Words: Ahriel Povich 2017-12-12 18:18:36
The Zeiter family has a few apartments they rent out to visiting tourists. When Silvano was 13 years old, he came home to find a bunch of ski bags in their chalet. It turned out that the Völkl team had rented their place for a photo shoot, so he tagged along to watch them send a nearby road gap. The photographer in the crew took a liking to Silvano and handed over his second camerafor him to play with as the skiers jumped over random busses and cars. “All of a sudden, the cops showed up and we took off running. Me and the pro photographer were hiding in some bushes,” Silvano remembers. “But it turned out that my dad actually knew one of the officers, so he got us out of trouble.”
From then on, Silvano knew exactly what he wanted to pursue in life. A few years later, he got his first camera and an invite to tag along with a local snowboard crew. He was still on skis in those days and pretty nervous about going out with the local stars, but Martin Seiler and Seb Bumann made him feel welcome. Still, after the first session he wasn’t happy with the shots at all. After a couple of days spent avoiding the older riders, Seb tracked him down and told him how much he loved the photos. Silvano was surprised he was when Seb announced, “We finally found our photographer!”
Not long after that, Seb and his brother Matt launched a soft-goods company called “Hä?” and gave Silvano carte blanche to build their first advertising campaigns and catalogues. That early commercial experience taught him how to how to work with brands and he still counts Hä? among his clients.
Before long, Silvano began prioritizing shooting over everything, and his first real road trip took him out of school for a full week. He didn’t really have a plan, but he tried to talk the doctor at the resort he was visiting into writing him a fake note. No luck. As the trip was ending, he started to realize he might be in real trouble when he got home. But on the last night, he managed to break his foot doing a drunken backflip at the bar. It wasn’t the ideal ending to his first trip, but at least he got that doctor’s note after all. His teachers felt so bad for him they didn’t even think to check the dates.
Shots got printed, magazine editors took notice, and Silvano scored the cover of the biggest German-language snowboard magazine at the time, Snowboarder MBM (RIP). Not a bad start for a precocious 18 year old who had just shed his ski boots and strapped in.
Then Silvano met Frederik Kalbermatten. Fredi was shooting with legendary Burton Snowboards photographer Jeff Curtes and they ran into each other at Fiescheralp. Fredi hiked to the top of a steep and narrow couloir, which was covered with rocks and ice. Jeff made himself comfortable in the barbecue angle at the bottom and Silvano had no choice but to scramble up the rocks after Fredi. The result was his first published photo in the United States, but the ride back down nearly killed him. “Fredi’s line had completely sloughed out, leaving nothing but rocks, so I had no choice but to climb up a bit higher and find a different line down,” Silvano remembers. “It wasn’t as gnarly as Fredi’s straight line, but at the bottom I misjudged the size of a cliff and landed in a field of rocks. I got super lucky and didn’t hit any of them.”
With Fredi firmly in his corner, opportunities to shoot with international pros came Silvano’s way in 2012. He spent more than a month with Absinthe Films during the filming of Resonance and the result was an unprecedented 15 magazine covers around the world. Silvano’s place was now secure as one of the best in the business. Trips lined up around the world and A-list riders sought him out. But he really found his stride when he started shooting with Nicolas Müller. Their first few days together yielded three covers, and, since then, they’ve been great friends and travel companions.
Friendship is the dominant theme when talking to riders who work with Silvano. “When I get to shoot with Silvano, I always know we will get something good because the quality of his work is so special,” Fredi says. “But really, I just like to hang out with him—he’s like family.”
It’s easy to go on at length about how productive Silvano is, and how much he has accomplished at a young age—he’s still just 28 years old. But beyond his impressive portfolio, Silvano’s just a guy that you want to be around. He plays guitar, he parties, he’s open-minded, he loves to ride, he speaks a bunch of languages and he’s always excited to meet new people. On top of all of that, he has a genuine warmth and friendliness along with an ability to keep his ego in check.
Which is why it’s no surprise that Silvano ended up as Nicolas’ photographer of choice as he spent the past few years filming his fanciful biopic, Fruition. The result was a dream come true for Silvano, culminating in the publishing of his first book, Honey Ryder. He admits the project closed a chapter for him. Sadly, there’s very little money in snowboard photography these days, especially in the European market. As a result, last winter he kept his priorities straight. When he was on the mountain, he was mostly riding for himself. But when it was on, it was on. And somehow, with less shooting days than usual (plus one of the worst winters that the Alps has ever seen) he still managed to produce quality work.
Now living in Zurich with real-world bills and bar tabs to settle, Silvano doesn’t always have the time to chase every storm, but his dreams are alive as ever. Another book project, a gallery exhibition and a new campaign for Holden are just a few things keeping him grounded in snowboarding, as the allure of the mainstream advertising world pulls him in new directions. He’s recently worked on campaigns for activewear giant Lululemon, and with Swisscom, the predominant phone and internet provider in Switzerland, along with some Zurich-based businesses. And this recent work has taken him beyond his comfort zone in the snow.
Late this summer, for instance, Silvano went on a commercial downhill mountain bike shoot. When he arrived, the client asked where his bike was. “Dude, I got no bike,” he replied. They found him one and it turned out he was a competent rider too. And more importantly, the client was happy with the shots at the end of the day.
The world is wide open for fast learners like Silvano, but he’ll always pay his respects to his roots in snowboarding. “Even though I decided to skip university, I don’t think I could’ve gotten a better education,” he said after a long day of shooting a marathon runner. “Snowboarding taught me everything I need. How to be fast and, just as important, how to adapt. Snowboard photographers learn to deal with just about anything, from changing light to dickhead cops. And we shoot it all. Sure, it starts with action, but portraits and landscapes are just as important. Snowboarding has helped me so much and, at the same time, it introduced me to a new family, with connections around the world.”
Someday Silvano hopes to spend more time abroad, but in the short term, he couldn’t be happier in Zurich. It’s full of snowboarders, near the mountains and has all of the metropolitan advantages, like art, culture and beautiful people. His family is still in Fiesch. He’ll always have that connection, but he didn’t fully appreciate it until recently. It hit him during a day spent riding his local mountain with John Jackson. There, John turned to him and said, “Dude, this is insane! Do you even realize where you live?”
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