Colin Meagher Photo Feature

A picture of Colin, his own bad self.

A note to the reader: I've been working with Colin Meagher for almost a decade now and he continues to impress me. The guy captures countless jaw-dropping photos that will have you seriously consider burning down your cubicle and giving up the rat race forever. Colin's photography inspires a fever for riding...but enough of my editorial chatter. Here's a sampling of Colin's incredible work--paired with the story behind each photo--straight outta Colin's head. Enjoy. Oh yeah, if you want to check out more of Mr. Meagher's work, go to Colin's Website. Enjoy...Vernon Felton

This was a shot taken on a wall ride in Whistler, up off of the Garbonzo Chair. I shot this with Chris Van Dine on his Ventana El Cuervo--his DH race bike. The in run is shitty. You have to pin it for about a 60 yards, and then make a sharp right hand turn onto an absolutely crappy little path. And there is very little in the way of transition onto the wall. I knew it would take someone with a good motor to be able to really get out on this wall ride the way I had envisioned it, so I was glad I ran into Chris; his World Cup fitness really made this shot.

A most pensive Wade Simmons.

Wade Simmons is a part of a portraiture series I have been taking on. This was actually the first portrait I shot in the series. The whole idea is to create an image that shows the person for who they are, without the sponsors, and away from the bike. I think that this one nailed it dead on: no bike, no sponsors, just Wade in a contempletive moment.

This was an amazing day. A long climb up in shit weather, and then miraculously, the clouds broke as we topped out. The view of Mt Rainier across the valley from us was just to stunning to not stop and gaze. Eye candy for the soul. This is one of the few images I've ever shot that actually captures the moment so exactly.

Syncline is a trail in the Columbia River Gorge. I'm not telling where exactly; the trail is already getting torn up quite a bit by out-of-towners runnning DH bike shuttles on it when it's wet. If you do know where it is, just remember that it really is an XC trail. There are other trails you can ride on with your DH bike. And if you have to run a shuttle, try and do when the trail has dried out. And yeah, I ride a big bike, too, so it's not me being an XC weenie and getting preachy, I just hate seeing trails get torn up when they aren't designed for that kind of bike.

This is an image I shot during the Calgary World Cup DH finals in July of 2004. The venue was great for anything but a DH track; there was simply not enough vertical or genuinely technical terrain for a world cup caliber DH track, and to their credit, the organizers put in what they could, but all in all, the track was a joke. A lot of racers were practicing on singlecrown forks. But the course lay on soil with a high clay content. A sudden prairie thunderstorm came in morning of race day and soaked the place, turning the course into a treacherous ice skating rink, with this one steep chute leading into a sharp right hander becoming into the crux of the race: ride it clean, and you're golden; blow out on the corner, and your race is over. This is Sam Hill, fighting to keep the rubber side down in the grease. On a side note, due to the insane "grease" factor of the dirt, every photographer and spectator at this point of the course was rooted to their spots; if you moved, you'd fall and slide into the course. I was fortunate to be on a tuft of prairie grass about the size of a dinner plate that kept me from slipping, as was Gibby [photographer, John Gibson}, but we both witnessed more than one unfortunate slide onto the track. It was amazing that no one got hit or that no racer called interference.