Another Decade Past

The Hood Internet - The Mixtape Volume Four by hoodinternet

Some tunes to relive 2009, which went way faster than I could have expected.

Thinking back on the past year, the standout moments were as follows:
- champagne around a bonfire
- cat-skiing near Revelstoke
- moving to Whistler again (for good this time I swear)
- finally getting some shots and writing published
- winning school (well, winning best portfolio, best editorial shot, best photo essay, and best photojournalist)
- ... then not really doing anything photographer-y for work
- finally got my own website:
- joined a bike gang
- experienced the snowiest November of all time at Whistler/Blackcomb

Come to think of it, I didn't do nearly enough in the past year. My resolutions are to explore the Duffy backcountry, shoot more photos, and visit Sweden. Nuff said.

The year in photos (click to enlarge, otherwise they're cut off):

No snow?! No problem!

So it hasn't snowed in a bit (after I was complaining about all the precipitation, oops.) So we hike.

no sunshine no take photo

So, what with all the crazy precipitation we've had lately, and being a fair weather fan, it's been hardly inspiring to go out and take photos as of late. I've also been rather busy with my various jobs, and that sucks. So until the rain lets up and touring season gets rolling, I think I'll be taking self portraits inside the home.

Pump, pump, pump it up.

"I think you should have a date, you have nice handwriting." Says JJ, in response to the note I left him that said "Dear JJ. Thank you for building that pumptrack. It has provided me hours of enjoyment. Have a lovely day. Sincerely, Amy."

So we've obviously been having fun at the pumptrack lately. DH bike has a broken fork and my pumptrack bike fork is barely holding it together, but when you can't ride the park it has to do. This time we were playing a little closer to the village. And I obviously still suck at flash, and my remote trigger stopped working, so I had a buddy press the trigger for the shots of me.

As it stands, none of us seem to be ambiturners.

Rocktober

Wow so I guess I haven't had a lot of time to shoot photos lately. Either that or I'm riding my bike too much. Let's blame the latter. The only solution to the problem is to do both at the same time. Easier said than done, especially when the remote trigger decides to stop working.

That's me in the blue pants, bike gang sister Johanna in the blue hoodie, hmmm, blue must be our gang color. Watch out Crips.

My bicycle gang has a skiing problem

As fun as it is to ride your bike alone, it's better to ride with friends. They're the ones with spare tubes when you've forgotten one, they're the ones that take you down a trail you've never ridden before, and they're the ones you create a gang with. A bicycle gang, obviously.

The most important part of gang formation is the initiation. Our initiation was to survive a ghost-busting, cougar-slaying adventure to Parkhurst, an abandoned logging town in the greater Whistler Valley.

Gang names are almost as important as the initiation. They often form naturally based on the behaviour of the gang member to whom it is given. Our gang names: Slayer, Thrasher, and Sniper. Johanna is Slayer because of her love of death metal and Schleyer in the Whistler bike Park. Jess is Thrasher. She is so called because of her kidney-bruising, muscle-tearing, rip-snorting good time ripping down In Deep and taco-ing her front tire. I am sniper. (Probably because I snipe photos.)

Future gang initiates will have to do a far more heinous initiation- slug licking. If a girl wishes to join the gang and get themselves a really sweet bike gang name, a slug will have to be licked. Cougar slaying and ghost busting is only for the top tier of bicycle gangsters like Slayer, Thrasher, and me.

Anyway, we survived the initiation and are a full-fledged bicycle gang. We're looking into matching jerseys. Here are some photos of Team Bike Gang:

Feeling Musical.

After spending time on High Note, the next week I played (on) the Musical Bumps with the girls. Here are some shots:

Frolicking in Flowery Fields

Yesterday Christian, Antoine, and I traveled up Whistler mountain to hike the High Note trail. The sign said it should take 3-4 hrs round trip and we managed to do it in a little over 2, including a number of photo stops and stopping to smell the flowers.

hrmph.

bike park fail. washed out on a super dusty corner and turned my elbows into mulch. 6 stitches, woohoo!

anyway, here are some more shots from Momentum this summer:

(alex mathers, mason mashon, darren rayner, jeff schmuck, jessica warll, colby west, sarah burke and mike riddle.)

WAP Graduation

It's finished. In the past 10 months I schoolworked, homeworked, starbucksed (worked), seattled, oregoned, calgaryed, whistlered (x 1 million), revelstoked, trout laked, lake louised, omahaed, tofinoed, jordan rivered, and maybe some more.

All of that fun and not so fun culminated in a diploma in journalism and photography from the Western Academy of Photography.

The hard work paid off, too, and I was fortunate to win some awards for my work. In my program, called Written Image, I won Best Feature Editorial Photo, for a shot of a roadblock in Squamish where a young man was pulled over for drunk driving. In an open category amongst all of the students I won Best Photo Essay, titled "Joey: Age 2.5" (the one in the video of the little boy, all photos are black and white.)

Finally, in my program I won both Best Portfolio and Best Photojournalist. All in all the year paid off! Phew!

Enjoy my book:

Amy McDermid Photojournalism Portfolio from Amy McDermid on Vimeo.

I love dirt.

This weekend the Off-Road Rebels rally association put on an amazing rally event in between Pemberton and Whistler, right by the motocross track. Some guy saw my camera and said "hey, come with me," in a husky smokes too much and drinks too much voice, and I followed, knowing that nothing bad could come of following a stranger.

He brought me and another fellow with a video camera out onto Sunday's course and brought us up in a Genie hydraulic lift, which he suspended out above the final - and might I add massive - mud pit at the finish of the course.

I ran into a friend later that afternoon who said "hey ames, I saw you at the rally, you were up in the genie with a guy who recently got off house arrest!" Ummmm... awesome.

I love the smell of hot garbage...

In Victoria the best place to ride a bike is at the Hartland Land Fill. Most riders lovingly refer to it as 'the Dump,' and that's exactly how it smells, especially when it's 30 degrees C even at 5pm.

The other day Bryan and I went out for a ride and I brought my camera. Here are the results, I don't shoot a ton of XC, and only had a 50mm and fisheye, so... yeah. There's a little self-portrait action in there too:

World Badminton Championships of the World.

Redundant? Perhaps. Hitting a shuttlecock back and forth over a lo-budg net for 4 hours? Surprisingly not redundant. So un-redundant, in fact, that we didn't even notice how much time had passed until Nicole and I (team pasty white) were burnt to a crisp. Oops.

After the championships were tied by all, we went camping at Jordan River for the night. No complaints here.