The Godfather of Freeski Photography
Mark Shapiro was a wide-eyed lad of 23 when he arrived in Verbier, Switzerland, in the fall of 1970, riding an early wave of exotic ski-bumming that would soon grow into a tsunami. Not that this was his plan, but when opportunity knocked, he answered the door. Little did “Marko” know how the freestyle movement, subsequent telemark revolution, and the brotherhood of snow would combine with travel and off-piste exploration to place him in the forefront of an international adventure-ski world — and the acme of its photographic pantheon—a classic case of right place, right time.
The time was the 1980s and ’90s. The place: a nondescript chalet set on an ancient alpege known as Clambin on Verbier’s southern perimeter. Over the years, it would quietly be read into the canon of must-visit destinations for globe-trotting ski bums, mountaineers, journalists, pros, models, and wannabes who might drop in to say hello, pay respects, exchange stories, plan adventures or ski Verbier’s wild high-alpine. The cabin was home to Australian freestyler/adventurer John Falkiner, American ski model/photographer Ace Kvale, and a revolving door of personalities like Lebanese-Australian photographer Nolen Oayda. Of course, Shapiro became part of this cast of characters and began mentoring would-be models and shooters and documenting their exotic adventures and eclectic skiing. His work would inspire an entire generation of skiers and photographers. But that was all years away when he first landed in Verbier, which, far from the mega-resort it would become, was just another mid-sized Euro ski area where you could disappear into the Alps.
Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario — a Canadian steel town — Shapiro obtained his college diploma in tool-and-die and went to work in an office furniture factory north of Toronto. There, he befriended a Swiss-German kid who he eventually followed to Switzerland, intrigued by the prospect of Europe, and armed with a one-way ticket.
Shapiro enjoyed the freewheeling times of the era, travelling as the spirit moved him and picking grapes in the local harvest. One evening, his future was abruptly decided while eating dinner at the infamous alpinist hangout Club Vagabond in Leysin. Glancing around, he spotted a knot of famous climbers, including Dougal Haston, who were settled in and telling stories.
“So, I join,” says Shapiro in an inimitable growl. “Then some people come in and announce they’ve rented a chalet in Verbier for the winter and want to know who’s in. Well, me. So, I buy some ski gear, get a season’s pass, and find a job washing dishes — un plongeur — in a Verbier hotel.”
Truncated vignettes are typical of Shapiro’s stories, but he wasn’t new to skiing. He’d played around in his backyard and on a local golf course with old hickory skis and leather boots he found in his basement — preparation for more regular skiing with high-school buddies.
Mark Shapiro
He wasn’t new to photography either, but, as with skiing, he had no plans to dedicate his life to it. “I’d been an avid photographer since I was a kid. My grandfather bought me a camera for my seventh birthday — something like a Rolleiflex — and I had a darkroom in college,” he recalls. “I had a Minolta SR1 with a 50 mm lens. I bought a light meter and 20mm and 180mm lenses to go with it, and that was the kit I took to Europe. I shot my first ski photos of a buddy in Verbier and sold one to Authier Skis for CHF 500. That seemed better than dishwashing.”
Though he spent most of his time with local skiers following the pre-FIS European freestyle circuit, Shapiro made friends with Falkiner, son of an Australian sheep farmer and later Kvale, a young, shaggy-haired American. “We were wandering around the woods when we met an old guy standing on a deck outside a place called Chalet Bellaiuva,” recalls Shapiro. After a brief conversation in French, Falkiner suddenly rented the cabin, and Clambin became an instant epi-center.
“It was pretty rustic, and the rooms were cold, but it was headquarters for almost 20 years,” recalls Shapiro with no slight hint of pride about a storied place where visitors were always welcome and through which, it seemed, the entire ski world passed. Though the chalet became a hub of activity, Shapiro continued to live in town. “Someone had to take care of business; my office was just a fax machine, a light table and piles of gear.”
As always in such stories, not only was being in the right place at the right time the key to what happened, but also a catalyst.
Mark Shapiro
Shapiro sent some slides to then Powder editor Neil Stebbins, along with a typewritten letter constellated with spelling mistakes — an inauspicious introduction, but somehow it worked. “Stebbins replied with something like ‘These are amazing — keep them coming,’” recalls Shapiro. “So, my photos started appearing, and the cheques started arriving. John hooked us up with K2, and we were off and running.”
The trio, now known as Team Clambin, began shopping their photo work at the annual ISPO ski show in Munich, and their reputation grew. They were already selling to magazines in a dozen countries when the fashion shoots started, with Bogner becoming prominent in their lives and Falkiner doing stunts and guide work for films — most memorably, three Bond movies. With more work than he could handle, Shapiro leaned on Kvale, who’d shown a sharpshooter’s eye on a trip to Africa, buying him a camera and birthing another legendary photographer.
Led by Shapiro, shots emanating from Clambin diverged from the usual European and North American fare in style and content, featuring significant in-your-face action and, unlike today, no helmets or goggles, with hair flying everywhere. There were also bold lines, wild air, exploding powder, jaw-dropping vistas and the cultural exotica of alpine adventure in places like Russia, New Zealand and Kashmir. In the mid-1990s, Shapiro spent 76 days on the north side of Mount Everest during extreme skier Dominique Perret’s attempt to ski from the summit. It all translated into an entirely new dimension when many skiers were still squinting past the sunset of the freestyle era to determine skiing’s next horizon.
That next big thing turned out to be telemarking, a new commodity successfully marketed by the unwitting fun hogs of Team Clambin. Inspired by Pat Morrow and his crew cruising through Verbier with the Karhu “Freedom of the Heels Tour,” Falkiner, Kvale, and Shapiro took to the nascent sport with a vengeance. In no time, they’d dragged tele gear to the four corners of the Earth, photographing knee-dropping turns in every conceivable terrain.
Although the travel, adventure and freeskiing renaissance that Team Clambin kicked off began with Shapiro’s groundbreaking action photos, its ethos spilled into the industry at large, breaking new ground by paying ski models, hiring assistants, obtaining clothing samples, organizing photographic retainers, and just generally treating ski photography and adventuring like a business. A 1988 Powder story by Lito Tejada-Flores entitled The Clambin Kids of Verbier showed how getting paid to ski and work in a hypnotically beautiful and distant place was possible. This revelation had profound effects on skiing in North America.
The revelation that skiing could take someone to distant lands changed many lives—including mine. Though a Clambin documentary currently in the works might tell a better story, Shapiro’s impressive body of work is already quite the story.
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