While filming for Volume 5 of our video series “Yearning for Turning,” we clocked some hours under the floodlights of the Furano resort in Hokkaido, Japan. This afternoon, it was snowing heavily while they did the grooming for the night operations, so once they opened again for the evening, there was 10cm of powder on freshly groomed slopes. An absolute treat! We shot a bunch of back-lit stuff that night, including this quick lifestyle of Nicholas Wolken, Atsufumi Mizuno and Stephan Maurer.

DRAWN TO SIMPLICITY

Snowboard, stripped back: Aaron Schwartz in black and white

Framed
Photos by: Aaron Schwartz
Words by: Matthew Tufts

This image was taken on the first day of our 2019 trip to Hokkaido, Japan, filming for what eventually became “Sunōkeru,” It was Lars Popp’s first time experiencing the light Japanese powder. I set up for a shot of a powder turn that was planned further away but zoomed in with a 70-200mm lens. As he came out of the cloud, he was already relatively close and randomly popped into a butter right near me, which was luckily still in the frame at 70mm. I try to always keep my finger on the trigger after shooting what was initially planned – often, the rider has something else happening further down the line that might lead to a second or third shot in one go. 

 

The first week of our trip to the Pacific Northwest to film for what became “Rain Dogs,” the weather was not on our side. After a few days of a soaking wet coastal downpour at Baker, we started losing hope but still tried to scramble for some shots. At Mount Baker, there was a large tree next to a shallow hand-dug ditch / mini-pipe that I wanted to have front and center in the frame while someone did something near it. That, someone, was Lars Popp, and he opted for a toe-side turn. 

This is one of my all-time favourite images. Everything seemed to line up here: light / wind / snow/mood / rider. It was the end of a long day at Mt. Bachelor, Oregon filming for “Rain Dogs” when we were about to call it a day. Then we looked behind us, seeing the wind sweeping clouds past the horizon quickly, with breaks in the clouds and the sun popping every few seconds. Just nature doing its thing, like a perfect dance. A little sloped bank on the side of the piste had built up a bit of a wind lip, making it look like a wave. Filmer Morgan Maassen and I set ourselves up below while Nicholas and Lars slashed the lip a few times, hiking up for another one, and another one, as long as the sun was still poking out from time to time. It eventually settled behind the hill, but on Nicholas’ last hit, it all came together to look as close as possible to surfing a wave of snow. 

Aaron, a 35-year-old Canadian born photographer and graphic designer living in Switzerland, doesn’t tend to plan for specific shots. He jokes that he plans, often, to not have a plan. His introduction to photography didn’t include lofty sets, light fixtures, or weeks of pre-production. Whether shooting in the streets or the alpine, there’s a spontaneity to Schwartz’s approach. And its thanks to that inherent malleability that he’s afforded time to see subtle details and unique perspectives that might otherwise go overlooked.

It can’t always be a new, untracked, perfect powder field. Sometimes there are plenty of other folks enjoying the goods too, which is beautiful. On this day, James Niederberger and I were cruising a small resort about an hour from Laax with no specific plans. I first rode down through the field of tracks, stopped, and yelled at him to find a good pocket. And he did!

The classic post-powder portrait of James Niederberger on home soil in Laax. Grey or cloudy days always provide excellently and even lighting; it’s like a giant soft box hanging in the sky. Great for portraits, less ideal for the definition of the actual action. This was likely the only shot I got that day. 

Born to immigrant parents in North Vancouver and then raised in Switzerland after his family moved when he was six years old, Aaron spent time between the staggering peaks of the Alps and Coastal Range his entire early life. It was natural then that a serendipitous encounter in Switzerland, years after another stint in Canada to finish university, connected him with Korua Shapes, a European start-up snowboard brand that was just then defining a black and white visual language. From their initial meeting in 2014, to Schwartz’s full-time position today, the brand and photographer grew together, pushing the limits of a grayscale aesthetic, often in direct contrast to the flashy, vivid direction snowboarding was evolving. Shooting stills on a number of Korua’s films, Aaron adopted their run-and-gun, embrace the flow approach. The team works best in a spontaneous environment when the only true goal is to find the best turns. Over the years, Schwartz and Korua’s joint creative vision set them apart, and defined a fresh look in the industry.

