Vans off the Trail

A spec ad of the Vans Ultrarange Exo Hi MTE-3 Gore-Tex Sneaker

I photographed this series with Sawyer Jolly, an outstanding portrait photographer whose work and presence elevated the shoot. Sawyer modeled for several shots and also captured images of me wearing the shoes, and his contribution shaped the final set.

This entire set of images was shot manually focused with the Meike 50 0.95 aperture on the Fujifilm X-H2s. Image taken by Sawyer Jolly. Sawyer is typically the guy who makes me change my profile picture every time we create images together.

The concept

Vans off the trail, was just trying to make an outdoor version of its original skateboarding line “vans off the wall”. I asked sawyer to help me out with just creating some hiking lifestyle images on Mount Hood.

The experience

Starting at the bottom of the Timberline trail at Mount Hood, we noticed lots of other Hikers equipped with snowshoes or Cross Country Skies… but Sawyer had the Vans on while I just had a regular pair of Barefoot Hiking Boots. The mountain was completely icy, hardly any fresh powder, so going up the mountain defintely brought me some challenges.

Sawyer’s experience on the other hand, completely relaxed and had no doubt when he would take a step. These boots Resembled having All-terrain Tires. keeping up with the better equipped hikers that were on the same trail.

We finally found some area to take some images. I was a little worried about using manual focus to get these images, as well as having a pretty tight focal length. The Meike 50mm 0.95 Aperture(75mm full frame equivalent) was perfect for focusing on product images and its surrounding environment. The typical F/stop range I’m usually at, is around 5.6-8 so the 0.95 really didn’t matter. But the sharpness, focus pulling and overall build of the lens gave me confidence in creating a fine image.

A message to vans

Your boot works. It handled alpine terrain, wet rock, and hard ice without complaint. But more than that — it photographs well, which is a different kind of performance. The colorway earns its place in the PNW palette. And the crossover identity — skate heritage meets alpine function — gives it a visual story that most hiking boots don’t have.

To Outdoor Brands-

I live for the PNW outdoors and call a van home so I can spend most of my time outside. If you want your brand or product shown in some of the region’s most unique landscapes, I’m up for collaborating. Let’s create organic images that tell your story the way it should be told.