Follow me on Instagram @carolinegleich
When I was growing up in Minnesota, I always had a dream of being a professional skier. I never grew up ski racing or skiing competitively, so it seemed really unlikely to me that I’d ever get anywhere with a ski career. I used to cut out @leecohen_pics photos from @powdermagazine and hang them on my wall. I never thought that someday, I’d get to shoot photos with the legend himself. I moved to Utah when I was 15, and when I graduated from high school, I started pursuing my dream of becoming a professional skier. I didn’t really know what I was doing, especially in the powder, but I’d try and ski as much as I could in between school and work (as a coach, nanny and at an outdoor store) and ski with as many good skiers as possible, following them through the trees, powder and chutes to emulate their form and body position. My next wave of learning how to be a good skier came from Lee. When I first got the opportunity to shoot photos with him in 2006, he would replay the frames so I could learn how my body position was supposed to be and where my hand and pole plant should go. As we were chatting on the skin track today, we reminisced about those early days of my career. There are few people I know who have been in the snow industry as long as Lee. His photos show a love and reverence for snow and light. He’s deeply committed to being a ski bum. I’m grateful for all the days he’s stood outside in the freezing cold, snapping away photos like these (I’m not sure how his cameras survive…) that will hopefully fuel the next generation of big mountain, powder dreams, like this photo from today. @leecohen_pics #bigmtndreams
