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With Glowing Hearts a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

Photographer Blake Jorgenson contributes vision, talent and time to official VANOC book
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The ski and snowboard world knows Blake Jorgenson as one of the best action shooters in the industry, capturing the pros as they throw down some of their biggest tricks in B.C.'s scenic backcountry.

At his Whistler gallery, Jorgenson has taken typical "ski porn" to the next artistic level, sandwiching jaw-dropping action shots between beautiful panoramas and portraiture.

But the 15-year Whistlerite has recently been tasked with a new challenge: he's one of the photographers contributing to a book that's meant to capture the spirit of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The project, entitled With Glowing Hearts/Des plus brilliants exploits: The Official Commemorative Book of the XXI Olympic Winter Games and the X Paralympic Winter Games, is the third and final licensed book being published by John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd. for VANOC. The only official book from the 2010 Games, it's meant to commemorate the spirit, passion and beauty through hundreds of pages of original photography, including images of athletes, opening, closing and victory ceremonies and, of course, shots of the people and places behind the events.

The experience has proven to be heart-warming and inspiring for the seasoned photographer.

"I think it's been super positive for everybody," Jorgenson said. "I think Canadians are probably kind of passive when it comes to cheering and rooting on sports and nationalism and stuff like it, so it was kind of cool to see Canada break out of its shell!"

Having traveled extensively throughout Europe and the United States, Jorgenson points out that fans in those countries are far more vocal and enthusiastic in support of their athletes. So, he was proud to see the Canadian flags out in full-force during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

On Monday, Jorgenson had just wrapped up a shoot at the men's and women's standing slalom events.

"It was cool! I think everything's really the same at these Olympics except for the para part," he said. "...That's the first thing I noticed is sort of the difference, all the athletes and their para-setups and stuff like that is all super unique, it's all custom-made."

The Olympic book project came to his attention after VANOC's late creative director, Leo Obstbaum, walked into Jorgenson's Whistler gallery and asked him if he'd be interested in shooting for it.

"I originally put together a proposal when they originally contacted me of how I think I should shoot the Olympics," Jorgenson said. "And I kind of just went from there."

It seemed like a good chance to challenge his abilities, and be part of the Games at the same time.

"It's just kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I guess," he mused. "The Olympics are only here once and I've never seen the Olympics or shot any of the sports."

He found out he had been selected for the project last summer. He explains that he was hired to round out the project.

"Their tagline was 'National Geographic meets Burton,'" he laughed.

The project was definitely a change of pace for this hands-on photographer who's used to roughing it on backcountry shoots.

"Because it's a book, they wanted an editorial style of photography," he explained.

To provide the action sport component, the production team is pulling from Getty's extensive pool of imagery.

"There's a lot of photographers working out there for Getty. But because it's press and it's news, they're shooting a certain style," Jorgenson said.

"I was kind of the Whistler guy - I only shot in Whistler - so I just sort of shoot action as well as photojournalism, and lots of scenics and beauty shots."

They also hired two well-known Canadian photojournalists, Steve Simon and Rick Collins, and Vancouver-based photographer Sterling Lawrence, to contribute to the project.

Now, a team of editors and production people is working behind-the-scenes to pull the project together, selecting from all of the photographers' submissions.

"The book's being put together as it's being shot, basically," Jorgenson said.

He couldn't say exactly what the overall budget was, only that it is "well into the six-figures."

"It's really cool that they had a big budget for this," he added. "It's the biggest budget for any book project that I've ever seen or heard of."

Of course, one of the additional perks of being involved in the project was the all-access pass to events during the Games.

"That's basically gold seats to viewing all the events," he conceded.

Jorgenson did one day of pre-Game shooting, worked all 17 days of the Olympics and is set to shoot for three days during the Paralympic Games. And there's no break in sight; Jorgenson is already in the midst of another project with Matchstick Productions, shooting in the Bralorne backcountry.

"I pretty much go straight into my next job in Italy and straight into my next job after that."

Since he's known for almost nine months that he would be busy working on this Olympic project, Jorgenson's regular clients were forewarned that they would have to be patient. And so far, everything has gone smoothly.

Though Glowing Hearts won't be released until late spring or early summer, it's currently available for pre-order through vancouver2010.com, and apparently, it's been selling quite well.

"It's already a best-seller, and it's not even complete yet!" Jorgenson said.