All Photos by Jim Mangan from Winter’s Children.
Jim Mangan is one of those visual artists who is able to capture the beauty of nature and the people who enjoy the bare nakedness of a winter season with humor, color, and poetic images. From his videos featuring pro skater and Olympic snowboarding gold medalist Shaun White in “Shaun White/James Bond & Silhouetted Intro” and “I Ride Park City” series, to his photo shoot of pro snowboarder Tara Dakides in Park City, but on ice skates instead of a snowboard, to his first fine art book, “Winter’s Children,” he captures the imagination and gets us stoked for winter.
In “Winter’s Children” Mangan goes a step further featuring a motley crew of naked snowboarders wearing only colorful Pendleton-type wool blankets. He illustrates the story with images of them hiking the mountain (could be Park City, UT) in the traditional mode of earning your turns, against a cold, barren mountain landscape, on a typical, non-bluebird day, which makes the blankets pop with color against the grey background.
Naked riders on vintage boards.
Mangan’s knowledge of snowboarding is also apparent as each naked rider is on some type of vintage snowboard, from old-school Burton’s to Wintersticks and Snow Techs, which are not all that easy to ride. And the riders, going back to the roots of the sport, are in classic winter boots or Sorrels and not much else.
Obviously, it must have been butt-cold to snowboard naked, but then again, there’s the humor and it creates an adventurous segue into the final shots of this merry band of riders gathered around a roasting outdoor fire.
“Winter’s Children” will be released by Powerhouse Books in December.
