Most of the images that we shot will be sent away to either publications, or the riders sponsors. Until then they will be hidden away. Below are some images Harookz has donated for all to see. These were taken during our hectic three days that you can read about below the photoset. Make sure you check out www.harookz.com

Harookz Photoset

The Story

Words by Jordan Carlson, Photos by Jordan Carlson.

I am sitting at work facing quite a challenge. I am attempting to build a spreadsheet for my boss (boring) and at the same time I’m trying to look at the new “NSFW” pictures of Disney hottie Vanessa Hudgens topless. I am almost in tears because every time I’m about to open the picture, another person walks by my cubicle and forces me to wait. This is my version of “risk taking”. It’s at this moment that I get a call from friend and photographer Haruki “Harookz” Noguchi. He excitedly explains to me that he has been invited to participate in the Saint Deep Summer Photo Challenge and that he’d like me to assist. A little background info on the contest: Basically, six of the sport’s best photographers were invited to come out and pick riders of their choice and compete over a set number of days in Whistler in shooting, editing and putting together a slideshow that was to be presented to the judges on Wednesday, August 12 2009 at a presentation at the Fairmont.

Harookz said that he had chosen two friends of mine, Ross Measures and Geoff Gulevich, as well as current king of MTB Brandon Semenuk as his riders. Add my other friend, Derek Dix, as another assistant and you have the team. Harookz sells the idea to me by describing his vision: we are a crew of hungry, talented up-and-comers, the underdogs with far less experience than our competitors but with that much more to prove. This all immediately sounds more exciting than crunching numbers in Excel and I agree.

The contest started officially on the morning of Friday, Aug 7 but I was unable to make it up because of work. A few texts back and forth with the team and I learn that they are working hard to get the shots (they were up the mountain for 9 hours and took 2 laps all day). I get the sense that we might be working harder than some of the other teams. I won’t name names here but a certain pro apparently describes in disgust to Harookz that he’s “over it, the fucking bike park is Schley’s game”. I feel good knowing that I lack this snobbery and am prepared to work my ass off all weekend. I get off work Friday afternoon and have my middle finger erected proudly as I exit the office en route to Whistler.

I arrive Friday night at about 7:00 pm and the crew is still out. They don’t get back for another hour and I realize that the following day will kick my ass. When they do arrive, we head out for a quick meal at Earls and we all head back to go to bed. This is, of course, for the exception of Harookz who stays up for another 3 hours to slave over shots.

We all wake up at 7:30 am the next morning ready to go. Dix whips up some smoothies and Harookz has the eggs on lock. We mow the shit out of this breakfast and head to Tantalus Lodge where we meet Andrew Shandro who hooks us up with 2 pairs of Nike 6.0’s each. One has to love that mutual respect for the bros that only MTB can provide. We thank Shandro and slide our kicks on. We also run into Jordie Lunn who is looking lean as ever coming in from a jog.

We head to Semenuk’s crib so Harookz can get some shots of his gigantic collection of bikes. Upon arrival, I come to understand why Brandon is in the great shape that he is. His house basically sits on a cliff that is about 80 feet over the road and there is a LONNNNG set of stairs leading up to his front door. In fact, the stairs are so gnarly that his entire NWD section is just going to be him riding down them. Harookz is satisfied with the shots he gets and we head up the mountain.

We head straight up to Garbanzo and make our first stop at a long table jump that is covered in an epic, gloomy fog. We set up the lights and have the bros doing whips all over the place. We then go further down and Harookz gets some wide angle shots of the boys ripping a curvy section of trail. 

What happens next gave us all quite a scare. We were set up at large berm getting some POV (point of view) shots. We had Harookz’s camera set up on some sort of fancy bionic arm that extended out to the right from Ross’ fork. The idea was to get a shot of Ross’ bike and Brandon behind him ripping the berm. All was going well until on one of the goes when Ross was midway through and I heard Brandon shout “NOOOO”, we all then watch in shock as Harookz’s camera falls off the arm and just bounces off down the trail. We are all too frozen to move. It happens in total slow motion and not a single word gets uttered. The camera comes to a halt and Harookz slowly picks it up. Somehow, both the camera and lens suffer no damage. Unfortunately, the receiver cable is broken which means we are done with the POV shots for the weekend. This is actually a pretty substantial loss but is still quite a bit better than having the camera be damaged.

We collect our shit and head down farther to a weird quarter pipe wall ride thing in a large tunnel. We set up the lights and get to business. Brandon makes quick work of this shit and we take off for the ever elusive “D1”. We begin to set up at the large right-turning hip that sits halfway down the trail. Now, this is where I begin to understand the art of what Harookz does. We basically spend a full hour playing around with the positions of the lights. When most people look at a picture, they just see a nice shot but they don’t really see the act of hiking around the woods, lugging 6 bags of gear, taking a shot, being dissatisfied with it, and then doing that over and over until you get something that will work. I got a little bored in all of this and decided to smash a bulging pocket of sap on a tree with a rock. I do this with vigor and the sap just explodes into my eyes. It burns with a ferocious intensity as if to say “Listen fuckhead, go back to work.” I scrape the sticky goo out of my eyes with a new sense of admiration for female adult film stars and continue setting up. We finally come to a good set-up and the boys go at it. All three of them are laying down some unreal 1 foot downside table tops. Harookz has them going again and again until Ross produces the money shot. We run into one of our competitors and we sense the fear in his eyes when he comes to the realization that we’re not playing games.

