Created | Adventure Photographer

(I recently wrote this in response to a question a friend of mine had asked on her blog regarding the energy we feel when we are outside in natural places...)

"Parow par muja Yahweh say mulakat hoga" is an Urdu sentence that an old friend of mine wrote for me. It's been written on the back of my climbing helmet for 12 years and simply translated into english says, "The mountains are where I go to meet with God".

I have been a spiritual person my whole conscious life and it just makes sense that I have contemplated the energy and force I feel when I am out in Creation and beyond the life that I have created on my own.

You see, if we are created beings living in a created world then it just makes sense to be renewed while we are engaged with this Creation. The world we have built for ourselves is the best that we as broken beings could create. Full of imperfection, anxiety, urgency, lies, consumerism, affluence, fear, frustration etc. I am not suggestion there is nothing good we can do, but how much more incredible is it to go to a place that is so much bigger than ourselves and speaks to something greater? Many people can see the revelation of God in nature and those who don't, understand that the natural world holds a spirit of it's own. Like living water and travelling closer to the source every time we connect out there, our spirits are topped off and we can go back to the world we have built and see it in its true perspective.

It feels right to be a part of an orderly system or created by something greater than myself. I don't want to be the centre of the universe, I don't want my life to be all there is. I want to rest assured that when I climb, when I feel the warm limestone, smell the alpine and blasted by the wind whipping through the valley, that I am a part of something beautiful. This truly is a stunning planet we live on here, in a solar system that is bare and singularly faceted, with a sun and gravitational forces that seem to cater to us, our planet is bursting with diversity. Take a look around, it is very hard to imagine that everything here is a result of chance.

"Out there" is energy, passion, focus, reality, love, hope, fun, growth, adventure, and all the good things that come from being a part of it. The mountains are where I go to meet with God, and nature is where I will find myself.

Spike In Evolution | Adventure Photography

Sun sets between a winter Chinook and the Foothills in Southern Alberta.

As most of you probably know I have been extremely busy these last few months. This film project has been stretched due to construction timelines so I am back to filling open dates with new work. Not only have I been out shooting on location and writing a lot but I have also had to learn a whole new set of software and techniques to go along with it. By April I should have all the skills to create graphic overlays and animation in digital video as well as coming up to speed on all the newest tools in the Adobe CS Cloud lineup.

And as if I figured I wasn't busy enough I have finished my Closed water SCUBA certification and will have my recreational cert in the spring. I have found SCUBA (and now FREE-Diving) to not only be a great addition to my work but being in the water gives me a great sense of comfort and removal from the virtual stress of day to day city-life.

There is a lot of cool projects in the works and I will be posting them as they become public. I am looking forward to an exciting and busy year with my family, business and friends while I ramp up to the milestone of 40. I have never had so much going on for the start of a new year but as one of my interviewee's once told me, "life begins at forty"!

Just Add Water \ Canadian Adventure Photographer

The clock has 4 hands with a different colour for each, but it's the green one I'm concerned with, green means "go". Like a pin-wheel they continue to make their way around and the green hand is now at the 45 second mark, breathing deep and relaxed. Now the 50 second mark, exhale and inhale one more long inflow of fresh air. There it is, 55 second mark, three quick shallow breaths, one long gasp and the last thing I see before I drop below the surface is the green hand at zero.

Tile floor comes up into my view and stretches out across the bottom like a super wide runway and I get a momentary rush of euphoria, I can tell this will be a good one. Reaching out ahead of me my hands cupped then pull back to my sides and my body glides ahead another two meters. I hear nothing and only look for the other wall now 28 meters ahead of me. So calm, not concious of my body at all, I am flying and each stroke feels deliberate and natural. Nothing is going through my mind, no signal, no stress, just pure exhilaration in the moment, the only place I need to be right now.

