Full Gallup
Adventurer. Observer. Icon. Behind the life and lens of Fernie’s most far-out photographer, Mark Gallup.
A photo illustration featuring dozens of the international titles for which Gallup has provided cover shots. A book chronicling his career is slated for release in 2026. — Nicole Leclair Photo/Illustration
In the world of snowsports photography, Mark Gallup needs no introduction. Straight out of high school in the 1980s, he was already landing covers for iconic magazines like Powder. Later, as a globetrotting senior photographer for Transworld Snowboard, Gallup documented countless firsts in the fledgling sport, from the first backcountry snowboarding expedition in British Columbia using snowmobiles to the first-ever descent of a Himalayan peak on a snowboard. Gallup’s work became so influential in snowboarding that the late, great Jake Burton retained him as his personal photographer.
But the story that best exemplifies Mark Gallup’s extraordinary skills as a photographer isn’t about photography. It isn’t even about snowboarding. Beth, Gallup’s wife, tells it while seated in the couple’s shared office, a loft inside their home in Fernie.
The year was 1992. Beth was out camping in Kananaskis Country. Mark was driving from Calgary to meet her in the wilderness. Suddenly, he glimpsed a deer out of the corner of his eye. It was running down toward the road. He sensed the deer’s intent was to reach the river on the other side, a trajectory that would put it straight in front of his car. So, he ducked. The deer went through the front windshield, swung around, and took out the passenger side window on its way out of the vehicle.
“There's glass and hair embedded all along the interior roof of the Volvo,” Beth says. “And Mark, because he observed and anticipated, he just kind of sat up and kept driving.”
Observation is Gallup’s secret superpower. “In photography, his ability to observe is what allows him to capture the moment,” Beth says. “It’s not just having the technical skills, but observing and anticipating.”
Gallup, who notoriously shies away from boasting about himself—“a humble master,” as Powder’s director of photography Dave Reddick puts it—is listening from his desk on the far side of the loft. He doesn’t disagree.
“If I’d lived in the early days of my ancestors, I probably would have been a tracker,” he says.
Fortunately for the snowsports industry, he became a photographer.
"This was the most published image of my career. Andrea Binning finding herself in a predicament as we watched from a helicopter.” The photo was taken on a shoot in the Coast Mountains’ Waddington Range, an expedition based from a 140-foot yacht anchored in a fjord to the west. Binning was able to point her skis across the substantial sluff and avert a 60-foot cliff below. She cartwheeled down a chute, losing everything—skies, poles, and pack. And dislocated her knee. “But after that, we went fishing.” — Mark Gallup Photo
Mark Gallup grew up in Calgary. His dad worked as a geologist in the oil sands of Northern Alberta. His mom, a Dene Cree who survived the Canadian government’s residential school system, founded Calgary’s first Indigenous-owned and -operated group home.
Gallup’s first camera was a 15th birthday gift from his parents, a little Canon point-and-shoot. He’d bring it to ski team practice at Sunshine Village, where he and his buddy Neil would sneak away from the slalom course and duck the rope to find powder.
“I think that’s where a lot of this started,” Gallup says. “Looking for powder and taking pictures of my friends. Pretty soon, it was all I wanted to do.”
After graduating high school in 1982, Gallup moved to Banff. He got a job at a photography shop (back when people needed their film developed), and skied 100 days a year with his camera, amassing an arsenal of action shots he could sell to magazines. He credits the legendary street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) as his primary influence.
“It was his timing,” Gallup says. “When you’re taking images of people on the street, it's an absolutely fleeting moment. He had to be ready with the camera, and ready to shoot it before it even happened.”
Gallup quickly became known for his intuition behind the lens. He too, had a knack for timing, and his freelance photo business took off. Four years later, he and Beth moved back to Calgary and started Gallup Photography.
In 1992, Gallup was invited to France for his first photo shoot for snowboarding manufacturer Burton. There, he met company founder Jake Burton at dinner. Burton insisted Gallup try snowboarding and personally took him out for his first shred session the next morning.
“It was so good, I didn’t touch a pair of skis again for 20 years,” Gallup says.
Burton became one of his close friends, as did several of Gallup’s colleagues. Gallup and professional snowboarder Craig Kelly, known as the “godfather of freeriding,” were so inseparable that when Kelly died in an avalanche in 2003, people assumed they were together (they weren’t) and that Gallup was also dead (he wasn’t). Gallup and professional freeskiing pioneer Scot Schmidt, who lives in Montana, have skied together every year for the past 30 years, and counting.
