Crankworx Red Bull: One day in the most radical Freeride Mountainbike Competition with photographer Blake Jorgenson

NOTE: You can watch it with HD quality on Vimeo (here)

The role of official photographer for the whole of Crankworx is a mixed blessing - on the one hand you get premium access to the best Whistler has to offer for those nine days, but on the other it's a long, hard and stressful job that takes nerves of steel and stamina to match.
Thankfully Blake Jorgenson is up to the job. In his second year on the run at the job, he's dialled in a system that works and produces great results. Having been in the same position myself a couple of years earlier, I was keen to shadow him for a day of shooting the festival's main event - the Joyride slopestyle contest - to portray behind the scenes of what it's like to have to shoot and submit images that become the official record of the day.

(Photo: Blake Jorgenson) via bicycling.com

That means Jorgenson isn't usually watching the finish line. "The stories are behind the line," he says. "That's the way you play into people's voyeurism. People are curious to see portraits of interesting people, to get close to the athlete or the guy in the crowd. They don't want to just see the shot of the guy crossing the finish line. They want to see what they were missing while they watched the guy cross the finish line."

There's a lesson in the veteran's approach for this year's Deep Summer contenders. "Good photography always comes down to good planning," says Jorgenson. "Your idea. Your story. Having everything lined up and ready to go. Otherwise, you're just standing there waiting for something to happen. You might get a good photo, but it will be circumstantial."  ( Text via Lisa Richardson )

Shot for Bicycling / MountainBike.com  | via Dan Barham

Do you like Freeride Mountain Bike? Watch the competition:



More inspiration: Blake Jorgenson´s website