FRIDAY MARCH 28, 2008 TRUCKEE, CALIFORNIA - The mission was simply this, within three days drive from San Clemente to Lake Tahoe, catch up with the Flow team for two nighttime studio shoots; two daytime action shoots and then return to Southern California. A tough mission to accomplish considering the short period of time to execute.

Dan Watts on Location

Flow creative director Dan Watts and I set out at 4am on Tuesday in the Flow van and drove north up the I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley to Lake Tahoe to meet up with the Flow team and collect valuable images for the new website, advertising and general marketing needs. After a long 8.5 hours of driving we arrive at the Hampton Inn in Truckee where we were quickly notified by Team Manager Andrew Mutty to meet him at Boreal for a twilight night shoot.

We rushed our check in, grabbed our gear and headed to Boreal. We arrived at the baselodge and were greeted by Andrew, Rami Hanafi (the new Flow team photographer), Jussi (Northern Scrapbook filmer) Antti, Risto, Clair, Mercedes, and our new amateur Czech rider Sarka Pancochova. Sarka had also just arrived from Europe three hours earlier.

Andrew was nice enough to let Dan, Sarka and I grab some runs and shake off the rust before rushing everyone over to the backside of Boreal where he had arranged a quarter pipe to be built up to a giant California pinewood tree. In no time the team was busy working away trying to get some great shots with the Sierra sunset framing in the background. A 2-hour shoot was enough to get a bunch of great shots and before the quarter pipe deteriorated. We then hiked back to the lodge and headed to the hotel to setup for the first studio shoot with Mercedes and Clair.

Both Dan and I quickly changed into our street clothes, and rushed downstairs to set up for the studio shoot in the main conference room of the hotel. Clair and Mercedes were really tired from a long day of riding and shooting but showed us their professionalism. They worked hard with us to shoot some great lifestyle images featuring their equipment with both their snow clothes on and also in their casual clothes. It was about 1am when Dan and I finally got finished with the lifestyle shoot and off to our beds…. a fitting end to a 21-hour day.

 The next morning, Mutty had the whole team eating breakfast at 7am sharp and heading to Northstar for a superpipe photo shoot. Wow what a shoot it turned out to be. A perfect cut pipe, and beautiful weather were there to greet us. Clair was hucking 8 foot out 7’s and Sarka and Mercedes were both boosting huge methods to really help nail down some great shots of the ladies in the sunny morning skies. Antti, Risto, and Petja Piiroinen (fresh off his flight from Europe) also threw down some great pipe riding to cap a very productive day.  

The marketing pushed continued and we hurried back to the hotel to help Giro finish off their studio shoot with Antti, Clair and Risto before we started the final Flow team studio shoot and interviews. Antti was nice enough to deliver a Thai dinner to all of us in the conference room. This was a great TEAM dinner and felt good to have all of the team there to enjoy some well-needed company bonding. We then proceeded to shoot some great lifestyles shots of Antti, Risto, Scotty, Jeremy Thompson, Sarka and Petja (both are the current World Junior Champions!), and the Boyes brothers (Micron Team).

This made for a really fun shoot in which Scotty Lago continued to teach everyone on how to “ham it up” in front of the camera. It was about 2 AM when Dan and I finally got to bed. 5AM was the wakeup call to get up and head back down south. Mercedes and Sarka both met us in the lobby to hitch a ride down to Mammoth for the Roxy Chicken Jam and Miss Superpark. We decided to do a test and see if the back way down the 395 to So Cal was as fast as taking the 5. It turned out to be exactly the same time 8.5 hours.  A really productive trip produced great images and an awesome time with the Flow team. 

This is a peak into 2 days of a long season grind for Andrew Mutty and the team. We are all really excited to see the incredible image library he is building of the team with Rami. A big thanks to sergeant Mutty, Rami, Jussi and of course, the team. Look for a lot of these images being collected to be appearing in most of Flow's marketing materials, the world’s top snowboard magazines and snow specific websites this fall. For this specific battle, I would definitely have to say, “Mission accomplished!” 

----Photo's and Words by Jack Coghlan