The latest Atherton Project has been released. F-Stop's Clay Porter is the man behind the concept which takes us dreamers along for a full World Cup season of the up and downs of Racheal, Dan and Gee Atherton - Mountain Biking's super family.
This epsidode has serious footage of Dan and some big jumps and tells the tale of Racheal's injury at Leo Gang.
Click Here for the video.
It is that time of year again... Crankworx in Whistler BC is approaching and with that comes the Saint Deep Summer Photo Challenge.
The format involves a team led by a notable photographer with the goal of capturing the world famous Whistler Bike Park and all the action that bleeds from it daily. 3 days to put together the ultimate slide show, which is then shown to a packed house of action sport junkies in Whistler.
This is by far the biggest mountain bike festival on earth. The crowd is a hungry range of dirtbags, professionals, industry shmoes and trophy wives. Maybe a few normal people too ;)
Last year F-Stop Faction member Mattias Fredriksson took the top honor. He was supported by a select group of riders and fellow Faction member and multi media genius Dave Mossop.
This year mountain bike photographer to the stars ... and F-Stop Faction member Sven Martin stands to do battle against an extremely stacked field. Sven is not out of his league by any means but jesus! he has some competition.
Best of luck to Sven who just raced the MEGA Avalanche in France. Peep this video to get idea of that race. The start is kinda crazy.
You can also help choose a Wildcard slot for one lucky photographer. I'm leaning towards Adrian Marcoux (he has a gift for photo, that needs to be exposed).... with Mason Mashon followed closely. Best of luck to all.
Wildcard voting - Here
Saint Contest Info - Here
This morning Twitter had a nice surprise for me. Matty Stalker left a message saying "48 Hour Human Timelapse on a Canon 5D...".
This brought a smile to my face.
CLICK HERE for his 48 Hours in the chair on a roof...
For Matty's trouble were going to send him a F-Stop Heritage T-Shirt.
-Ian
Image by Karl Johnston
A little while I came across some info online about photographer Karl Johnston. Karl was suffering from a shoulder injury he acquired in August of 2009 and was unable shoot images. The idea of packing a camera bag with all his gear's weight sitting on his shoulders was not appealing to Karl. Since he was on his way to recovery and his images are absolutley spectactular, I felt it was a great oppurtuntty to test our product and my own claims of 'amazing weight distribution'. Karl an adventure photograhper, also known as the 'King of the Aurora' is a very active shooter, he puts a lot of miles trekking around his home in Fort Smith of the NWT where he captures many of his stunning images.
The following is Karl's intial reactions to the Satori.
"... I wanted to properly test it when I was able to fully get back on the land and photographing the way I used to. Took a while, and my arm isn't complete 100% but the physiotherapist told me I was good to go so off I went...
First trial:
10 km hike to mountain rapids, pelican rapids and hidden beach. A local rapid range for hardcore kayak enthusiasts, although we were on foot. Most of the trails are hidden, so half the time we were carving through our own with a machete. 100s upon 100s of pelicans nest in the region and you can see them swooping above you in formation as they move in between the rocky islands.
Really really like the way it opens from the back. It sounds a bit nit picky but with other packs I've tried, particularly from ... and ..., you lose precious seconds flipping the things around and trying to hunt for the right compartment to access your gear. With this pack, I don't have to worry about that as much. The padding is also really good on my back too.
Second trial:
Tried it out at a much less rockier area; sandy plains of Lake Grosbeak, a 7 km hike. I really like how you can set this thing down anywhere and it is practically impervious to dust or sand sneaking in the zippers.
Third trial:
Just a real short one now -3kms- though down and up a few steep and uneven trails. After the previous two days of treks and 7-8 months of inactivity before that I'm really starting to feel it in my legs and core. Nothing in my back, absolutely no feeling in my shoulder...which is why I'm writing you guys this glowing review in the first place.
I really really love the weight distribution in this bag. Can barely feel it on you, considering how much gear I had on for the three days (5DII, 70-200 2.8L, 21 2.8 carl zeiss, 100 2.8 macro, lee and singh ray filters, 2x kenko, manfrotto 190cx3 tripod and assorted other accessories) Tripod and everything too, in fact I took a second opinion with another local adventure photographer I was hiking with - I let him try it out for a few hours and I switched with his ....
Within the first 15 minutes I could feel the ... sinking into the middle of my back, resting uncomfortably on the hips, the straps pulling at my sore shoulder....him? Now he wants one for himself. So I sent along your website. If you send along some SWAG or ads we could include them in the exhibition we're doing in July. You can read a bit about it here, although my blog is still under construction a bit I was really excited about sharing its news:
http://www.karljohnston.com/
EDIT: Karl just put up more info on his site, have a look: http://www.karljohnston.com/blog/fstop-bag-satori/
Thanks for the good words Karl!
-Ian
I live in a little town in the North Alps of Japan. The town is called Hakuba and was host of the 98 Nagano Winter Olympics. It is a unique little town and for the most part is very quiet. The town it self is over shadow by a very large mountain range know as the Hakuba Alps.
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