I've had a lot of feedback to a recent article I wrote for Snowboard Canada Magazine. The funny thing about my career as a photographer is that it came out of my desire to be a writer. In the end I'm doing both but I've met so many good writers over the years that I can't take that side of my career as seriously as the photography.

In any case, SBC had been asking me to write something for their "RANT" column for a long time and I had been trying to avoid it because as I get more experience I realize that I don't want to invest in negative energy and would rather keep it positive. They persisted and one day one I was feeling particularly snarky I pounded out 750 words or so for the column. Now when I write something for a magazine, I do it so that it will be an excuse to run one of my photos. That's a dirty little secret in our world, if you can write, you'll get published more. That's all there is to it.

Anyhoo, the article came out and John Scarth used his own shot to illustrate it. Irony.

Here is the article in case you missed it:

Keep it to yourself.
 
For a long time now I’ve been known as an opinionated guy. Part of the punk rock chip on my shoulder still survives from my teens and as much as I mellow with age, there is a bitter cynic lurking just below the surface. I don’t really let that guy out much anymore. I’ve come to realize that when you invest in the negative energy, all you get is negative results.
 
But sometimes things just Piss. Me. Off.
 
I’m working on a book right now, and it’s about the history of our sport, and about the Westbeach company. It’s been really interesting to dig into the vaults and get to know where we came from a bit more. I mean, I lived it, but I was also a teenager and some of those years are a little blurry. So I’m looking at the pictures and stories with fresh eyes and let me tell you something - our history is something to be proud of.
 
But then somewhere along the line things changed. In the late 90’s there was a lot of consolidation of brands. Little guys either banded together with bigger guys, or they went out of business. Ski companies smelled money and moved in. People with real money, like Trump money, started looking at snowboarding like it was the next big, great investment. Some of them bought in too.
 
So what pisses me off? The culture that killed the Westbeach Classic pisses me off. It was the best snowboard event in Canada. Some people think it was the best event in the world. And it went away. Why did it go away? Because Westbeach got bought, sold, cut up into pieces, and eventually two groups of people who had nothing to do with the original company, snowboarding, or the heritage of the sport, and only cared about bottom lines, signed an absolutely horrendous contract and pulled the bloody pumping heart out of the company. And they didn’t even know that they were doing irreparable damage to Canadian snowboarding. Didn’t even care. It pisses me off that they were ever even allowed to be in a position to make decisions that affected our sport and our future. Of course they are going to do the wrong thing, they have no vested interest in the sport. So how in the world did venture capitalists and corporations get control of our future? We gave it to them.
 
When a company reaches a certain size, it becomes too expensive for them to keep doing business without outside money. Outside money doesn’t just grow on trees so when you get big enough and want to take it to the next level, chances are you will have to make a deal with the devil. Lots of snowboard companies made these deals to try to grow into a bigger company, but take a look around the landscape of Canadian snowboard history and you will see it littered with the bodies of companies that couldn’t make it work. Storm, Treeline, Rev, Or:g, Limited, Luxury, to name a few, and that’s just some of the board companies that come to mind.  So why am I mad? Am I some sort of class warrior socialist hero? No. I’m not that guy. But I am patriotic, and even more, I’m a snowboarder who cares about the future of Canadian snowboarding.
 
We need more Canadian snowboard brands. And we need companies that can say no to a bad deal and manage their growth. Anyone can go buy snowboarding culture at the mall every day, and instead of being a reflection of the people who live it, these days it’s just being force fed to them. I don’t want focus group tested colour ways. I don’t want 5 companies selling the same red and black striped jacket year after year. What I do want is individuals to make things that are unique. I want for them to get noticed for that, maybe get a little credit for that, and not get ripped off by some multi-national corporation. I want regional diversity. I want the people I meet on the road to look different from the people I meet at home. I want arrogant heroes and unapologetic badass locals. I want them to invent trends, grow them, and then when they're ready - unleash their culture on the clones.
 
Mostly I want riders to care enough to buy something local, something Canadian or even better I want you all to quit fucking buying “cool” at the mall and start making it yourself.
 
- dano

A photographer and sometimes social commentator, dano has been called both unapologetic and arrogant.
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