Some Whistler locals might still be mourning the loss of Blackcomb’s Wizard chair, but the grieving were temporarily comforted by the appearance of another wizard popping out from under the peaks last week.
Lake Tahoe, Calif.-based photographer Ming T. Poon edged out five other competitors to take the top spot—and the $5,000 prize—at the 13th annual Deep Winter Photo Challenge, held at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler on Friday night, Jan. 11, with spectacular slideshow that fulfilled the deep winter requirement, plus an added fantastical twist.
Over the holidays, Poon brainstormed themes with family until he thought, “What if I’m searching for something?” he recalled. “I’m not a fantasy guy at all—I only read non-fiction, pretty much … but all of a sudden I was like, “What if we were searching for the wizard?”
After considering the idea’s flexibility and finding out about Whistler’s beloved, late Wizard chair, “I was like, “oh my god,” Poon recalled.
“The theme was good enough that it could become its own thing and evolve ... one of the first things I did was I went on Amazon and bought a couple of different costumes that I thought could be potentially cool.”
Poon’s idea resulted in the wizard popping up everywhere from wanted posters plastered throughout the village, captioned “Have you seen the wizard?” to ski patrol meetings and hiding in the woods—smoking a pipe in the forest while Poon’s crew of professional riders skied past him—to crowd surfing in the Glacier chair lift line and dropping into powder-covered pillow lines, to, eventually, chugging a kokanee on an old wizard chair installed in the upper village.
“I dressed these guys up; it was absurd,” he said with a laugh.
“We built some hype. It was insane because it became this thing where people were like, “I’ve seen the wizard!” Poon continued.
Despite never having been to Whistler, or even hearing of the Deep Winter contest before being invited to participate, Poon still managed to seek out the best terrain over the course of the competition.
“I’ve never been in the resort, I’ve never been to B.C., the only thing I would say that I had was that I’m familiar with maritime snowpack … but otherwise everything was so foreign,” Poon continued. “I can’t stress enough how important the athletes were, because they knew everything. They knew all the locations, they knew what was up with the conditions, because they had been skiing there every day.”
He put together a crew of professional athletes, including Leanne Pelosi, Jeff Keenan, Dana Flahr, Ian McIntosh and Andrea Byrne. As for the wizard, local Eric Richmond donned the costume and beard for the first day of shooting, while pro skier Tobin Seagel slid into the role the following day—resulting in some impressive shots of the wizard ripping down the mountain.
“It’s puking out; it’s wet; cold, that (wizard suit’s) made of cotton or nylon or whatever and it just starts sucking in water and freezing, the beard smells like smoke from Eric the day before … and (Tobin) totally embraced it and crushed it, and then there was no way we were getting it off of him, essentially,” Poon said with a laugh.
“We had so much fun. We just went out did our thing, what we always do; we chase the best snow and the best terrain based on the weather conditions … We turned it into some amazing imagery and such a good time, everybody was just pumped and so psyched to be a part of it, I think.”
Poon also enlisted the help of editor Jeff Thomas to pull it all together.
“He was the most important. He’s so much more than a video editor, he was heavily involved with the creative … He helped me have a clear vision and kept me focused on what was important to win, essentially.”
Poon’s show, and his execution of the theme, earned audible laughs, cheers and hollers from the sold-out crowd—not to mention more than a few singing along with the theme-appropriate accompanying track, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Judges chose Squamish photographer Kieran Brownie to win the $2,500 runner-up prize, while Jake Dyson, a Whistler local by way of Australia, took home third place and $1,500 with his show, featuring an all-female crew.
Rounding out the list of competitors was Pemberton’s Josh Dooley, Burton staff photographer Jesse Dawson and Vancouver’s Bruin Alexander.
Dooley snagged the People’s Choice award for his creation—a title accompanied by $1,000 and a package from Whistler Heli-Skiing—while Alexander walked away with 500 cans of Kokanee, awarded to the photographer who best incorporated the B.C. brew into a shot.
