Jimmy Sock.

This time last year, I was engulfed in the presence of the one and only Jimmy Sock. For those of you who do not know him, Jimmy Sock is one hell of a character. You have to meet him to get where I'm coming from. He came up to Wanaka last year, in some sort of crazy mindset, to tick off a whole tonne of rails pre season. It didnt matter what it took he was gonna get it done, and wanted me to shoot them.

After not doing a northern hemi, I too was on some sort of mission to get the first of the early snow. It all started off with a shoot up at the snowfarm, with the very first snow fall. ( May 11th 07 ) and the shot got run Contents page in NZsnowboarder. Heres a couple of left overs from that shoot.



After warming up at snowfarm, Jimmy continued on his task of taking down a whole lotta infamous rails around Wanaka. Shit, we even drove up to Christchurch to shoot some rails. The result of that trip being a Byrning Spears ad of Will Marshall. It was highly cropped, but this was the original image.


Sock wanted to pay his respect to the greatest bar in Wanaka. Out the back of shooters is one Gnarly Wall hugging kink. Mark Catsburg put his claim on this a few years back, the photo got run as an Alcoholic Ad. Its one hell of a gnarly kink, pressed right up against a wall. Jimmy got enough snow to put a patch at the top, and the bottom, and proceeded to get the job done. We were about 4 hits in, when we got kicked out. AND it was 8am!

Jimmy and the shooters kink.

All these missions were starting to get to Sock. Frustrations of no snow, no food, and sleeping in your car can get to any man. One of the last rails to tick off, was the Albert Town Rail. This thing is a behemoth. There was really no hope in hell from the start. But that didn't stop Sock. He still tryed it anyway. It brings me back to the chargers that ride for the hell of it. James has a pretty crazy attitude, and is certainly very entertaining. Rumour is he's coming back to Wanaka soon. LOOK OUT>>>>