Judge 2007

Nick Hamilton

PHOTO EDITOR, TRANSWORLD SNOWBOARDING

Growing up in the U.K. in the 1980s, Nick Hamilton spent much of his teenage years with camera in hand. His favorite subject to shoot was snowboarding and he could always be found carrying around his trusty portfolio of images, eager to share them with anyone who cared to take a look.

One afternoon in 1995, while hanging out with friends at the local snowboard shop, in came an editor from Harper's & Queen who was doing research on a snowboarding story for the magazine. Nick showed her the images and - wham! - he was published in one of the most well-respected magazines in Europe. "That was a good turning point for my parents to see, 'Okay he's not just out there wasting his time,'" he says.

Nick freelanced his way through high school with his sights set on going to photography school in London. He wasn't accepted into the school but Nick managed to land a gig as a staff photographer at a new U.K.-based snowboard magazine called White Lines. There he worked for six years, mostly in the field traveling and shooting all year long in places like the French Alps, Canada, South America and the U.S. "Those were the good ol' days but it definitely took its toll," he says.

The endless weeks on the road plus some shoulder problems he experienced from carrying heavy gear in cold weather had Nick thinking maybe it was time to phase out of work in the trenches. Naturally, when Transworld came calling in 2002 with the photo editor position, he was quick to jump ship. Now 28, Nick still enjoys the occasional travel and photo shoots but he's more stoked than ever about transferring his talents to the light table.

His favorite shoot:
"I did a story a couple years ago that I shot all at nighttime in the Arctic Circle in Finland with the Northern Lights - I had a couple covers from that trip. It was my fourth time shooting in Finland and it's always been really hard with the elements. It was so cold the batteries in my other cameras weren't working so that time I shot all medium format with a manual Hasselblad. The camera was a workhorse and I just kind of nailed it. Personally it meant a lot because I'm half-Finnish and because it took me three failed attempts to get it right."

On how snowboard imagery has changed in the past 5 years:
"It's gone full circle. After a few years of just documenting the technical difficulty of a rider's trick through sequences and far away angles, it's back to strong stills of snowboarding."