Nicolas Vuignier and I had been thinking about this project for a long time. Previously I worked on a special project called ‘Couleurs’ where we painted the snow with natural pigments and skied through it. Nicolas was meanwhile trying to put together his own project using pigments. We couldn't stop talking about it and finally came out with this idea.
He told me about this massive dam near his house that he wanted to wall ride and I knew it was the perfect location. Once the kicker was shaped, we did some tests without pigments. Nicolas had to find a good speed and I had to find the best angle.
Then we decided to try with the pigments, and everything became more complicated. The best way we found to have the pigments exploding was to fill up his jacket with them. While keeping the zipper of his jacket open, Nicolas could hold all the pigments inside his jacket, then he just had to open his arms during take-off to release.
I shot this photograph with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and a Canon 16-35mm/f2.8L II USM and nailed the shot on the second try. The photo shows something even better than expected, the leftover paint on the wall from the first attempt looks great and the released colours look like they are part of his body – and that’s what I was looking for. I'm very picky with my photos but looking at Nicolas's smile when I showed him the shot, I knew we had something great.