate guests, to running a cat up the mountain to groom the cat trails so that the drivers can get the guests to where they need to be, to shuttling people out on snowmobiles that need to get to different areas around the mountain, to coordinating with a production company filming a movie on property. He does everything and all with a constant smile on his face! With him running the show and his amazing “Can Do” attitude it is no surprise that he has such a well oiled and positive team. Good management filters down through the ranks and it shows throughout their entire operation.
Last but not least are their team of talented powder cat drivers. Without these guys at the helm they wouldn’t be able to deliver their guests to these amazing spots. Make no mistake, their job is not easy. They have to be experts at what they are doing. These are large, HEAVY pieces of machinery, they do everything from crossing running ice cold river beds to climbing up super steep grades and chugging through giant snow drifts that can take 5 or 6 tries to get through. There are many times on any given climb when you look out the window and realize you are motoring up a steep grade riding on only a tiny ridge line with no room to spare on either side, and thousand foot drops to your right and left. These guys do it without breaking a sweat!!
If you are an advanced skiier and you’ve never done this before, you owe it to yourself to save up and go out and do it at least once. I guarantee when you leave, you will leave craving your next opportunity! You can reach them here to book your next trip!!
Earlybird Wake Skating Shoot! 5:00 a.m. 52 degrees
The earlybird catches the wake skater! Got up early on this morning to shoot wake skaters at Camp Modin. Nothing like waking up at 4:15 and on the water at 5:00 am on a crisp 52 degree summer morning in Maine. These kids braved the cold and never once complained. When it’s chilly like that the water actually seems really warm!
Triathlon
Marlins Spring Training
Got a chance to shoot a little of the Marlins Spring Training this year. Mostly just their new recruits and prospects doing drills. Little known fact that the Marlins and Cardinals train just a mile away from where I live here in Jupiter. Looking forward to doing more with them in the future.
Go Go Speed Racer!
Here is a new personal work project I’ve been working on shooting drag racers.
Like most guys, I have always liked going to the races. The only thing better than going to the races as a spectator is getting credentials to shoot them. I have had the good fortune to shoot many races over the years. From Formula One, to assignments from Dodge to shoot the Nascar races at Homestead Motor Speedway & Daytona, to projects for Bloomberg Markets shooting events where the a private luxury car club rents an airstrip for the day to race a multitude of ultra high end supercars at speeds of well over 200 mph.
Of all that I have shot, nothing trumps the thrill of drag racing. The sound of the engines roaring as the cars speed down the track. The smell and sight of the smoke of the burning rubber as they do their burn outs. It is thrilling. These guys are fearless. From the souped up street cars rocking 800 horsepower knocking out 10 second 1/4 miles, to the top fueled dragsters with up to almost 8,000 horsepower that go from 0 to over 300 mph in less than 4 seconds. Many equate it to the forces you’d feel taking off in the space shuttle as it puts 5 to 6 times the G forces on you as you rocket down the race track. They are the fastest accelerating land vehicles on the planet.
I love getting out and shooting all this. As you kneel down next to them when they do their burnouts you can feel the sound waves pounding you like someone beating you repeatedly really fast with large heavy pillows. It shakes the ground under you and were it not for the ear muffs, would permanently damage your hearing. It’s unnerving and super exciting all at the same time. These are just a few images from part one of an at least 3 part series of shoots. We have both still and video shoots planned at the Top Fuel NHRA races in Charlotte Motor Speedway in March and the IHRA Nitro drag series in April here in West Palm.
To see more of my work go to the Speed Racer section on my site @ http://www.petebarrett.com/Personal-Work/Speed-Racer/1 or follow me on Instagram @PeteBarrettPhoto and stay tuned for more exciting stuff in the coming months!
Tin Types – Athletes
Pure Protein Ad’s 1 & 2
1:00 Sports Demo Reel from Pure Protein Shoot
Here is a compilation of video taken from the spots I recently directed for Pure Protein.
Client: Pure Protein
Agency: Moosylvania
Director: Pete Barrett www.petebarrett.com
Cinematographer: David Hall www.iphotoinc.com
Editor: Emily Mitchell www.filmsaboutfamily.com
Ready Set Joe.
Here is the 2nd Commercial I directed for Pure Protein.
Life’s a boot camp.
Here is the 1st commercial I directed for Pure Protein for Moosylvania.
Shooting with the Moose and Pure Protein
Just wrapped an awesome shoot with St Louis based Moosylvania and Pure Protein! We spent the better part of a week in production shooting a series of 5 print ads and 5 commercials for Pure Protein to be released in the coming months. I can’t show anything just yet but we did some killer stuff! Shooting all sports and active lifestyle. Great clients and a fantastic crew, Thanks everyone! Images and footage to come as soon as I can show them.
Drew
Surfing Ladies 2
Surfing Ladies 1
