Jacob Wester

going through some old albums on my laptop and found a huge folder I got from Chris O’Connell a while back. Pretty fun sorting through old photographs and see how much one has evolved as a skier and person. I figured the best before dates of these shots are long passed so I felt free to post them here so at least someone gets to see them (wink to OC to update his blog more often).

June mountain, CA, may 2005. This was my first real shoot with OC, I had just signed for Armada and had Oakley coming (still wearing Scott clothes in the shot). Poor Boyz had me coming along on a couple of shoots including this one up at June. I was bummed because I knew it was going to be a left side hip, and they wanted me to come anyways, while I knew some of the other guys were going to Sierra at Tahoe to shoot a rightside hip instead. I guess it turned out OK anyways, it’s not everyday you have the Mackdawg snowboard crew tell you they got showed up big time by a bunch of skiers.

Alley oop 450 on the same hip. I remember being really stoked on this shot because I got my skis so parallel. Its still one of my favorite shots I’ve gotten, ever.

Snowpark NZ, 2005. First time down under! Also first time riding a decent pipe. This was probably the best year I’ve ever had in NZ so far, the weather was perfect everyday and everything was so new and cool and exciting.

Aspen, CO, december 2005. First Oakley catalog shoot I went on, tons of fun. By the looks of it I had a little too much fun.

Nightshoot on a wallride for Oakley on the same shoot. I think this is up at Aspen Buttermilk. It was one of my first wallride sessions ever and I didnt really know what to do on it, so I dont think they ended up using any of my shots. I was just psyched I got to ski with Travis Rice.

Practice on the X-games course, Aspen Buttermilk, january 2006. This was my first year in X, and this was the year the slopestyle course got filled with snow and it turned into a big air competition instead. I was super bummed because I loved the course, and then I ended up doing the same old switch 1080 that everyone else did. Nowadays its the same thing except we’re doing the 1080s forward.

First backcountry trip ever. Went out to Utah with OC, TJ, Anthony B and Jon to drive some rental sleds around and learn how to use beacons and probes. Me and TJ ended up rolling our sleds, getting them buried and crashing them into trees about 10 times each before we got back. Antony’s sled broke down in the middle of nowhere and OC was pissed we forgot shovels. We learned a lot, to say the least. Switch 9 reverse philgrab on that jump that is in every snowboard movie.

360 on the backside of Alta on the same trip. I was still getting used to landing in powder so I think I ate shit on really basic tricks all day. This was the season we were filming for TBCII, but that never happened. Bummer.

This brings back memories. St.Anton, march 2006. It was the annual Oakley photo and film shoot, and our crew was me, Jon, Tanner and Anthony. First off, the location was terrible to try to get work done. In march, half of Sweden’s 16 to 20 year old party crew is in town, and St.Anton turns into a 24 hour apres ski. Second, we were blessed with really bad weather 80% of the time. Solution? Me and Jon were shitfaced 12 out of 14 nights, and got about 2 shots each. Needless to say, the serious half of the crew, Tanner and Anthony, was not too happy with us. Oh, and we also wasted 2 sunny days to build a gigantic kicker that didnt end up working. To top things off, I had a camera with me filled with party pictures, that I lost on the last day. Probably for the better, I guess.

My one shot I was happy with from the St.Anton trip. Also one of the scariest 360s I’ve ever done, I was hungover (still wasted maybe), and the landing was a little too flat for my liking. It also didnt help that Anthony went before me and triggered a small slide upon impact, leaving very little soft snow below the cliff. If you don’t get the picture here, the landing is below those little bushes, so it’s a pretty big drop. I would love to go back to this spot and get some real tricks off it.

Åre, over a year later, JOI 2007. Best. Jump. Ever. I think this is me and Jon doing double 10 and double 12 side by side. Jon, if you read this, please bring this jump back!

Pretty good side perspective of how big that jump really was. I think this is my quarter final run vs Andreas. I double 12′d and reverted in the transition, he switch 14′d and punched his hands. I remember waiting for 10 minutes to get a score from the arguing judges.

Hope you like! Oh, and huge props to Russ for holding it down once again down in Barcelona, sick job mate, you really deserve it after all the shitty scores you’ve been getting all season! The comp looked awesome and I wish I had been there. Alright I’m going to quit whining about it (i.e voicing my opinions).

loveJacob

~ by jacobwester on November 8, 2009.