The Wanaka winter Olympian is taking a break from halfpipe world cup competitions as he focuses on a new-found passion in creating films.
The 22-year-old, who is unsure how long the break would be for, will still compete in other events throughout the northern hemisphere.
"I’m still going to be competing in other events, just not the halfpipe world cup side", Porteous said.
"Just focus on more of the filming side of things, just to try something different again and keep mixing it up.
"I’ll be based out of Europe, and just travelling, and filming, and skiing as much as I can, really."
Asked if there was a reason for the break, Porteous said he liked to "keep myself on my toes and following what I want to do".
"What I’m motivated by is really what drives me, so I don’t want to suppress that, and want to follow that, and see what happens."
Porteous will head to Japan in December, or early January, and then plans to travel throughout Europe including Austria, France and Finland.
Porteous and his brother, Miguel, who is also an Olympic halfpipe skier, have created a short film, Step One, showcasing halfpipe and transition skiing.
The five-minute video, which recently premiered alongside four other snow sports videos in Wanaka, featured Porteous skiing, while his brother filmed and edited the clips.
Halfpipes are becoming more difficult to access, due to them being national training facilities, and the sport was starting to decline, he said.
"By making a video like this I really wanted to inspire that, and hopefully try and push halfpipe in a different direction.
"As well as inspire people that don’t normally ride the halfpipe because they see it as a scary place to be . . . to go and actually ride it, and to actually enjoy it, and not just have to do world class tricks.
"They can ride it however they want — and that’s totally OK."
Creating videos, and working through how to build tricks for videos, have ignited a new spark for Porteous’ career.
"It’s a huge part of the industry and it’s something that really motivates me.
"These ski videos, they may seem like just videos, but often times they actually have harder skiing in them than actually at the competitions.
"It’s chasing perfection.
"You chase perfection in one run at a competition, whereas filming a video project you chase perfection over six months, so the outcome is going to be much closer to what you want.
"It’s that long form process that really drives me at the moment."
