The Eternal Beauty of Snowboarding is the brainchild of French snowboard photographer Jerome Tanon. He attached a video camera to his photo camera hotshoe and recorded absolutely everything that happened to the riders he was with over the course of three and a half years.
As you might imaging, the resulting collection of clips gives you the impression that you’re on the shred trip with these guys. You’re there for the long hours in the snow, the slams, the drunken games of Uno, the puking…and best of all, the downtime banter*. It’s a brave move to make fun of the less-than-glamorous reality of the pro riders fighting to get shots – and their childlike humour – in an industry that thrives on selling the image of being ‘cool’. But this is both a mocking critique and passionate defence of ‘living the dream’.
* make sure you hit the ‘CC’ button for English subtitles for the French parts.
For every moment of this…
…the reality is hours of this. Do we look cool yet?
It’s tempting to compare The Eternal Beauty of Snowboarding with The Fourth Phase and contrast the differences between the raw and sometimes brutally honest consumer-cam footage of the former with the mind-boggling advanced visual quality of the latter. You could see The Eternal Beauty of Snowboarding as an antidote to such over-produced perfection, but it’s more an antidote to your stunt-weary eyes, accustomed to ever more instant hits of super-human action. The shred appreciation doctor should prescribe one dose of watching this, taken before watching any big budget production. Pulling away the curtain of high production values and edited perfection to reveal the mundane, painful and plain ridiculous reality of the journeying pro riders actually leads to a deeper appreciation of what it takes to get every second of those epic glossy shots.
The Eternal Beauty of Snowboarding, for all its hilarious commentary on the stupid side of snowboarding, reaches its denouement with an ode to the beauty of still photography. Having been taken along for the rocky ride, often literally, through the eyes of the video camera, the moment of stillness when the slideshow of shots created during these times hits is powerful, and shows the art of both the rider and photographer. Out of the ridiculous comes the eternal beauty that, as snowboarders, we are all chasing.
Get more news and premiere info at Jerome’s Facebook page here.