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Although I may not be participating in the Patrouille des Glaciers I've done my part in promoting it. Working with the creative team at Saatchi & Saatchi I came up with the background image for this campaign that will be present all over Switzerland for the next few weeks.
As most of you know, I've shifted my focus (pun intended!) in the last few years to property photography, specifically luxury interiors. It's a big change from the high flying action I'm used to but the rewards are equally gratifying. For all those who may be worried that I've turned into a Gucchi-wearing lensman who sits around discussing fabric textures with interior designers over foamy expressos, fear not...I'm only doing this half the year. The other half, I'm still sitting on the edge of some mountain ridge with my nuts scrunched up in a climbing harness waiting for an athlete to wow my lens. I gotta say though, I'm really enjoying the other side of my job. I still get to travel, meet new people and the pay ain't bad either.
More often than not, my clients are people just like you and me (referring to my ski audience). They are mountain enthusiasts who have done well for themselves or are promoting someone's property who's also done well for themself.
On this paticular shoot, I worked with good friend and client Duncan Robertson, founder of Haute Montagne Ltd., in Gstaad Switzerland. Several years ago, Duncan and a few friends founded H.M.L with the aim of delivering better rental accommodation to all those with unlimited budgets, but you wouldn't necessarily know this if you crossed him in the streets. His attire and attitude are not what you'd expect from someone dealing with the planet's monetary elite. If it weren't for the two mobile phones he's constantly juggling, you might think he's off to scrunch his gear into a harness himself.
After a busy couple of months shooting interiors all around Switzerland I've been able to get back into the mountains for some fun and work. Nearly15 winter seasons have gone by since I first arrived here in Verbier and I never get tiered of the views this corner of the planet has to offer. This shot was taken last Thursday from atop the Mont-Gele while skiing and shooting with friends. You can only imagine the backdrops it provided for some of the action I was shooting...stay tuned!
Check out the next edition of 30°magazine here in Switzerland! Also available on your IPAD and web. Available in english, french and german!
Skier: Ilir Osmani
Location: Glacier de Saleina, Switzerland
This fall I was asked to produce a series of photos for Hotel Nevai in Verbier, Switzerland for their up coming promotional campaign. Working with Clare Parker, we photographed the hotel from top to bottom when it was empty. For the last segment of the shoot Clare hired professional models to sit in as guests. Working together on a number of different ideas, this is what we came up with. For more information about Hotel Nevai visit:
When I was asked to return for a summer shoot at the Hotel Principe delle Nevi in Cervinia, Italy last August, I wasn't expecting to be shooting mountain biking and yoga most of the time. In fact I hadn't even brought my bike. So when owners James McNeill and Sefi Vigiser pulled out their 6000 euro mountain bikes, full face helmets, pads and said follow me, I was a little shocked to say the least.
The day started off with a mellow cruise through the valley with James' brother and a few of the guests. The idea was to capture some of the mellow terrain on hand in this majestic valley that lies at the bottom of one of the world's most iconic peaks, the Matterhorn. The weather was stunning and the views unparalleled.
Meanwhile James stayed back to organize a heli for some aerial shots of his hotel. Lucky for us, the pilot let us bring our bikes along for the ride and the next thing I knew we were riding single tracks down to a 5 star lunch.
With full bellies, James, his brother and his 25 year son took me up the lifts to hit the trails that afternoon. We lapped beautiful buffed out single tracks under the south side of the Matterhorn with barely a sole around. Pure magic!
Back at the hotel the chefs were busily preparing the evening feast while everyone chilled out drinking beers or doing yoga while the sun cast it's final rays on the 4000m+ peak above.
From Canggu down to Balangan and all around the Bukit peninsula, the swell was pumping in late August and served us some of the best waves that can be found on the planet. Sam Pethbridge and I joined up with 9 other Sydney boys and lived a life of luxury in the Bali Vilas for 10 days, perched up on the cliffs above Uluwatus. With the waves in our back garden we were able to live, eat and breath surfing every minute of our stay. We then hit up G-land, on the east tip of Java, for a sensational three days followed by a short stint in Canggu catching up with our old friend...Mr.Lovejoy. Can't wait to go back!
The satellite phone worked like a charm! It enabled us to give updates to our support crew back home and get the most up to date weather forecasts. So it was no surprise when a storm rolled in on our 4th day of camping. Admiral Kukkonen had ordered that all tents be checked for stability and commanded a full lock down of any loose gear lying around camp. Snow and ice walls were built around the kitchen hole as well as our tents. We used our ice axes as snow stakes to reinforce our gear tent. Ilir even walked around camp with his GPS to lock in the coordinates of our buried garbage bags (so we could retrieve them when leaving) and the outhouse which was tunneled 3 meters down into the glacier about 30 meters west from our camp. The waiting game began.
