Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Kate Howe, ski model, international woman of Mystery...

Alpine Skiing by Ron Kipp, published by Human Kinetics hits stores September 1!

I am super excited to have been selected as one of the ski models for Ron Kipp's new book.  Ron is the education director for the U.S. ski team and I got to spend three days skiing around with he and Ron Lamaster, the author of Ultimate Skiing and the Skiers Edge and World Cup photographer.

I also got to ski around with Mike Rogan which was amazing; that's not a bad skiing image to copy.  He's that dude doing the amazing carve on the last cover of Ski magazine, among other feats. The other female ski model was Tonya Heller who skied with them the day before they skied with me.  She is an amazing full cert Austrian who is gorgeous and skis the way I hope that I will ski one day when I grow up.

Doing a ski shoot means they want one turn right where they want it and it has to really look good. Otherwise you have to hike to back up and do it again and it wastes everybody's time. There's a lot of pressure which is kind of why I was excited to do it.  It's good practice for standing around and wait and then, boom, perform.  Just like tryouts will be.

I was hopeful and nervous that my skiing would be in the place where it needs to be so that it is helpful for the author and publisher for a book on how to ski well.  I know that my skiing has gotten a lot better but I still was wanted to make sure that whatever I was doing was actually helpful to them and not a big time waster.

They wanted nice bright form fitting clothing for the shoot, which of course, I don't own. I wear big, baggy bright purple free-ride pants and a sweatshirt when I ski, so...

The folks at POC hooked me up with Dave at Kjus! They sent me to some gorgeous, gorgeous clothes which made me feel like a rockstar.  It was so fun.  They are just absolutely beautiful. Bright orange pants and a bright blue jacket and they are definitely form fitting and but still definitely skiers clothes and just fabulous.

I got to wear them for five days skiing around the moutntains while we took shots in incredible bluebird weather in fresh snow. For real. I kept pinching myself. Right? This is normal, this is something that people get to do. WOW. It was amazing fun, I was focused on doing my very best, I got to make some new friends and say thank you to Mike for all his help over the years.  

Five days later, I had to mail the clothes back, and it was back into reality, my lovely, baggy, purple pants of doom, and splittling a rice krispy bar for lunch. Its so fun to dream, play and visit these other worlds!!

I felt grateful because during the shoot, we got so many compliments about how beautiful the clothes were.  I hope that it helps Kjus out a little bit because they definitely went above and beyond in Fed Exing me that stuff for the shoot.

It was really amazing to get tips on my skiing from Ron Kipp and Ron LeMaster, as well has having Mike Rogan coaching me for two days, and then to get the photo shot by them.  What an amazing experience!  The book comes out Sept 1, look for it here!!

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