“In 1992, I documented the very first snowboard descent in the Himalayas.” This Holy man and his son lived alone in a high valley of the Langtang Himal, along with a pig and donkey. The athlete team managed to snowboard as high as 19,000 feet, but fell short of the peak they’d aimed to summit due to bad conditions. “They were surprised to see us return alive.” The team celebrated with a roast pig dinner. “I’m grateful for living through this experience. And I’m grateful it wasn’t donkey.” — Mark Gallup Photo
Gallup is currently working on a compilation of his life’s work: a coffee table-style photo book to be published by Rocky Mountain Books. Looking back, he says the 15-year-old version of himself could never have anticipated all the adventures he’d get to go on because of his camera, or all the amazing people he would get to meet.
He counts his high school ski team buddy Neil as one of those people. Neil Daffern went on to become a pioneer in snowboarding, co-designing the first twin-tip snowboard, which paved the way for freestyle snowboarding as we know it today. Daffern died in a helicopter crash at a snowboarding competition in 1990. His parents, Gillean and Tony, are the original founders of Rocky Mountain Books. Gallup can think of no other publisher he’d rather work with.
The book is slated for release in 2026, which is also the 50th anniversary of Rocky Mountain Books.
“A segment of my book is going to be the early days of my photography, so it will feature Neil, which is going to be so cool,” Gallup says. “I’ve been going through all the prints, and finding the negatives.” He sifts through a pile on his desk and comes up with a 4x6 photo. “Look at this! 1983. Neil is on one of his homemade boards.”
When it comes to his greatest accomplishments in work and life, Gallup says it’s the relationships. Most notably, the partnership he’s forged with his wife.
“Without sounding like Hallmark or anything, having Beth in my life for 40 years and being a really good team together, because we bring different things to the table. She brings her brains and I bring the colour commentary.”
"It’s true,” Beth says. “My business cards for Gallup Photo were Vice President in Charge of Everything Else.”
“Corporate and industrial photography was always fun, getting off the snow and creating for clients.” This image was part of a campaign for Helly Hansen workwear at one of four steelmaking coal mines, then owned by Teck and since acquired by mining company Glencore, now Elk Valley Resources. — Mark Gallup Photo
When Gallup and Beth relocated from Calgary to Fernie in 2010, it felt like a homecoming. He and Beth had fallen in love with the snowy Kootenay region two decades prior, spending countless weekends chasing pow in either Nelson or Fernie. From 1995 to 2000, they rented a home in Fernie while Beth co-managed nearby catski resort Island Lake Lodge (the Gallups were among the original shareholders), and Gallup put Fernie on the map for backcountry skiing and snowboarding by staging shots for major brands and magazines there.
Moving to Fernie was also part of Gallup’s healing process. “We’d lost six friends in six years,” Beth says. “And then Mark didn't want to take pictures anymore. He tried. He said, I'm not going to end my career this way. I'm going to do one more season out. And then in January, another friend was killed.”
Beth sold her portion of a Calgary-based marketing and creative agency and the couple bought The Guide’s Hut, an outdoor retail shop in downtown Fernie. Gallup managed the store and channeled his creative energy into making music. “Playing the guitar is really cathartic,” Gallup says. “The friends that I play with here, it’s like music therapy. There’s no structure or anything, just sound.”
He also did some guide training, learning how to help keep people safe in the backcountry. He even worked as a tail guide at Island Lake Lodge, where he and Beth still have close ties. And eventually, Gallup started taking photos again.
“You know when something is in you and it’s been there for a long time, and if you abandon it, it’s going to find you again?” he says. “Well, it found me again.”
He and Beth have since sold The Guide’s Hut and Gallup now works in the photography program at Island Lake Lodge. Recently, Scot Schmidt came in from Montana with a big group and Gallup spent the week catskiing with them.
“So, I guess I’m back to looking for powder and taking pictures of my friends,” he says, leaning back into his chair.
“You’ve gone full circle,” says Beth.
Gallup smiles wryly. “Or I haven’t gone anywhere. One of the two.”
~ Jayme Moye
*the full feature with even more of Mark’s iconic photos can be found in our digital Spring/Summer 2025 issue found through the link below.
Find this full-length story and more in The Trench’s Spring/Summer 2025 edition: