Photography is still something of an elemental artform to me at the moment. I get brief flashes of accidental luck while dancing on the border of mediocrity.

Rob G is awesome and kept suggesting shots for me all evening, entertaining the crowd with grinds where he stares people out from start to finish and generally rolling around as if he were the happiest man alive. There has to be something to the fruit and yoga strategy, then!

I don’t exactly know when I became such a perfectionist, but I find that I have absolutely no time for things that I’m not already good at. People quote the ’10,000 hours practise to be truely great at anything’ statistic, but the reality is that those of us who are used to putting on skates and being able to control exactly where our bodies are going find it frustrating to be completely out of control in a new activity.

Dave busting out a perfect stale 360.

I’m feeling that way about taking photos. I suck at shooting photos indoors! Shortly after the pro prelims I had to put my camera away, as the sheer volume of wasted shots-that-could-have-been-amazing made me feel a little bit sick in my stomach. I felt guilty for wasting shots that should have been captured for posterity! Rest assured, I’ll practise over the winter and come back better for next year. Here are my favourite shots that I actually managed to salvage, the rest you can find as always on our flickr.

Taylor Vertical Stall to 450 out!

Dan fishbrain stall on the high bank.

Stephane Lui Kang corkscrew 540 over the amazing jumpbox.

Alex B was dropping this time after time, I have absolutely no idea how it works.

Welcome back, Hans!

With everything he was throwing on this box, the best I could get was a soul. Chris Haffey, 270 back torque to soul.

Many, many thanks to Dany Thibodeau for giving us a place to sleep and more importantly for calling his son Mavrik! Such an awesome kid : )

The rest of the photos are here.

Tomorrow we start our series of pro guides to smarter skating… first up is Mike ‘Murda’ Johnson!

This entry was written by Guy, posted on September 9, 2009 at 1:20 pm, filed under Session and tagged MTL Classic. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.