He’s been with us since the beginning and has overcome some serious obstacles to maintain a shooting lifestyle. Meet photographer Doug Le Page.

Doug Le Page is one of our favourite photographers. He’s been capturing skiers since before Glen Plake had a mohawk and he’s overcome a lot to ensure he keeps his camera firing. He’s currently doing an Instagram takeover of both our KMC and CMC channels with photos he presented at our 2018 Backyard Booty event (see video below). We asked him to describe, in his own words, his career thus far. This is what he had to say:

Skier: Trace Cooke. Whitewater Ski Resort Backcountry.

I was born, raised and am finishing off my sixth decade in Nelson, British Columbia. (Yes, we do exist.) I began taking ski photos (self taught) of my buddies back in the early eighties after getting hooked on it by slideshows put on by local brothers Jim and Doug Turner. Not long after, Bill Heath and Mike Davies showed up at Whitewater Ski Resort with their movie cameras in tow and I had people to hang out with and to shoot stills of the athletes they were filming.

After a while, I started submitting images to magazines and had my first photos published in the October 1987 issue of Ski Canada. I have had a good run since and had many images published around the world. I grew up in the era of film, but like most photographers I’ve gone digital, sometimes with sadness, as the two are different mediums: film being the harder and more expensive of the two. Along with fellow photographer and Nelson resident Dave Heath, I like to think I helped put skiing in this area on the map. I swear, like coffee shops, there are now more ski photographers per capita in Nelson than anywhere. The old days of having one of my Milklands to myself are gone as the hills are teeming with cameras!

In 2013 I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, which has cut into the amount of time I put into photography because of symptoms that include anxiety, energy loss and dexterity issues. My slideshow for The Backyard Booty was 95 perfecnt taken post diagnosis, though, which I’m very proud of. I hope to continue taking images as long as I can, so if you’re a stud skier and don’t mind working with a slow, old camera guy, give me a shout.

Skier: Trace Cooke. Whitewater Ski Resort.

For more about Doug, check out his takeover of our Instagram channels or follow his own feed on Instagram: @dlepage4937. He posts an old, scanned slide photo every Thursday for #tbt.