Oskar Enander – Out of the Shadows

(Feature story from the Field Book Issue 1)

Being in the right place at the right time is as much a matter of luck as it is a gift. When Swede Oskar Enander and two friends rolled into the Engelberg valley in a camper in February 2002, for what was supposed to be a short pit stop on their way to Chamonix, where they originally intended to spend the ski season. However, since it never stopped snowing in Engelberg, Enander simply stayed. 22 years later, he still hasn’t left.

As it turned out, Engelberg was about to become the next big thing in the international ski bum community. The mighty Mt. Titlis offered an abundance of riches for anybody in search of untracked snow, big mountains, and no crowds.

It was the perfect place for Enander to pursue his new hobby: ski photography. His rise to success was very fast. In the span of a single year, he went from being a beginner to being held as one of the best ski photographers in the world. He was in the right place at just the right time.

By the mid-2000s, Engelberg had become a popular destination for adventurous skiers from all over the world, particularly the Swedish ski bum contingent that invaded the small Swiss town each winter. Oskar met a local girl and settled down in the town. Moving back to his native Gothenburg in the summer was no longer an option, and the engineering programme at the Chalmers University of Technology had long since been abandoned.

“I soon realized that engineering was not for me, I’m more of a creative spirit. To put it frankly, the mountains captured my soul, and I’ve never looked back,” Enander says.

“I was always interested in photography, but it wasn’t until I came to Switzerland that I began to pursue it more seriously. I have never taken any classes or anything like that. I’m self-taught – I simply took a lot of photos and learned from my mistakes. I guess that was also how I ended up creating my own style of photography. I never followed anybody else’s rules; I made my own."

His trademark images all feature the same set of core elements: a skier making a turn in the exact spot where the sunlit snow meets a dark blue – almost black – line of shadow. Snow sprays in the air, illuminated by the sun. This is a simple, clean recipe, but one that is very difficult to execute to the level of perfection that Oskar Enander achieves time after time.

“The effect of a skier coming into the frame creates almost an explosion from the turn. Add a skier to a photo of a beautiful landscape, and you’ll end up with a powerful, beautiful piece of art depicting action. The skier is the brush that makes the image come alive.”

In a time when short-lived and fast-paced visual content on social platforms has become the norm, Enander chooses to create what can only be described as ski art. He captures the pure beauty – the very essence – of skiing powder, and morphs it into something far greater and deeper than simply making a left or right turn on a pair of skis.

Since he spends most of his ski days at high altitude on Mt. Titlis, where there are no trees, Enander has to rely on something else to add depth and lines to his photos: the ever-changing, dramatic shadows of the north-facing slopes.

After more than 20 years on this mountain, Enander knows exactly at what day and what time the sun will hit a certain feature, thus creating a very specific and unique shadow line. A small but trusted group of skiers, who all know exactly how to turn to make Enander’s vision a reality, do all the work in front of the lens. This is a collaborative effort, in which both parties need to grasp the vision of what’s to be created, if they are to succeed at turning skiing into a timeless work of art.

“It’s all about my own vision of what’s nice to look at. Personally, I enjoy looking at undulating landscapes, at any time of the year. It could be a golf links in the misty morning light, a mountain bike trail through the terrain, or a snow-covered mountain. I generally like to keep it clean and graphic – that’s my style,” Enander says.

He spends more than 100 days in the mountains every winter, and has done so for 20 years now. Having spent all that time in terrain and situations that are occasionally very dangerous, risk management has become second nature to him. In 2016, one of his closest friends, Matilda Rapaport – who also happens to be the subject of many of his best photos – tragically lost her life in an avalanche in Chile.

The following winter, Matilda’s ex-husband Mattias Hargin and skier Sanne Mona were both buried by an avalanche during a photoshoot back home in Engelberg. The avalanche struck just next to the groomers, but it still gave them a stark reminder that the mountains are anything but safe places. And when you spending as much time there as Oskar does, the risk factor increases exponentially.

“Safety is always a top priority for me, and I never ski or shoot with people I don’t trust completely. Of course, skiing deep powder in steep terrain is always risky, there’s no denying that. But we try to assess the conditions as well as we can at every moment. We ask local experts for advice, and we’re not afraid to turn back when things get too dangerous. But it’s definitely all a matter of calculated risk.”

Having spent thousands of days shooting ski photos in the mountains has given Oskar enough special memories to last several lifetimes. For many years, Oskar used to make the trip to the remote mountains of Haines in Alaska to shoot photos of skiers ripping down insanely steep spines of snow. He created some of the most dramatic ski photos ever seen there.

“My first trip to Haines, back in 2005, is still one of my most memorable skiing moments. The scale of the mountains and the incredible terrain just blew my mind.”

“Apart from that, receiving my first Powder Photo of the Year in 2004 was truly special. I was still practically an amateur, and suddenly, I found myself on a stage in Aspen, being awarded that prize in front of some of the biggest names in the skiing business.”

Mountains mean different things to different people, but when asked what the mountains mean to him, Enander gives a pretty straight-forward answer:

“I’m not spiritual or anything like that, so the mountains are just places where I work and ski. But of course, I do love to ski powder with my close friends on quiet days early in the season.

When the mountains are your workplace, having gear you can trust at all times becomes an absolute a necessity. Basically, your life could truly depend on your gear if something goes wrong. When it comes to ski clothing, he relies on sturdy three-layer shells to protect him from the elements.

“Quality is key. I can’t have a zipper break when I’m standing on a steep, remote, mountain in Alaska. The Mountain Studio Z-2 Pro jacket is my favourite. It has that extra level of protection that I need. Underneath, I wear different kinds of mid layers, depending on the temperature that particular day. I’m generally quite warm, so I try not to put on too many layers or wear garments with too much insulation, as I don’t want to overheat.

However, his most important gear is his photo equipment. His massive, 50-liter photo-specific backpack is always packed with the specific items he’ll need to capture what he has in mind for the day.

“I try to pack as light as possible, but unfortunately nobody has invented a lightweight DSLR yet, so I have to put up with hauling a few extra kilograms to get the quality I need in my photos. I carry a Canon R5 camera body and two lenses, one 70–200 telephoto lens and a 24–100 lens for video. Sometimes, I bring a wide-angle lens or carry a DJI drone to capture unique, inaccessible shots.”

The mountains are Enander’s canvas, and his photo gear is the set of brushes he uses to create his art. It’s ski art, plain and simple.

To create the best ski photos in the world, Oskar Enander needs gear that can take a beating as well as reliably paint the picture he’s envisioning.

Camera house:
Canon R5

External battery grip:
Canon BG-R10B

Zoom lenses:
Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM
Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 L IS USM
Canon RF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM

Wide-angle lens:
Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8 L IS USM

Drone:
DJI Mavic Air 2

Backpack:
F-Stop Tilopa 50l

Find more reading about The Mountain Studio and our world in our 308-page Field Book Issue 1.