December brings the most beautiful light of the year to the mountains – the sun never rises too high from the southern horizon. The first shooting day of the season on Whistler-Blackcomb yielded a fantastic sunset with friends before skiing down in the dark into the valley fog.

Since I was quite young, I have always spent a lot of time in the shop – designing, building, and tinkering. One of the things I love about photography is it gives me an excuse to continue being creative in the shop. Getting the camera out of my hands and into harder to reach spots is a goal that often guides my photographic process, in order to reveal a different perspective. This inevitably requires some sort of gadget, and I love the process of designing, building (at least in part), and tinkering with the eventual goal of using the boom, or rig, or mount, or whatever it becomes to help gain a unique and/or aesthetic perspective.

In this vein, and in the spirit of testing the video function of my new Nikon D3s, I put together this quick video of some recent time spent making some new equipment that I’ll be using this winter.

Workshop Time from Jordan Manley Photography on Vimeo.

Some friends of mine recently have put a lot of work into making a calendar featuring talented female freeskiers, with the purpose of raising money for breast cancer. I contributed a number of images to the calendar, as I’ve had the privilege of shooting with some of these talented athletes. Check out radboob.com to order a calendar.

What a start! Normally we wouldn’t even be skiing by now, but the last week was one of the deepest weeks on memory for me skiing in Whistler. Here is a video of us enjoying it!

Cruise the galleries – I have put up some of my favorite images from the past 6 months taken my travels through British Columbia, the American west, and the French Alps.

Here is an ad for Helly Hansen appearing in Powder and some other magazine titles this month. I shot this in Antarctica last November with Chris Davenport.

The south coast of BC has been hit by a series of storms the past ten days, blanketing the higher elevations, and lower down, flooding rivers. I love this time of year. Here is a photo from the Seymour River, in North Vancouver.

Here is a new cover for Mountain Life magazine. The photo was taken a couple years ago while staying at “Keiths Hut” at Cerise Creek. I didn’t have a tripod for this long exposure (about 45 minutes if I remember correctly) so I stuck my ski on a 45 degree angle in the snow and balanced the camera on the tip of the ski 3ft or so above the ground.

For the second time this year, I’ve found myself visiting Haines, Alaska. Jacqui, my girlfriend, has been nursing in Whitehorse, and on a visit we took a trip out to Haines. At this time of year the Chum and Coho Salmon are running, and between 3000 and 4000 bald eagles migrate to Haines’ Chilkat River to feast. We counted almost 100 eagles in one spot within easy view.

Eagles of Chilkat, Haines, AK from Jordan Manley Photography on Vimeo.

Here is a video of our trip to Antarctica last November from my friend Gregor (who I met on the trip). Thanks for sharing Gregor! www.somegood.ca