Adding LEDs lights to snowboarders is like adding frosting to cake. Cake is good by itself but frosting, well wow! This illuminating snowboarder is actually an 11 year Tignes, France local Will Hughes, who has earned one of the coolest nickname's in snowboarding history,?The LED Surfer?. The London based photographer?Jacob Sutton filmed and initiated the concept of this snowboarder with lighting.
The suit's 5000 LED lights are powered by two battery cells on Will's chest. The light suit took over 300 man hours to design and perfect.?In an interview with ESPN, the designer John Spatcher states that "Because of the complexity of the electronics involved and the fact that it was -25C and the suit was getting quite a thrashing, it was inevitable that things went wrong… My dad came on the shoot to do onsite repairs. We were regularly staggering into bars and hotel lobbies in Tignes where [he] would get out his soldering iron and start repairing one of the many hundred connecting wires in the suit."
The video below shows Will in action, carving the powdery slops illuminated with 5000 LED lights, creating a real life Silver Surfer action character. ?The film was shot in Tignes, France, part of the 2012 Tignes Winter X Games.
