I got invited to this special event, the Suzuki Nine Knights in Livigno as one of four photographers to shoot and present my work in a photo contest. I was very exited because this is an invitational event for the best skiers and snowboarders in the world. And to shoot and get to know them was a kind of privilege for me.
It was a great challenge to get a shot for all of the four categories but at the end I won two of the four categories – not with this shot – which totally blew my mind, never expecting my shots to win, as the other photographers had submitted great photos too.
This particular shot shows Sage Kotsenburg, the Olympic gold medalist. I used a 24mm tilt shift lens from Nikon which I had to borrow from another photographer to be able to get the foreground and the background into focus. It was one of the toughest shots to take because it was really hard to get the sharpness right. The riders were all jumping differently and it took a couple of tries to get the shot.