I've always said that you really get to know someone when you travel with them. Well I now say that you really get to know someone when you've been stuck in a hole with them for three days. As the storm rolled in we took swift advantage of the down time to catch up on ZZZs, read and celebrate Ilir's 27th birthday, not necessarily in that order. Once the booze was finished and we'd plowed through most of our books, the discussions began. Politics, music and lunch food were but some of the many topics we touched on. The most I recall, from the endless banter that took place in the kitchen hole, is that crackers are not a lunch food. That only goes to show the level of cabin fever that was starting to set in and it told me that if I had to do the trip all over again I would be sure to bring more books and loads more crackers.
When we crawled out of our tents on the morning three days after the storm began, we were taken aback to see that the snow was still blowing sideways and that the temperature on Kevin's 50 cent thermometer still read -15°c. Our sources on the ground had told us to expect sunny skies and warmer temperatures so the mood at breakfast was damp to say the least. After hot coffee, tea and oatmeal that tasted like last nights dinner was finished, we forced ourselves back out into the squall to prepare our skis for a tour. There was no way anyone was going to sit around camp another day discussing crackers.
The crew, in it's entirety, set off to explore a zone we hadn't checked out before. We headed over the col, 700m west of our camp, descended and then banked north to a series of cirques that we'd seen on the map. As we neared two of the cirques the skies suddenly opened and the wind dropped almost instantaneously. Unexpectedly we found ourselves looking up at a colossal couloir in full sun that was gagging to be ridden. It was hard to gauge how far the couloir was but it didn't take long to track down two volunteers who were eager to find out.
It was nearly three in the afternoon by the time Ilir and Peter had summited the couloir, eaten a hot lunch and were ready to ski. I had spent the better part of the last two hours skinning and hiking around trying to find a suitable vantage point to shoot the boys...ironically I settled for a position no more than 200m away from the place I'd left them a few hours before. Ilir skied first triggering three little slabs as he made his way down. The snow varied from top to bottom but both Peter and him had huge smiles as they exited the couloir and skinned back to where I had been shooting. Meanwhile Hannu, Laura, Kevin and Late had been scoping lines in the second cirque and skiing a test run to evaluate the fresh snow.
All grouped up again in the second cirque by 5pm we witnessed Laura, Hannu and Latte shred some awesome lines. The day had turned from pure misery into elation. The endorphins were running rampant in all of us from a big day out and the signs were starting to show. Admiral Kukkonnen was hardly bothered by his "nosecicle" that looked like it linked the inner parts of his brain to his mustache...a sight worth seeing. The best bit of it all is that the weather held out and we continued to slay more big lines, including the infamous midnight line that loomed above our camp site, the next day.
The trip was coming together and the mood in camp seemed untouchable. We sat through one more storm on the tail end of our trip but instead of discussing cracker toppings we could now share stories of what each turn felt like and what the views were like at the top of each line. We laughed at the insane topics of conversation that we delved into and cringed at the smells now coming from each others tents. Our crew was tight as tight could be. That is until our guides showed up on departure night and we had to decide once more who would face the death egg!
Big thanks to Admiral Kukkonen (who made this trip possible) and the wonderful crew I was fortunate to experience this with!
Supported by www.movementskis.com and powered by: www.turquoisetech.com (solar energy solutions)
It was just after two in the afternoon on our first day of camping when the sighting was made. All but one of the crew were enjoying a leisurely breakfast in our now finished kitchen hole, a 4 meter (diameter) and 2.5 meter (depth) hole dug straight down into the glacier with a pop up circus style tent as a roof. The tent was supported by one pole in the middle of our make-shift island table while snow stakes, planted around the perimeter of the hole, kept it from falling in.
Everything was peaceful in the Arctic when Zombowski suddenly screamed from just outside the kitchen area, “seriously, come now. I'm not fu*%ing kidding, there's a polar bear”. Riffle in hand, Admiral Kukkonen, followed by his regiment, squeezed through the entrance/exit tunnel to find Kevin, who'd just woken up, frantically pointing down the glacier towards two little black dots slowly moving closer.
Barely needing to squint we all easily made out the 2-3 skiers touring up towards us with Polkas in-tow. “No need to fire a warning shot I guess,” one of the crew blurts out. “Get some glasses Kevin.”