This shot of Nicholas Wolken was taken a while ago, and I can’t remember too many details of this day. I know we were filming for “Yearning for Turning Vol. 6 with Stephan Maurer, Thomas Stöckli, Raphi Rocha, James Niederberger, and of course, Nicholas Wolken. We were often at a tiny resort about an hour from our home base in Laax; no matter the snow conditions, it was always fun up there with that crew. We’d divide and conquer; Maurer would do follow cams with one or two, I’d shoot photos with the others, and we’d alternate. It was a great and productive setup for Korua. Teamwork makes the dream work! 

While Thomas Stöckli and Nicholas Wolken were in Davos, Switzerland, working on the conceptual short film “NACHT,” I joined them one night to shoot stills and some behind-the-scenes stuff. After one run, I looked back and saw this amazing light. It felt like the moon was setting, as the floodlight was tucked behind a rolling hill from where I stood further down the slope. We discussed this shot for the next lap, went back up, and it only took Nicholas one try to place the turn exactly where we asked him to. You can always count on his Swiss precision, and the backlit floodlights also delivered the mood. Win / Win. 

A few years back, I had the honour to accompany the Atagge crew for the making of their last short film, “Planetaria,” – initiated by the talented duo Alexander Tank and Fabian Fuchs and shot entirely during the purple/orange light at dusk. My images for the project were mainly in colour, but I also threw in some black and white for good measure. During one of the sessions, their focus was the pro line jumps in the Laax snow park. I had not often tried slow shutter stuff for kickers because usually, there’s too much spinning going on for it to work. But as soon as I noticed Simon Gschaider was throwing down mostly 3s and 5s with heaps of style, I figured I’d give it a shot, and I’m glad I did! 

Though he is now a household name in snowboarding photography, Schwartz still finds himself searching for ways to continue to refine his vision. His riders often become silhouettes—shrouded in anonymity, they come to represent the individual less, instead evoking an amorphous feeling and energy associated with that style of riding. At times, the riders are removed completely, with only tracks left in their wakes. The result is an experience at once more relatable and more imaginative for the viewer. Aaron’s work is an alchemy of the barest essence of the sport and all the minutia that we feel but do not see when riding.

Nicholas Wolken and Patagonia made a splitboard film titled “Turn of Mind,” for which we spent a few days in a small hut near Klosters with James Niederberger and filmmaker Christoph Thoresen. After we were done shooting this zone, I scanned all the tracks with a 70-200mm zoomed in all the way, looking for any cool tracks – and so I came across something that resembled my initials “AS.” A lovely coincidence.

Nicholas Wolken and Patagonia made a splitboard film titled “Turn of Mind,” for which we spent a few days in a small hut near Klosters with James Niederberger and filmmaker Christoph Thoresen. After we were done shooting this zone, I scanned all the tracks with a 70-200mm zoomed in all the way, looking for any cool tracks – and so I came across something that resembled my initials “AS.” A lovely coincidence.

Beyond the camera, he still has a deep love for design and illustration. Whether behind the lens or with a black marker on one of Korua’s signature graphic-less, white base boards, Schwartz interprets the blank canvas like a fresh field of powder. One might see irony in a graphic designer working in a creative role for the board company that made its name with graphic-free designs, but, perhaps, that’s the ultimate realization of their relationship. Aaron uses clean composition and defined contrast to draw the viewer’s attention to simple, yet powerful elements of shape and form; the boards set out to accomplish the same. Together, Korua and Schwartz have cultivated a style that reduces snowboarding to its purest distillation: the art of the turn.

Gabriele Torriani is somewhere in there, I promise. It’s hard to believe this was shot in late April 2017. The last week of April and the first week of May saw a big reset in the Engadin valley, so we made the trip out there to meet up with our friend Gabriele and take advantage of the high altitude and cold temperatures late in the season. It was well worth it as we enjoyed dry powder and large explosions like this one, right below the peak of Corvatsch near Silvaplana, not far from St Moritz. 

If there’s one place where you consistently can score powder in Laax, even days after a storm and when everything else is tracked, it’s this spot. It’s the last chance because there’s a good 30–40-minute flat walk back towards the resort. But it’s usually worth the effort and can be done several times if necessary! James Niederberger and I were the only two people back there that day, and I had always wanted to try and shoot it from the top down instead of from the bottom up, as I had done in the past. A pretty shady aspect otherwise, the top section was fully lit up when we got there, creating a nice diagonal line across the frame for James to turn in. 

 

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