Congratulations to NYC’s own Ben Zucker for winning the $5,000 first prize for ski photography in the SanDisk BestPhotoSequence.com contest this year.

Ben’s winning photo is this sequence of Jacob Wester from the 2008 JOSS event in Åre, Sweden.

Like many of the best ski photos, this photo was as much serendipity as planning. “Right before shooting this, I was positioned at a drastically different angle when Jacob told me he would be changing the trick he was doing, and that Andreas (the cinematographer we were working with) was going to be getting into the heli to get some shots.

“I have a vivid memory of running to my bag changing lens, and post-holing to where I shot this. The sun was setting, and we didn’t have that much heli time, so i was really happy that we turned out such a successful and unique image. This was the first time I had been on a shoot with a helicopter, so I was happy to be able to involve it in my composition.”

Thanks to everyone who entered. Hope to be back next year with another round. Stay tuned.