After sharing Part One of our Visit California series—where I talked about the origins of our Playful Perspectives work—it feels especially fun to jump into this winter chapter. If the first post explored the spirit of the road trip, this assignment was built around what makes California shine when it’s snowing in the mountains: skiing, cold air, warm lodges, bluebird days, and the kind of mountain joy that only California can serve up.
Even though we’re sharing these images after our “Up Around the Bend” shoot, this was actually our first assignment with Visit California. As I wrote in my first post, this client came to me via my good friend and collaborator, Erika Belis, executive producer at Brand New Pictures.
I grew up in California chasing every version of adventure this state offers, from the Mojave Desert to the High Sierra. But winter in California has its own magic. The light feels sharper, the air cleaner, and the mountains—especially around Tahoe—become playgrounds of pure, kinetic energy. Capturing that feeling became the heart of this shoot.
Wide-angle winter
The creative brief asked us to rethink how California winter fun is photographed, using imagery that felt energetic and bold. The concept the agency came up with was “Playful Perspectives,” using ultra-wide-angle photography to bring the audience into the center of the action.
Most of the stills were captured on the Nikon Z8 paired with either an 8–15mm Nikkor ultra-wide lens or a vintage 16mm fisheye—two F-mount lenses that we seamlessly integrated with a FTZ II mount adapter. Sometimes we broke out a 20mm Z lens. We also used GoPros mounted in fun, creative positions, such as at the ends of ski poles or on the tips of skis. Here, our job was to set framing, lock exposure, start the interval, and then send them. The results feel really dynamic and fresh!
Wide-angle distortion is a creative dance. One inch too far in any direction and suddenly you’ve warped someone’s head or revealed a snowmobile you didn’t want in frame. Finding that balance between having a dominant subject and capturing the sense of place created a real challenge. But when it clicked, the result was exactly what the campaign called for: imagery that places the viewer inside the winter moment.
More BTS on our creative
A few more interesting details behind our shoot. To tackle the challenge of shooting some of the faster winter sports, such as skiing and snowmobiling, we leaned heavily on using an intervalometer, capturing several frames per second for minutes at a time. The objective was simple: somewhere in those thousands of frames, the magic moment would reveal itself.
That shift changed my role. There was less time pressing a camera to my eye, less shooting by instinct, and a lot more pre-visualization. I’d study the terrain, identify the hero section of a run, and coach the talent to hit their marks inside a loose but intentional window. From there, it was trust—trust the athletes, trust the prep, and let the camera run.
As we were creating so many frames with this approach, my friend Brett Wilhelm joined to edit, doing the heroic work of scrolling through tens of thousands of frames overnight.
Another interesting detail: because everything happened on snow, the entire crew needed to ski or snowboard. Naturally, this narrowed the team to people not only capable of executing a high-level production but also comfortable moving fast in winter terrain. It was truly an elite team all around!
Gratitude
This winter chapter came together because of an incredible group of people working in sync across stills and broadcast.
Huge thanks to Executive Producer Erika Belis for steering this campaign with vision, leadership, and humor. And huge thanks to Liz Ross at The Shipyard for your incredible creativity, and bringing together such a great team, including Kerry Krasts, Kevin Lukens, Brittany Bartle, and everyone else. What an honor to join you on this adventure.
Of course, thank you to our client Visit California—so thankful that we get to share our love for this state with your audience.
Thanks to our own crew who made this production such a success: first assistant Bligh Gillies; Mike Okimoto on lighting; second assistant Kyle Martz; digi tech Mike Grippi; Canyon Florey; and Brett Wilhelm, who was editing in real time for us. Thank you to Amelia Richmond, who stepped in as location manager, and my amazing wife Marina Rich for doing hair and makeup for our talent. Many thanks as well to our GoPro guru and tech Jensen Granger, and pole-cam skier Nick Schwartz.
And of course, I wish to express endless gratitude to our athletes: all the world-class skiers, snowboarders, and lifestyle talent who brought this project to life. The cold starts, long winter days, and tough conditions were met with zero complaints and endless positivity. That kind of effort doesn’t go unnoticed, and really made this production both successful and fun!
See the work
This campaign has been rolling out worldwide—across print, digital, and out-of-home placements. If you live in California, you’d never see any of these photographs, so if you spot any of our winter images in the wild, send me a photo! I love seeing where this work travels.
