Part of finding more balance in between being a baby photographer, a headshot photographer and having a life outside of work has meant my saying yes to invitations.  My friend Deirdre changed her profile pic on Facebook to a snowboarding image of herself from a couple years back, it spurred a rash of “We should DO THAT!” from a group of friends.  I hadn’t been to Mammoth in 12 years (!) and suggested we go there.  Mara put together the cabin for us which was a task in and of itself…and soon we had 8 people all set to go.

Rob, Doug, Me, Casey, Mara

Deirdre

Deirdre and I put the dogs in the car and headed up - the others would follow afterward.  We passed small town after small town along the 14 and the 395 and marveled at the fact that people could live so far away from any kind of city.  Signs pointed us to where we could buy things like frog balls, fresh jerky …and guns. It was really quite amusing.  When we drove up the final hill to Mammoth Lakes we saw our first snow.   From no snow to snow everywhere - !

Our cabin was decorated with dead animals which did not make us happy but Deirdre had a gay old time taking pictures of all of them anyway.  ”Look at how gross!” (click!)  I didn’t so you won’t see any on here.  That’s something I’d like to forget (but won’t, anytime soon.)  The others joined us that night and we all sat around and chatted over a couple beers about the plans the next day.

I planned to hit the slopes on Saturday only, and we all got up at about 7am to go to the rental place and take one of the free shuttles to the slopes.  I chose to ski so I would stay upright for the day.  Ha!  I’ve never snowboarded but I’m an okay skiier and what I looooooove to do is to glide down a mountain.  Just glide as long as it takes me.  And it was SUCH a beautiful day; sunny, not too cold, and not windy.
Casey, one of our friends had never been skiing or snowboarding before.  Ever.  He promptly lost his glove on the first lift and since he had chosen to snowboard this meant he would have his hands on the snow, and often.

Mara loaned him her scarf to wrap around his hand, making him look bandaged and impossible. You can see it in this shot.

After one or two lifts I realized I could do without my gloves, and gave him one of mine.  One glove on and my bare hand tucked into my jacket a bit (which I’d borrowed from Deirdre because I don’t have any coats like that in my Los-Angeles-weather-friendly wardrobe) and I went on my merry way.  So much fun. (You can see how much fun in the video link at the bottom of this post)

Saturday night the boys made tacos and the next night the girls (or really just Deirdre - I don’t know how that happened but I’m grateful to her because I’m not the best cook) made jambalaya.  Both were a BIG hit.  The jambalaya was GONE and quick.  So so tasty in fact that she’s recreating it for her superbowl party.

On the last day there was a big snowstorm so we headed out early, only to arrive in LA in the middle of a thunderstorm.  I love driving in those conditions but I’m afraid I scared poor Deirdre who had to ask me to slow down.  The dogs were content and unmoved by my speed, but I slowed down to assuage her terror, just the same.  ;) I returned to prepare prints for canvases a client ordered soon afterward.  I’ll blog about them next.  And tonight I’m taking pictures at a birthday party for a baby photography client who’s daughter, Karli, is turning 1 year old.  I will also blog about that sometime later this week.  I took pictures of her when she was 3 months old and I can’t wait to see how much she’s changed!

Oh - and as promised…here’s a little video from the trip…click on the link below for 5 seconds of greatness.  :)  CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.