The far wall is closing in now, not much longer to go, yet it is beginning to feel unreachable. Releasing a steady stream of bubbles from my lungs I can start to feel my body rejecting my minds commands to hold on, even for just a few more seconds. Closer now, the muscles in my chest are twitching, I must stay calm, it's all in my mind, I can do this. The force to take a breath is nearly irresistible but there is only a meter to go, I'm uncomfortable but still in control, I got this. I reach out for the wall and wait just one more moment before I pull my head up above the surface. Still focused I rise out of the warm liquid resolving not to take my first breath until I see that green hand. There, the mark made and I focus on it while getting my first breath since going under. Takes a second to register in the brain as my body goes back into it's normal breathing rhythm; one minute and fourteen seconds.

I have never been able to hold my breath for more than 30 seconds and now getting used to the water and working on my comfort level, I realize I have been missing something. For most of my life I have stayed away from water and there is a realization that I have really missed out. However being there now and training my body and mind to be a part of it is a rush that I have only felt from a few other activities in my life. Again pushing past fear and ignorance while adapting your body to a new environment is such an amazing experience. And to think that all a person needs for this is water.

On The Fly | Adventure Lifestyle Photography

Stefan Dalberg gliding across a patch of glass on the Ghost.

On Sunday I drove out to the Ghost Reservoir to photograph a friend of mine and his ice sailing boat as he prepared for an upcoming project of his own. Stefan Dalberg is the real-deal when it comes to adventure and living. Stef is passionate about a lot of things including speed and putting 100% into whatever he does. It's never dull watching him rip it up on the ice at the Ghost and it always gives me something great to shoot.

I'm just coming off of holidays down on the island where I had to force myself to slow down so this may be the reason my brain hadn't come back up to speed yet. I had envisioned some big production lighting set-up for a sunset shoot with Stef and the boat but when I drug all my gear out on to the ice, the conditions had changed quite a lot. After a few test shots I realized that without some good over head clouds, my sunset would be quick and fairly undramatic.

The sun started to dip below a band of storm clouds on the Foothills to the West and Stef was now blasting by me on every run. I try not to limit my vision too  much when on location as even with a great plan, there is always something serendipitous that could happen if you keep your mind open and keep looking around. I noticed the smokey band of high cloud in the sky was glowing and dropping my exposure by a stop, I was able to pull a lot of detail out of the sky and the ice while the boat was on my up-wind side.

It's important for me to put a lot of pre-production and planning into a session but part of that is leaving room for "something magic" to happen. Especially now that I am using the 5D Mark III I am able to get closer to my ideas and even when creating on the fly, capture more of what I see before it quickly disappears.

Thank-Full | Adventure Lifestyle Photographer

There are only a few weeks left in this year (and if you believe the Mayan calendar, just a few days) and I have already started into next years workload. I actually finished everything on my schedule last week and didn't quite time it with Christmas. However I will still be taking a few days off to be with family and enjoy the holidays.

I went through this last years work to try to pull out some of my favourites and it really made me think of how diverse the work was and how great it was. I spent a lot of time writing and even published a few magazine articles and interviews. I met some amazing people and even made new friendships. I grew as a photographer and a part of the business community. I learned a lot, mostly about myself, and feel that I am even closer to living my passions and what I was created for.

This coming year will be a milestone year for me. I am turning 40 this year and am on track to having an amazing year. I am starting it with a huge project, I am back into filming, I am in the best shape I've been in for 10 years, my family is great, and there are lots of cool things planned. I'm pretty stoked to say the least.

I am grateful for my awesome clients this year, so many great people that I have become friends with who are now friends. I am also thankful to be friends with some of the most amazing and talented photographers in North America (the world?) and feel honoured to have worked with some (even in the least) on their projects and been given advice and critique by them. These photographers have been selfless and are doing great things for the photography community. I am blessed to have close friends who are extremely generous, who have helped support what I do and allow me to be myself. These friends have been here for our family, have taken care of our kids like they were their own, and some of them have even let me be a part of their goals and dreams. And not the least I am grateful for my crazy family who lets me be me and seems to also enjoy the ride.

