FROM SCRAPBOOKS TO “BROADCAST YOURSELF”
Ski Memories in the Making
Perhaps the biggest change in ski technology is one that has nothing to do with your gear and clothing, but in how you remember your day on the hill. In the ’70s most ski photos were shot on film—remember the infamous “110 size” negative. If haphazardly stored in an old shoebox, the prints eventually faded with time.
By the ’80s, enthusiastic shutterbug skiers were packing 35mm cameras like the Canon AE-1 (Automatic Exposure) that unfortunately often rendered images of shadowy blobs against a blinding, snowy background. Most skiers hated skiing with a clunky single-lens reflex (SLR) rig, but all of that changed when Olympus introduced the pocket-sized XA.
The ’90s ushered in an avalanche of technology. Autofocus on SLR cameras was finally reliable, and the bumpy transition from 35mm into digital imagery was underway. Going digital came with a huge bonus: mistakes made in exposure or composition could be corrected by computer software like Adobe Elements.
Into the new millennium, high-quality point and shoot digital cameras like the Panasonic Lumix delivered amazing vacation photos and took pretty good videos as well. In 2004, ads in surf magazines touted a weird little camera with a fisheye lens that clamped onto the front end of a surfboard. The GoPro, as it was called, was not an overnight success until skiers, snowboarders and mountain bikers began adapting its mounting hardware onto helmets. It led to the rise of social media “influencers” such as Whistler’s One Cut Media, whose YouTube channel features a delightfully amateurish collection of weekend warrior buffoonery.
With the advent of the iPhone4 and its love-it-or-hate-it “selfie” feature, ski vacations—indeed everyday life—would never be the same. The latest smartphone iterations like the iPhone 13 and Samsung Galaxy 21 take truly pro-grade images and video that can instantly be uploaded to file-sharing sites like Facebook and Instagram—or published in Ski Canada.