The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG – Sixteen-year-old Waitsburg High junior Jared Farley remembers crashing on a trail at Ski Bluewood when he was six or seven years old, and wanting to walk rather than ski back down. Just then, the Bluewood Ski Team passed by and Jared recalled thinking, "Wow! I want to be like them!"

His quick-thinking Mom, Sandra, told him if he would ski to the bottom of the run, he could join the team. That wreck was the unlikely nudge that led Farley to his current hobbies of competitive skiing and action photography.

Jared, along with his brother Drew and sister Amy, skied on the Bluewood team for several years before joining the Spokane Ski Racing Association. Drew stopped skiing competitively this year, and instead played basketball at WHS, but Jared and Amy continue to compete.

Jared said that Amy, an 8th grader, does "really well for her age group." She used to make the podium regularly and still makes the top 10, though competition gets tougher the older the racers get, he said.

Jared now competes at the FIS (International Ski Federation) level, which is open to ages 16 and up, with World Cup competition being the next step. At this level, he and his three other team members compete "all over the place," including Schweitzer Mountain, Jackson Hole, the Sugar Bowl near Norden Calif., and Mammoth Mountain in California.

"This is the first year we've had to travel like this," he said. "Because the FIS level is open to more people, it includes a bigger region."

In December, Jared raced against 30 competitors at Alyeska Resort, about 40 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, in the Chugach Mountains. He placed 11th out of 68 in the slalom in his most recent race at Schweitzer, even though he said the slalom is "not typically my event."

Jared said he and his team members wanted to video themselves skiing, which led him to action photography. Jared started taking photos and video about a year ago and has advanced his skills quickly.

His teammates are happy to accommodate and allow him to direct them as they take runs and jumps for him to photograph.

"When you're on the race course all the time and build up the skills for free skiing it's fun to go test that creativity everywhere else on the mountain. Photography just naturally went along with that," he said.

Jared said he was inspired by photos, especially those of the stars in the night sky, taken by Dayton photographer Nick Page. He watched YouTube videos and practiced at home to learn different settings and enjoyed seeing how creative he could get.

"I went to a business workshop where Nick Page said to look at other people's photos and try to replicate them, but do them better. So that's what I try to do. I look at someone else's pictures and once I can do it I experiment and add my own creativity," he said.

"With skiing there is always the standard magazine shot. But I try and find something that is different, or a weird angle. I can ski where other people can't and since I can go where the skier can, I can get in some cool spots to take pictures," he added.

A shot Jared took of one of his teammates skateboarding won Best in Category and People's Choice in photography at the Columbia County Fair in Dayton last summer, which he found encouraging.

Jared said he'd like both skiing and photography become part of his career path, if possible. He isn't sure how far he wants to go with racing, but said there are plenty of opportunities in skiing. He mentioned photographer and mentor Blake Jorgensen as an example.

Jorgenson travels with professional skiers who rely on him to take the photos that will get sponsors. Jared said there is also a skiing website called New Schoolers, where photographers travel to different locales and shoot photographs and write stories about their experiences.

"I'd like to just see where I can go with it. I always have agriculture to fall back on," he said.

Jared works on the family farm in the summers and said one of the benefits of skiing is that it doesn't conflict with farming, since winter is downtime.

Jared says he also enjoys farming, which still allows him to be outdoors and physically active. His favorite job is hauling hay on Jasper Mountain where he says there is always a good view and plenty of wildlife.

He said the downside to both photography and skiing is that they're expensive hobbies. And photography can be all-absorbing, it seems. Jared said his mom nixed him taking his camera to his last race because he and his teammates got so absorbed taking photos at the race prior that they missed some training runs. Lesson learned.

Jared competed at Schweitzer Mountain last weekend and was headed to the Sugar Bowl in California on Wednesday.