This June I had the opportunity to hit the road in eastern Canada to run some clinics for P&H and Pyranha at the Mountain Equipment Co-Op’s in Montreal, Ottawa, Burlington and Toronto.  While I enjoyed my time with the sparkling MEC staff, a road trip just ain’t complete without going out of the way to include some epic boating mission.  So in between store visits, I made the jaunt to arguably the biggest playboating mecca in the world…the Ottawa River.  Now I am by no stretch of imagination a "playboater" by modern standards.  This in large part stems from the lack of decent playboating in British Columbia and an excess of so many great creeks.  And while you might think the plethora of creeking experience would breed confidence in all waters, the Bus Eater wave on the Ottawa got me pumping.  I was nervous about the whole scene.  The tow in.  The pile on surfers left.  The little tippy boat.  I felt like a novice all over again.

Towing into the "Bussy"

It took me the entire first day to figure out the tow rope.  Like most kayaking things, it just takes a few of the right subtle things and then it all comes together.  I would get rejected, flip and have to come back and try again.  For the regualrs, its no big thing.  For me, I gooned at least the first 15 attempts. 

The wide angle on the whole scene.  Eddy, tow rope handler, Patrick Camblain taking photos, Benny Marr catching huge air.

I really like this photo because it shows that downstream is very forgiving.  If you look closely you can see a green boat coming back into the eddy down low.  While the wave is big, fast and intimidating, there is really nothing to worry about below.  I can see why people claim that the mini-bus is one of the top 5 waves in the world.  I was fortunate to catch the last couple days of the wave in prime shape and also have the chance to watch some of North America’s best playboaters go huge.

Dave Nieuwenhuis going extra large in a carbon Project.  Love this frame.

Benny Marr launching with Patrick Camblain looking on.

Looking forward to getting back up that way next season for sure.  Obviously for people who live back east, playboating on the Ottawa is a big draw.  Great to see the top dogs flying through the air and linking up trips.  The last couple seasons, combonation tricks started to really be a big part of the game.  Now these guys are linking 3-4 moves in a row which is quite impressive.  I am not trading my creeker out for a proper playboat anytime soon, but looking forward to the next Bussy session.

One last frame!

A few months back I contacted Dave Mossop and Malcom Sangster of Rocky Mountain Sherpas about using some avalanche footage from their latest success story The Fine LIne.  These guys are local Squamish filmmakers and I was keen on at least hanging out and hearing what they were up to for the year.  Fitz Cahall and I needed some avalanche footage for the pilot episode of The Season ( a web TV series that we are co-producing due to launch winter 2010) and Dave and Malcom gladly helped.  Three weeks later, I get a call from them while I was on the east coast touring our latest sea kayaking film.  On a tight turn around for a project for Health Match BC, they needed some stock of both sea and whitewater kayaking in British Columbia.  A couple of phone calls with Lise-Anne and we managed to get them a hardrive with a few things on it just in time.  Here is the new piece they have just launched which includes several Reel Water kayaking shots.

Our original goal with this blog was to keep people up to date with some of the production details from various projects.  What we are using for cameras, how we are shooting certain things, who is inspiring us and so on.  Over the course of 2008, the Eastern Horizons blog and The Range Life ate up all of our blogging hours and we neglected to develop this portion of the website.  Hence the last post being from almost a year ago this time!  So…added to the ever growing list of 2009 New Year’s resolutions is pumping time into the development of "production stories" for this page.  We are always trying to find unique ways to capture the kayaking stoke, so here are a couple of things to get this rolling.

Knowing that I would be absent the likes of Phil Tifo, Todd Gillman and Steve Rogers on the Eastern Horizons tour, I invested in a few pieces of Canon L series glass this year.  With the exception of having Phil for the first leg in Newfoundland, Lise-Anne and I had to juggle capturing some still images while shooting the film.  It proved challenging, but towards the end of the trip I really started to enjoy working with the still medium.  No sound to deal with, smaller package of equipment, ect… Here are two of my favorite images and a little info about how I managed to pull them off.

This first shot was by far my favorite from the entire trip.  It was also created by a rare set of circumstances and came together in a matter of seconds when I was least expecting it.  It was shot in the Magdalen Islands early July.

This shot turned out so well for a couple of reasons.  Obviously an amazing spot.  Apparently the hole in the ceiling had just eroded this past winter.  We had no idea that this room existed when we entered the cave and probably would not had even continued had it not been for a small zodiac we saw come out from the entrance.  For the first couple of minutes we both sat under the opening saying "wow" over and over.  While I did not realize it at first, the exhaust from the outboard was what was causing the shaft of light to be so prominent.  I immediately got out of my boat and tucked myself back into the furthest corner of the cave.  With my wide lens all the way wide I could just squeeze the scene into a vertical.  In a matter of minutes the beam of light disappeared.  Still amazing, but it would have never produced a photo like this.

This second photo is not a bing, bang, boom kayak action shot, but it captures for me the mood of being out on the sea.  This was taken off the coast of Maine in June.

Nothing super special to share on this one.  I just had to wait for the fog to clear my foreground so I could get John and Lise-Anne crisp and then work with the fog in the background for the depth of field.  The body language seemed to work as well.  The thermos of tea is out, it has been a long day on the sea and they seem quite content with the porch of this rustic cabin.

Next post will include some beta on the new Sony EX-1 we have started to shoot on…

After a successful 2007 season with Pacific Horizons and 49 Megawatts, the momentum was there for us to keep expanding our boundaries and start planning new film ideas for 2008.  With the purchase on some new equipment this season and lots of time scripting and planning shoots for the summer season, we are excited about the future at Reel Water.

One of the new rigs we are using…the Canon XH-A1

Our plans for 2008 include shooting a new sea kayaking film Eastern Horizons, continuing to work on British Columbia river conservation issues with new documentary media on several river drainages that are threatened and producing another TRL whitewater kayaking film.  Additionally we have started to lay the groundwork for some television shows that we will be producing for the Water Channel to air in 2008 and 2009.

The Reel Water blog will be mostly used for production related news and information.  Stay tuned for more!