With the initial scare out of the way it was now time to focus on acquainting ourselves with the terrain and sun rhythm. We decided from the get go that we would ski when it was nice and sleep when it was crap but that pretty much fell apart after the first couple of days. The best light, for the most part, was during the day. Only a few big lines were lit during the middle of the night, one of which loomed above our camp area.
We set off exploring the glacier we were based on. Hannu and Peter hiked a pencil couloir the first day while Latte and Kevin summited the same peak but from the ridge. Ilir, Laura and I shot photos nearby and then skied down the 4 km glacier to see what was at the end. Everywhere we looked there were skiable lines.
On the second day we summited the peak right out the back of our campsite. When we reached the top the terrain suddenly changed. We were no longer looking at big expanses of flat glacier complemented by mellow peaks but big rugged granite peaks with couloirs that seemed to go on forever. The valleys were tighter and razor-edged peaks more daunting. The crew spotted what looked like two couloir entrances about 100meters lower off the back of the peak, but there was no way of telling whether they went through or not from where we stood. Laura, Hannu, Ilir and myself decided to go have a look while the others skied the front face back to camp. As we edged our way down the south-west ridge the couloirs came into sight. Two seemingly endless couloirs lay before us. We split into two groups and ripped them up. As we looked back at our tracks after skiing the beautiful lines we spotted a third couloir a little further down the ridge. Turning our heads in circles we tried to count all of the amazing lines we could see. Infinite possibilities lay in each and every direction we looked. We started making notes of what we'd ski the next days...bigger and badder lines!
Our crew was dressed and ready to head out by 2pm on the afternoon of the 26th. Eagerly awaiting pick up from our guides at Pole Position we checked and re-checked that everything was properly packed. The anticipation was growing by the minute. We'd spent the last six months planing for this trip and now it was about to happen. Everything from permits, to satellite phones and solar panels had been purchased, tested and packed. We'd even spent an hour at the local firing range in Longyearbryn the night before acquainting ourselves with the WWII riffles we'd rented for the trip in case of any unlikely polar bear encounters. 4 pm and still no sign of our guides.
Admiral Hannu was concerned that we might have packed too much gear for the snowmobiles to pull over the 170km voyage and ordered us to hold off on buying more beer until we had a better grasp of the situation. It wasn't until 6:30 that evening that we were finally grouped up with one of our guides on the edge of town. He quickly scanned over our three polkas (towable sleds), three duffle bags and skis and looked at us with amazement and said, “is that's all you have?” Faster than a fat kid on a smarty, Kukkonen and myself jumped into the nearest vehicle with keys and floored it to the beer shop. It had been closed since 6pm.
By the time our load had been secured and we'd decided on who was sitting in the egg (the aptly named trailer towed by one of the sleds) it was about 9pm. We set off. The excitement was palpable and the sights only made it more thrilling. We rode 45km up the first valley, banked a hard left and traversed a huge fjord with gaps in the ice. After crossing a mountain pass and descending the other side we had one more valley to traverse before climbing onto the 1100m thick ice cap. As we crested the ice cap and furthered ourselves from the shale mountains that had kept us protected from the elements till now, we locked our eyes on a flat baron landscape that was stretched out as far as the eye could see. Without a GPS we would have been lost within half an hour.
The ice cap went on forever and was unforgiving in every sense of the word. My heart still goes out to our Admiral and Late who endured probably the bumpiest, most in-human segment of the journey in the death egg. Although they were sheltered from the raw Arctic wind that pummeled all the way down to our soles, they had to endure a ride that is only comparable to the one of going to hell.
It was 3:30 am by the time we'd descended off the ice cap and climbed back up into the mountains. The crew was exhausted and we still had to set up camp. Lucky for us our lead guide, Auden, was familiar with the area and suggested a plateau right at the top of a gently slopping glacier within 600 meters of two cols. We couldn't argue and we were in no shape to try after the grueling six and a half hour ride.
By 6am the tents were erected and the kitchen hole was taking shape. Our snowmobile guides had long gone to bed but Admiral Kukkonen insisted we get ahead with the camp set up. It was only after we started talking funny from the fatigue that we were finally granted permission to rest. Kukkonen bid goodnight to everyone as he proceeded to set up the trip wire around our tent area. If any polar bears were to come sniffing around our tents the trip wire would trigger a small explosion followed by a flare. A tactic that would hopefully buy us enough time to react.
Exhausted and confused from the massive day behind us, we crawled into our tents and shut our eyes with excitement of what was to come.
