It’s rather fitting that Bruno Long will have his first photo exhibit in Jasper. It’s where the Revelstoke-based photographer got his photo career underway.

Long, who lived in Jasper for six years, will be the next photographer featured on the walls of Coco’s Café starting on Friday, October 16, a place that he says is kind of like home for him.

“I don’t know how many morning’s I’ve spent sitting outside drinking coffee there when I used to live in Jasper,” he says of the show venue. “I’ve never done anything before, I’ve got some stuff up in a couple businesses here, but only a couple photos.” Things are just starting to get rolling now, with an upcoming show in Revelstoke as well, and that’s why he jumped on the opportunity to do the show at Coco’s, he says.

Getting a taste for photography from looking at his father’s old slides, Long is a self-taught shooter who really got into photography when his parents gave him a camera for his 19th birthday when he moved to Jasper.

After a lot of trial and error and research, he now takes his camera almost everywhere he goes. Working in Glacier National Park for Parks Canada in the summer and as a groomer at the ski hill in the winter, he gets lots of opportunity for photos.

“It’s a total side job. It’s something that I just do; I just take all my camera stuff with me. For the most part, I never go skiing without my camera gear, I don’t always take my camera biking with me, but I try and take it as much as I can. But I’m pretty lucky…I get lots of time to get lots of photos when I’m working in the winter,” he says.

Most of Long’s photos are of the mountain lifestyle – skiing and biking – but he has started to shoot weddings as well, one of the only things, he says, that people actually will pay money for.

Some of Long’s photos that will be up on display can be seen on his website, www.brunolongphotography.com, but even if you are familiar with his photos, you can expect some new ones.

He just finished a mountain bike trip in Whistler and Pemberton, where he and five friends spent a week hitting up the trails, lifts and parks in the area, and where Long got a chance to snap some new photos.

“It will mostly be the mountain lifestyle or mountain action photography (that will be shown),” he says. “It’s going to be mostly biking and skiing…probably be a few kind of lifestyle shots, but that’s what I spent my summers and winters doing, and I kind of take my camera with me when I do that stuff.”

So what would be Long’s perfect photography day?

“A deep, bluebird powder day in Revelstoke or Rogers Pass. You don’t get them too often – there are a couple photos in the show that are from bluebird powder days in Revelstoke. We get tons of powder, I ski more powder than I ever did in Jasper, that’s for sure. But you never get a sun here, that’s one of the things about here. It’s a lot of cloud.”

The official opening is at Coco’s Café between 7 and 9pm on Friday, Oct. 16.