Words and photos by Amplid TM, Rich Ewbank.
December is a busy month for every winter sports brand, but for Amplid it’s always particularly busy.
I brought my little pocket camera along to document the weekend.
Small crowds and no clouds were exactly what I’d been praying for.
Andi and Julien brandishing some fresh 15/16 skis before the first day of the shoot.
With this in mind, we dropped our plans for the morning and started looking for lines.
The first line we spotted was east facing and basking in glorious morning sunlight.
The face they were riding was sheltered from the wind which meant that wind deposited snow was a certainty.
I’d be sitting this one out and joining Sev at the vantage point.
Alex dropped first, using his new skis in steep terrain for the first time.
In the background I could hear Sev’s camera firing shots like a machine gun.
Alex and Julien were all smiles thanks to Pitztal’s surprisingly good snow cover and sunny weather.
Photo: Rich Ewbank
The rest of the day was spent scouting spots.
20 minutes later the two of them burst into the restaurant with big smiles on their faces.
Literally 40 meters behind us was an area they wanted to show.
Andi and Alex talk Subarus.
The perfect transport for the long drive up to Pitztal.
This one is Alex’s.
Gradually the crew assembled.
Teddy Berr and photographer Roman Lachner had travelled down from Munich to join us.
Philip had spent the early hours of the morning navigating the St. Anton pass.
By 10am everybody was on the mountain.
Once again we’d been blessed with fantastic conditions.
The sun was blazing and the wind from the previous night had died-down.
Once the step-down landing was bombed, Teddy and Roman escaped into the sidecountry to shoot some lines.
Photo: Rich Ewbank
The next three hours were all about riding the hip.
The landing was incredibly deep and had the dense feeling you only get from wind loaded snow.
With its mellow transition and loaded landing, confidence was not an issue for any of the riders.
Being a catalogue shoot, the most important component of each image is the product.
Julien and Andi were favouring Flat3s while Alex was opting for big Cork3s.
The snowboarders were also keeping the tricks basic and style focused.
Philip, the regular footer, has an incredible amount of pop.
Without too much effort he just seems to go bigger than anybody else.
Powder sprays, cliff drops, millerflips and countless other images were possible within a microscopic twenty meter radius.
Here’s Philip Toplitsch planting a miller flip.
My camera strap swung across the lens as I took this shot of Alex styling a cork3.
It ended-up looking great.
Photo: Rich Ewbank
The man, the myth, the legend.
Mr Severin Wegener soaking up the rays.
Photo: Rich Ewbank
Welcome to “dreamland” gentlemen.
