Owen Ringwall: Photographer Snowboard Bum

          Owen Ringwall, a freshman at the University of Vermont, has always dedicated his winters to snowboarding. Since he can remember, his family has been going up to their condo at Sunday River almost every weekend during the ski season. Both of his parents ski, as well as his younger brother, so skiing was always a family activity. His father, Bruce, is on the board of trustees at The Grand Jordan Hotel, right on Sunday River, and has always been involved with the corporate side of things at Sunday, resulting in a condo at the Jordan and discounted skiing. At a very young age, he dropped his skis and picked up a snowboard. After a few years of snowboarding, he started competing in freestyle events. Owen joined the Sunday River Snowboard Team, and spent every weekend doing freestyle competitions in Maine. Many times, he did so well during the competition season that he would end up qualifying and competing at the National competition in Colorado. He would save up money throughout the year doing small landscaping jobs so that he could help pay for his summer trips to High Cascade Snowboard Camp on the glacier at Mount Hood in Oregon. He got to snowboard during the winter, and get help on his tricks from professional snowboarders. Around his junior year of high school, he lost interest in competing. Like most people, he realized that it would take an incredible amount of practice and dedication to improving his tricks in order to continue winning competitions. He then turned his focus to cameras.

          When he was around 16, he became seriously interested in cameras. He bought a Cannon digital SLR camera and began taking pictures; a lot of pictures. When senior year came around, he had to choose a topic for his senior project, so he chose to document snowboard culture through photojournalism. He began reaching out for mentors, sending emails to snowboard photographers and photo editors for snowboard magazines all over. The photo editor for a small, East coast snowboard magazine (coincidentally called East Coast Snowboard Magazine) happened to live in the next town over, and was more than happy to set up a lunch. After meeting, he agreed to be Owen's mentor for his project. Owen spent the rest of his winter taking trips all over the East, taking pictures as the magazine's intern. He had top level media credentials to most of the major snowboard events on the East coast, and ended up with a few pictures published in East Coast Snowboard Magazine and Transworld (one of, if not the largest snowboard magazines). All of the snowboarding he did with his mentor that year was covered by the magazine, as well as all of the overnight accommodations. On weekends when he was not with his mentor, he was up at Sunday River, as always. Towards the end of his senior year, Owen's mentor suggested that the fill out an application for a job as a photographer at High Cascade, the snowboard camp that he had attended when he was younger, but stopped after he was done competing. His mentor told him that the job was almost guaranteed with all of the work that he had done over the past season, and his connection to the magazine; he just had to send in an application.

          His mentor had been right. Owen got the job, and shortly after graduating, he flew out to Oregon to start being a snowboard bum. He moved into a house in the town at the base of Mount Hood (called "Govy" by the locals) with a few other guys who were also snowboarding for the summer, but had never met them before. He had been saving up money working at the front desk of a tennis club, and was making money everyday while he was taking pictures at the camp. He was working with the campers, coaches, pros, and ski bums who wanted to ride the public terrain park everyday. Owen was riding every day of the summer, and making tight connections with people deeply involved in the snowboard industry. By the end of summer, he had made a good amount of money from working at High Cascade, lots more connections in the snowboard world, and secured a job for the following summer.

          A few weeks after coming back home from Oregon, Owen headed up to college. His parents were willing to pay for a portion of the $47,000 cost of attending UVM, and the rest would have to be covered by scholarships and loans. Owen decided to take out loans every year so that he could afford to go there, and pay off his education afterwards. He could have gone to a cheaper college elsewhere, but he chose UVM for the location: Burlington. Burlington, Vermont is undoubtedly the Mecca of snowboarding on the East coast. With thousands of college students, amazing mountains within 40 minutes, a hippie vibe, and the Burton corporate offices one exit south, Burlington is a perfect spot for snowboarders. Owen is majoring is studio art, and is on the UVM Snowboard Team (meaning he pays an entrance fee, gets a van to mountains weekly, rides a few mountains for free, and gets a competition fee waiver, if he were to want to compete). For the second semester, he arranged his schedule so that he has two days completely free for snowboarding during the school week, and his weekends as well. He absolutely takes advantage of this opportunity. While taking classes to legitimize his talent, meeting people and forming connections to the snowboarding world, and snowboarding more than most people get to in a winter (and summer), Owen is taking snowboard bumming to a different level.