Photographer Jonathan Crosby

It’s oppressively hot in Athens so I thought I’d post something from my winter interning at the Aspen Daily News. The frame is of a gnarly crash at the Adaptive World Cup downhill event at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, CO.

Up until this point, Aspen has been struggling with an unusually low snowpack. The Roaring Fork Valley was operating at about 70% snowpack average, and that personally feels like a generous statistic. My rock skis were the choice ski all season because dodging rocks and gravel wasn’t uncommon. Luckly, in the past 3 or so days, we were blessed with 3 feet of fresh snow. Although it was pretty heavy snow, it was well needed and breathed life into town.

The town is now awake. I got to the gondola at Ajax before it opens at 9 A.M. in hopes of getting first bucket and was surprised to see the line weaving out the corral and down the stairs. It was worth the wait. Over the next few days I skied myself into to the ground. My body hates me, stairs are the enemy, and the Ritz-Carlton hot tub next door is my saviour.

One great this about being the winter intern at the Aspen Daily News was the opportunity to photograph the ESPN Winter X Games 14. Although the access was very limited despite having a press pass, it was interesting to see some of the behind-the-scenes operations and was also a new experience to cover such a large event. It was a long and very cold 4 days but I walked away with a few frames I like and learned new things about the industry. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t shot sports action in a year or 2 so it was a good challenge to get back in the saddle and produce some good imagery for the paper.

I got the opportunity a few weeks ago to take some aerial photos to accompany a weekly series that the Aspen Daily News is starting called Hidden Gems. It was an amazing experience to fly around in a little 4 seater plane taking photos of some truly incredible mountains and land.

From the article:

“This is the first in a weekly series profiling the areas proposed by the Hidden Gems campaign for federal wilderness designation. The campaign, led by Carbondale’s Wilderness Workshop, calls for more than 400,000 acres to be protected as wilderness. Most of the land is in the White River and Gunnison national forests, and includes areas in Pitkin, Gunnison, Eagle and Summit counties. An act of the U.S. Congress is required to designate new wilderness. The campaign has drawn criticism from some outdoor recreationalists, because all mechanized use and development is barred in federal wilderness.”

you can read the rest of the story here.

Some images from a gay costume contest the other day. I found the judges – 3 drag queens – to be pretty entertaining and shot their portraits after the event was over.

“Portia Potty:”

“Nuclia Waste:”

and “Gabriella Butzin:”

Here are a few frames from daily feature hunting for the Aspen Daily News.

Basalt Barber Shop:

Silver Circle Ice Rink in down town Aspen:

I’m spending the winter in Aspen, CO to complete an internship at the Aspen Daily News. So far its been fun getting to know a new town and working for a paper. While driving home from grocery shopping in Basalt, I drove by Buttermilk ski resort where a snowcat was doing the daily prep on the X Games superpipe. I went back later at night thinking it could be a cool feature photo for the paper. The light fall off made for pretty dramatic photos of the Olympic-standard half-pipe that has 22′ walls.