Cameron Talbott / Mute Transfer

Fall in Montana is an amazing time, and something about the cool weather and the colors of the trees really puts me in the mood to blade. Unfortunately, the cool weather changes into cold weather all too soon, so it’s crucial to make the best of the perfect temperatures while you have them. In Bozeman, that temperture has already started to drop, so I wanted to make the trip to Missoula.

Cameron Talbott and I had already planned months ago to meet in September/October because I’m a sucker for fall colors, and Missoula gets the best of them. When I arrived, I was amazed (and quite pleased) at how much warmer it was for only being a three-hour drive from my hometown. While discussing what kind of work we wanted to do, Cameron mentioned he’s been having some fun blading the park lately, and suggested a Missoula park edit. For a weekend, the park wasn’t overly congested so we spent some time there filming for an online jam. After two long days of filming, we were trying to decide whether or not to go back to the park for a photo, and ultimately we decided to give it a shot. I was happy Cameron wasn’t too tired, because I got to try what I’ve wanted to for a while, which is to shoot a park at night. This was lit with three flashes: a Vivitar 285 to the left of the volcano at 1/4 power and a cheap Neewer tt560 speedlight behind the volcano (pointing up at Cameron) at 1/8 power were both triggered with Cybersyncs. The Cybersync transmitter was plugged into my PC sync port to allow for a 3rd flash, a 550ex located in the bowl (pointing toward the quarter pipe) at 1/4, to be triggered by the 7d pop up flash. ISO 640, 1/250, f/3.2. Canon 7d+ 70-200 f/2.8 ii at 70mm. The trick — Air from the quarterpipe without coping on the right side of the frame to the transition on the side of the volcano. You can check it out in action here.