Swiss Gold - Page 1
March 27, 2008 @ 1:46 PM
Remi, Frontside 3 Lien - Les Diablerets
Onboard senior Photographer Pat Vermeulen reflects on a somewhat tumultuous, and ultimately intimate, affair with his adoptive home in the mountains of south-western Switzerland, its riders and the epic terrain it holds in its valleys.
A Rolling Stone
I was born in Holland but moved to, and around, Australia when I was 9. That was a hell of a place for a kid to grow up, but after a couple of years it was time to move once more. By now I was over going through the whole ‘new kid on the block’ thing and was pretty against getting uprooted again. But what can you do when you’re 12 years old? Whether I liked it or not, I was bound for Switzerland.
Our plane landed in Geneva and I remember it being grey, raining and the people were all grumpy. Plus a lot of the cars had VD on their number plates, which in English means venereal disease. Talk about culture shock. I hated the place.
We had to go straight to French school not speaking a word. Everyone was saying “salut”, which means hello, but I thought they asked me to salute them… like in the Army or something. From there it was just downhill. I was quite good at school in Australia but the school system in Switzerland is out of hand.
I started snowboarding in 84-85, which along with skating was the only thing that kept me going and kept me away from the more nefarious activities I was being drawn to. But still, I hated Switzerland and its people.
Jonas Emery, Switch Backside 5 - Lot Chatal
I guess I got on OK at snowboarding as in my ‘career’ I had a couple of sponsors, did some contests and I think I even beat Michi Albin once, though I guess he must have been like 13 at the time. At the same time I was doing a mechanic’s apprenticeship. When I finished, I swore to myself that I would never ever touch a car for the rest of my life. I had no clue what I was going to do with my life until one day my dad comes home and says: “Who wants to move to Los Angeles?”
I thought California would be epic for snowboarding and skateboarding, but boy was I wrong - $50 day tickets and surrounded by a horde of arrogant American snowboarders. Horrible! I hated the place and pretty much quit snowboarding that day. Surfing and music took over and life was good, but then I found I had to move back to Switzerland to keep my Swiss permit, and I couldn’t stay any longer in the US anyway. Great.
During my absence, things had really moved on in Switzerland snowboard-wise. My best friends were riding for a new company called Peach Snowboards and they were going to make a video. As I wasn’t really on it anymore but wanted to keep hanging out in the mountains, I accepted the job as their cameraman for their first super 8 film (we were so avant garde!) called The Summer Adventures. It came out really well and had lots of success. I kept on shooting snowboarding on super 8, then 16 mm and some photos, and - long story short - now I’m working for Onboard as a senior and, as they’ll remind me, I shoot in my local area. A lot.