Its been an adventure this year, I thank God for being so blessed. I am looking forward to this coming year and sharing the new adventure with you guys. Merry Christmas and have a great start to your new year!!!

Kurtis

Here And Now | Canadian Adventure Photographer

Patrice Bance breaking trail in the here and now.

On Thursday my back country partner and I skied into the Rae Glacier as a recon trip and to see if we could get the kites out for a little rip. It had snowed about 8" inches the days before and that morning it was cold and still snowing. We were more than happy to get out anyway and a bad day in the mountains is still better then a good day in the city.

We didn't have much trouble getting up to the Glacier except for some loose rock and pretty much just took our time. It was blasting up near the glacier so we turned back fairly early but the day was far from a write-off. It was so amazing just skiing through the tall timber all covered in snow. I felt at one point like I was out looking for a Christmas tree and with all the fresh snow coverage being out here took me back to when I was a kid. That's all I needed, a good workout, chance to get away from my work and the busy life, and energize my emotions and spirit.

Which brings me to my favourite place as of late, somewhere I enjoy more and more. That place is NOW. That's right, the 'Here and Now' is what I'm talking about. I love spending time in this place, it is peaceful, secure, can't be taken away and is the only thing that is tangible. Sure the places I have been to and the things I have done are cool. And those things are important to me and who I am. Just like my ideas and dreams and goals are great too, I spend quite a bit of time there as well. However the only thing that matters is right NOW. You see the past is past and is just a nice memory. It can be sweet to look back on it and even still remember the tastes and touch but it can also hurt and continue to do so if you stay there. The future on the other hand hasn't arrived yet and as much as we like to imagine wonderful promises that it holds, it can also cause us a lot of anxiety if we spend too much time there. Worrying if things will happen good or not can not extend even one minute to our lives. So really the best place is here, right now. It's hard to say how big this place is or where it borders but as we move through time and space it is the only real thing we can be a part of.

That is why I am becoming so concious of this place and admire it so much. I used to move along in this place and most of the time my mind was in the past or in the future. Problem with this is that when there is something IMPORTANT flowing through (or bumping up against) this 'Here and Now', we need to be present to get the full experience from it. This to me is truly experiencing what God and His Creation have given us to be a part of. It's enjoying an amazing trip with a good friend, it is an intimate moment with someone you love, it is listening to your kid tell you about his day, it's about pushing your personal limits, and it's about changing your life. We all have it yet a good number of us don't spend time there. This place is paradise and this place is hell and it is everywhere in between. You can choose to spend time where ever you like, but 'Here and Now' is really all you can prove to me you have. Make sure you plan a trip there soon, you will be thankful you did.

Good Vision | Adventure Lifestyle Photographer

The writer and Don Bell during a circuit in the Russian designed Antonov AN2. 

I am very grateful for the opportunities that come along my path as a photographer and (ametuer) adventurer. But as I sat with Don Bell; entrepreneur and co-founder of West Jet this afternoon (after an exhilarating flight), I was reminded that those who are passionate about life naturally put themselves in a position to connect with other passionate and interesting people.

Don is passionate about many things including flying some of his personal aircraft. Today we took a few short flights in his Antonov AN2 for an interview in a future issue of Airdrielife. This was my first time back up in a fixed-wing aircraft since the crash and in no time I was just so taken by the size and agility this kind utility aircraft had.

Again like I started this post by saying, I am extremely grateful for the amazing experiences and the opportunity to connect with some of the most interesting people on the planet. The life we are given is a chance to do something more, to see what we are made of, to make something great. The only limits are the ones we impose upon ourselves. Talking to Don today again confirmed that those who do great things are generally the ones who see their dream as the goal and the roadblocks as a challenge.

What are you doing tomorrow?