Fundays Sundays

Yesterday was one of those amazing sunny spring days with no wind perfect snow conditions, lots of friends hanging out hiking and riding, laughing and eating and drinking! Good times for sure here at Nagano’s Tsugaike and Bluebloods Fundays. We partied afterwards at Hakuba’s famous Yakiniku joint, Miyama! So this morning was kind of slow as we cleaned up and tried to clear the alcohol from our bodies. So this photo report come a little late, but maybe you already saw some shots on my Facebook wall.

Staying a few more days here in the Tsugaike area to try to shoot some more photos with the Blueblood team, then it will be off to Tokyo for an event before heading back to Sapporo.

Fundays Saturday!

Fun day today at Tsugaike Blueblood event! Snow, sun, clouds and more snow, the weather can’t seem to make its mind up, but who cares everyone had fun anyway. Check it out. Tomorrow one more day, should be sunny tomorrow stop by if you are in the area! Free Yakisoba, cheap beer and good times!

April Sprays!

Unbelievable snow today in Nagano’s Tsugaike resort! We rode high season like powder all morning! So epic! April 6th! What a day!

Fundays course creation

It snowed heavily all morning here in Nagano prefectures Tsugaike Kogen. more than 20 cm of heavy powder at the bottom of the mountain by noon. The course for this weekends event was pretty much done yesterday, so we spent the whole day trying to pack down and clear away all this new fresh snow! This always seems to happen every year…. Anyway it is starting to look good. A snake pipe/bank section and great looking bowl at the bottom.

“Jack the Movie”

Check it out, I have started a new project for 2012 together with Blueblood here in Japan. WE WANT YOUR FOOTAGE of snowboarding! Shoot yourself, your friends, your dog snowboarding whatever, then post it to YouTube or Vimeo and send us the link. If selected your footage gets used in a new movie called “Jack the Movie” to be released next year. Check out the details on the flyer below then get out there with your camera and get some shots over the New Year holidays!

One Films joins Higashida Tomohiro live!

This is still a month away but thought I would get the info out early for the early planners!

One Films and Blueblood will be teaming up to create a booth at the Higashida Tomohiro live concert event in Tokyo October the 23rd! This is going to be a fun show and I am planning to be there. Will be selling copies of Car Danchi 5 and hope to display and sell some original photography. Check the fliers below for more details, spread the word!

Blueblood Catalog 2011

This catalog made its debut in Japanese snowboard shops a few weeks ago, but I was to busy with the editing of Car Danchi to blog it up. Quite proud of this one, I think it is the best Blueblood catalog to date! We have been at it for ten years, so this is a special one for sure. Nice photos, nice paper, nice size, if you find one at a snowboard shop near you grab one. For a list of shops around the country check the Blueblood website here.

All photos by Neil and Key photo!

Blueblood photo book released

Just got my copy of the new Blueblood photo book for 2011. This was made with photos that Key photo and I shot during the Blueblood photo shoot in Akita in early February. Due to the Earthquake and all the crazyness going on in Japan right now, Blueblood decided to keep the design and text to a very minimum. I think it turned out great, just good photographs presented straightforward. You can probably find a copy at your local snowboard shop, if they sell Blueblood products that is. For more info and detail you might want to check the Blueblood web site.

Spring photo shoot

Spent a nice four days in the Higashikawa area with the Blueblood team shooting for their yearly catalog and advertisments. We were originally scheduled to hold the third annual “Fundays Event” in nagano, but it got cancelled due to the 3/11 Earthquake and Tsunami. So instead of the event we set up a spring shoot in the Tokachi mountains. We got super lucky with the weather, a late season storm rolled though last weekend and left a foot of snow on the mountains. We arrived on Monday and were actually able to get some powder turns on Tuesday at Kurodake. After that the snow crusted up a bit, but it was still fun in the sunshine on Wednesday at Asahidake and again on Friday. Thanks to the crew for a fun trip.

Asahidake bathed in sunset light on arrival Monday afternoon.

Hiking near the natural steam vents on Asahidake, as upossed to the steam venting at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

Ken brought along his Lib Tech snowskate and rode top to bottom with good style.

Shinya carving the cat track

Hayato finds a power spot.

Ken getting chased.

Hokkaido road.

Blueblood shoot

Going back a few days to pick out some shots from the Blueblood shoot in Akita. This was our tenth anniversary shoot so it was a special one! Really good fun, we had a great house to stay in with amazing hot spring built in. The snow was amazing while we were there and the vibe was perfect. I don’t think I have done anything for a longer consecutive period of time than the Blueblood shoots. Ten years is certainly a record for me. I hope we can keep it up for another ten years at least! Big thanks to the team for putting in a lot of effort this year and thanks go out especially to Caron and Guro for their support!

Visiting the local Buddha to ask for more powder and sunshine.

Ken with his hand cut hand made “Yukiita” Snowboard

Roadside backcountry.  We have now officially renamed this type of riding as “Garden boarding”   after shredding in a large garden behind a house as the owner watched.  In the end he asked one of the crew, “What are you training for?”

The hot spring in our house.

Our studio set up, my work space.

Key and Tsukasa

Dinner made nightly by the crew!

Tazawa Lake final prayer.