Onboard Ed in Chief Danny Burrows gives us the story behind one of his favourite shots from the recent World Snowboarding Championships: Mark McMorris getting booted into solar orbit above Oslo’s Vinterpark. Read on.

On the afternoon of Friday, 17th February, the WSC men’s slopestyle semi final was drawing to a close under clear skies, with a beautiful winter sunset blooming in the west. Photographers had been working their way down the challenging course as the two heats of riders threw down trying to make it through to the last 10 for the finals.

A cluster of these shooters had congregated at the second hit to capture the light of the setting sun, among them myself, the legendary Espen Lystad and Pleasure’s sharpshooter Fischi.

I was trying hard to frame the rider as they traversed across the sun, having metered my exposure on the sky so that they would be silhouetted. Depressing the shutter release as Mark McMorris fired through my viewfinder I knew I’d bagged the shot, and once I’d checked the screen I knew that this would be my favourite photo of the entire event.

For those interested the camera settings were 1/1250 at F11, film speed 200, shot on a Nikon D3, at a focal length of 170 on a Nikon 80-200mm lens.

– Danny