​Once upon a time long ago, at a ski area nearby…. uhumm...
Native Montanan Lonnie Ball first skied six decades ago, a camera has skied with him for nearly five of those decades.

“I have always considered my style of photography as a chronologist, a recorder of things that I am passionate about, skiing primarily.”  


Lonnie is Big Sky Resort’s senior photographer and his first published photos of Big Sky ran in the Bozeman Chronicle on March 1976. “It was a no-holds barred inner tube race on Tippy’s Tumble. It was insane, and I captured it on film.” Also in 1976 Bridger Bowl bannered “Cold Smoke” for the first time on their brochures. Lonnie’s photo of a powder skier that Bridger chose to represent “Cold Smoke” to the world, was taken of the same ski model that graces the this month’s addition of Bozeman Magazine, his ski partner/ model for 52 years, Mary Ball.

​Powder Posers - A collection of 14 face shot images, now showing at Map Brewery is really a tribute to all of the hundreds of friends who let Lonnie ski first, so he could capture them on film or digital.“ I never hesitated “Lonnie says “even if I was out of film or suffered dead batteries, I got a lot of untracked lines in fifty years”.   The images on Map Brewery walls are a much edited selection of face shots from 1975/76 through 2017/18 ski season. “They’re no one you will recognize, but all them are people you know from the Bozeman/Big Sky ski community,” Lonnie jokes, “The images are over most people’s head. “ An artist reception is scheduled for March 7th from 6:00 to 8:00 at the Map Brewery.

​Vertical Expressions - A collection of 18 images, another of Lonnie’s photo shows, is currently on display at The Lone Peak Brewery in Big Sky, “I like Breweries as venues,” says the skier/ photographer, “They’re  friendly, casual, and you carry your beer while viewing face shots  or extreme vertical skiing.”