This photo was taken during a concept shoot last spring in Laax, Switzerland. Christian Haller and myself teamed up with the park shapers from Laax to create ‘Spuren’.
‘Spuren’ is all about highlighting the seemingly undramatic. With this project, we wanted to emphasize the one part of halfpipe snowboarding that is not being recognized much, but in fact is the core of it. The time you spend in the air is the part that normally draws people's attention. But it's the carve – the line you choose – that dictates how big you go, how you feel during airtime, how your movements flow. By painting the Laax halfpipe, we force the viewer to change perspective and focus on the transition only, not on what lies above or around.
We definitely underestimated the paint job! Initially we wanted to color the whole pipe with water-mixed dye paint, but the paint soaked in fast, reducing the effect, so we worked the walls, section by section. The shape crew in Laax was key for this, as we needed a snowcat with a small crane on it to be able to paint the walls.
I want to say thanks again to Snowpark Laax and Christian Haller for making this one-of-a-kind project happen.