Netflix Co-founder Reed Hastings & Powder Mountain

I had one of my favorite assignments ever earlier this year. The Times of London sent me out to Powder Mountain in Utah to do an updated story about how Netflix Co-founder Reed Hastings' ownership was changing the mountain.

I left the morning the fires started in LA, something that made it hard to enjoy how great the assignment truly was. It was a little difficult focusing on the things in front of me while my phone was constantly buzzing with people checking in and updates about what was happening back home. It made for distracted nights of editing in my hotel room while checking to see that latest developments. There was a jarring contrast between to cool, fun, snowy days I was experiencing in Utah on a very cushy assignment, while back home so much was ablaze. I kept thinking about how if it weren't for this assignment in this beautiful place, I would be out in the smoke in LA covering the fires. It all made my head swim a bit, but I tried to compartmentalize things and enjoy this assignment I'd been looking forward to so much for the past couple weeks.

I spent two days on the mountain with reporter Harriet Alexander, meeting up to go snowboarding with and to take a few portraits of Hastings. He was generous with his time and whatever I asked of him. So often, with things like this, you only have a couple minutes - I was blessed with two hours. We were joined by Powder Mountains CCO Alex Zhang for half the day as well. He showed us around the mountain and talked about their various goals with the mountain.

Besides needing to capitalize on the time I had with Hastings, it was a low pressure shoot in a beautiful location doing a sport I love. I've never been hired to photograph while snowboarding before, but being born by the Tetons, it's something I've been doing all my life. It was awesome to be able to capitalize on that skillset and to just have a great, relaxing assignment. It was difficult to watch LA burn from afar at the same time, but I suppose that made it a good lesson in compartmentalizing things I have no control over.

Thanks for taking the time to read and look at my photos.