We bang off a few more shots and head to lunch. A couple poutine’s and burgers later and we’re back up the hill. We head to Ninja Cougar for some more wide angle trail shots and then it’s off to Crank It Up. This is where things get zesty. We stop at a large and steep roller where it becomes our mission to get some shots of the boys scrubbing the shit out of it. We get back to setting up the lights and commenting on every rider that passes us. It is here that we coin the term “Hardtail Hotties” for any babe (we use this term with substantial flexibility) that is on an HT. Amped up on the visuals the hardtail hotties have provided, the guys get scrubbing. Brandon and Geoff both bring a unique style to this move and shit gets bananas. We bang off 3 separate angles and get stoked. This spot proves to be the most fruitful of the day. You will understand when you see the shots. We’re talking bikes being sideways and inches off the ground.

We take one more run and get some quickies and then we pack it in for the day. We get home at about 8:00 pm: A cool 12.5 hour day for us. Bagged, we hit the showers. We walk over to the Southside Diner and get some comfort food. I highly suggest you check out this place if you got the time. We shared a pitcher of the always delicious Whistler Export Lager and Harookz picked up some meatloaf, Gully kept it real with schnitzel, and I was getting loopy on a Mexican-inspired egg dish. With our stomachs full, we head back to the cabin and prepare to take our portrait shots. The riders all get some pretty dope shots for the intro to the slideshow and we head to bed feeling good about the day.

We wake up early again on Sunday, the final day of shooting. We are all tired and sore. We eat and sit around the living room discussing our game plan for the day. We decide that we will spend the morning and early afternoon getting some shots at Brandon’s dirt jumps and pump track, and then head up the peak at around 4:00 pm for an epic evening session.

We lug our shit up to Brandon’s jumps and upon arrival our moods all pick up. The place is fucking sick. The pump track is very well done and has a few different lines and the jump is short but insanely kicky. It features a tricky in-run consisting of a berm, a hip, a roller, a long and flat gap and then a final roller. We begin to set up lights and Brandon, Ross, and Geoff all begin manicuring the jump. Harookz becomes concerned with the branches that stand in the way of him and some great shots. This is where Dix really shines. He scoots up the first tree with the grace of a youthful black bear and kicks the shit out of the problematic branch until it tumbles down. The second tree, however, looks much tougher. The branch is about 15 feet up with no branches below to provide a ladder. Derek stands on a bike and then jumps to the tree. He literally is just hugging it, throwing his well-being to the wind as he slowly climbs up, enduring gnarly chafing in the process. He reaches the branch and tugs and tugs until it miraculously snaps and falls down. We cheer and the session begins. Ross and Brandon immediately begin to kill it. Geoff has never hit the jump and it takes him slightly longer to get used to the complicated set-up, but soon he finds his groove and is sending it. Brandon of course was the creator of this jump and it becomes very apparent that he knows how to work it. Harookz was getting stoked as shot after shot got banged off. Brandon pops a gigantic 360 table that basically rivals anything thrown on a BMX. He then hikes back up and throws one of the most insane 3 whips I’ve ever seen and stomps it to pedals. His body was fully parallel with the ground. I feel privileged for witnessing all of this. Harookz then bangs off a couple more of Geoff sending some inverted 1 foot downsides and we take to the pump track.

Here we get some of my personal favorites. Harookz uses his wide angle and we snap some shots of all 3 riders on the track at once. It takes some work but eventually we get the timing down and the results are fucking awesome. We then decide to take a POV without the use of our receiver. We literally just strapped the camera to Ross and put it on a 10 second timer. It took a lot of trial-and-error but eventually we got an awesome shot of Ross following Brandon into a berm. Everyone was feeling good about what went on and we did this for another hour or so before taking a break to get some sandwiches.

Now, it is unfortunate that at this point I had to head back down to the city as I had prior commitments. From what I hear, the guys headed up the mountain in hopes of securing one of the last chair rides up the Peak. This is a pretty big privilege as not too many people are just allowed up there. Apparently, the mountain decided to close the chairs somewhat early as the weather was taking a turn for the worst. Long story short; the guys missed it. They made do with what they had and took some shots on the way down. Harookz had Ross in the pitch black with only the quick flashes to guide him. Ross describes the experience to me as “ actually pretty fucking scary,” and I am quick to agree with him. The boys decide to call it quits on the riding and head back to the place.

The next day becomes all about editing and putting together the slideshow. I am told that Harookz woke up after 1 hour of sleep and went to work. I call him a few times throughout the day and can feel the stress coming through the phone into my cubicle. Apparently, there were quite a few problems with the burning process and the final copy was actually made on the way to drop it off the disc. Harookz does pull through though and all is well. He heads home to sleep for an indefinite period of time.

Wednesday comes quickly and we all find ourselves back in Whistler at the Fairmont Chateau for the big presentation. We sip free beers at the reception and then head into the conference room for the big show. The crowd consists of 1000 people and all of the big names of MTB are there. There are 6 photographers in the contest and all receive lots of applause. I won’t start reviewing the slide shows because that would take too long but Harookz ends up in 3rd. I maintain my opinion that he definitely deserved 2nd. He is disappointed but we tell him to remember that these things are subjective and that we had some serious competition. I think we all had a great time when it was all said and done.