Behind the Shot brings you every week or so a sick shot from a rad photographer, where he explains the context of the photo session, as well as all the technical aspects you might want to know about. If you’re a snowboard photo geek, this is for you!

After Mike Yoshida, here’s another extremely talented photographer from the Great North West, addicted to backcountry and respected for his work all across the planet: Jeff Patterson. Here are his secrets behind this epic shot of Rusty.

No need to double cork, spin flip or twist, he just busted a big ollie, classic Craig Kelly style Crail.

Rusty Ockenden – Crail Grab Cliff Drop to Pillow. Whistler, BC Canada

Camera: Canon Mark3

Lens: 70-200 F2.8

ISO: 100

Speed: 1000th

Aperture: 9.0

The Tech

Like Yosh said in last weeks posting – nothing uber camera tech. Settings almost standard of what most shoot on a classic bluebird day in the snow.

I liked the texture details of the snow, and how the sun played off the natural shapes. I pulled in the foreground trees to get some color, and depth, and hoped that it would add “Height” to the drop giving some vertical lines. The light was great, the snow was deep..

The Context

This was a random day after a huge snowfall last season. The weather on this morning was actually horrible, so loads of the main bowl pillows got hit in low/foggy light as it looked like the day would be a write off. Suddenly the sun broke, and left a short time with warm morning light to get a few shots. Rusty is one of the hardest working guys I have been able to work with in the last few years, and has style for miles. This was one of my favorite shots of last year, and was passed over by all the mags.. not sure why! I like it, Hope you guys do as well.

No need to double cork, spin flip or twist, he just busted a big ollie, classic Craig Kelly stlye Crail, and dropped into neck deep choker pow!

Check Jeff’s website, and follow him on twitter/instagram @pattersonimages