In the beginning of 2020, the LAAX Open, formerly the Burton European Open, went down in Laax, Switzerland. In 2019, I quit my day job for a career as a freelance photographer and spent much of the year in Portugal shooting surf, so coming back to the Alps for this event to shoot for a German snowboard magazine was somewhat of a professional homecoming for me.
The event was really superb. There were high-class riders like Scotty James, Andre Höflich, Stale Sandbech, Sebastien Toutant, Julia Marino and Queralt Castellet, and a perfect setup that included the longest halfpipe on the planet. And that halfpipe was the centerpiece of my personal event highlight: the halfpipe finals under the lights. I grabbed myself a spot on the table of the pipe and a spot in the middle of the slopestyle track that night, super close to the riders flying by, and it’s an experience I’ll always remember.