Snowboard photographer Jérôme Tanon dreaming of “Free Rider”

• Every other Thursday, in its “Off-Pitch” section,

  20 Minutes

  explores new, unexpected, unusual, clever or booming spaces for expressing sport.

• This week, we are dedicated to the career of Jérôme Tanon, who has played a major role in the world of French snowboarding for many years, as a photographer and director.

• The native of the Paris region, addicted to film photography, has just released the film

  Free Rider

  , currently showing at Montagne en scène, and in which we see him accompanying skier Sam Anthamatten and snowboarder Victor de Le Rue to Alaska. .

You can have spent your entire childhood and adolescence in the Paris region and dedicate a large part of your life to snowboarding.

Not as a top athlete, like this

has been presenting so many for nearly two years, but as a benchmark photographer and director in the discipline.

Jérôme Tanon, since it is about him, has just made his third film,

, programmed in the unmissable Montagne en Scène festival, almost everywhere in France until January 24th.

A work as spectacular as it is offbeat, starring Swiss skier Sam Anthamatten and Savoyard snowboarder Victor de Le Rue, landed in the depths of Alaska last April to ride various peaks hitherto untouched by any trace.

Jérôme Tanon noted that two schools were opposed on such a project, which represents “almost a year of full-time work, between the organization of the expedition and the editing of the film”.

"The problem with riders is that by definition, they just want to ride," explains the director, who now lives in Annecy.

It's "chanmé", the images are always impressive, but you have to find a story with meaning.

It's not like a decade ago when there was no narration on those freeride movies, just tricks and music.

»

"They rode things that weren't human"

A cocktail of action insufficient to open up to the general public, as an event such as Montagne en scène allows.

At the same time narrator, producer, director and editor on

, Jérôme Tanon (36 years old) most often went to Alaska on a small peak opposite the descents of the athletes to film, while also relying on two cameramen, Christoph Thoresen and Yannick Boissenot, specialized in drone images.

But he also found himself on his snowboard for a descent that appears on the screen.

I rode a small playable face, but it was already crazy.

I felt like I was falling from the sky.

Ideally, I should be able to go everywhere with the riders.

But on such a freeride expedition, not many people can follow them.

They rode unhuman stuff.

I'm still the trailing guy struggling, but we've never had to call a rescue helicopter for me yet.

»

But by the way, how could this Parisian have had such a professional trajectory, to the point of ending up in Alaska, on a major project with The North Face brand as its main sponsor?

"As a teenager, I was passionate about skateboarding in Paris, and that led me to snowboarding and therefore to the mountains," he recalls.

I was 18 and 3 days old when I got my driver's license, and that was the key to my freedom.

I participated in a lot of freestyle events.

I had a decent level but my friends Victor de Le Rue, Victor Daviet and Arthur Longo were ultra-strong.

I spent all my summers with them in the snowparks of Tignes and Les 2 Alpes.

»

He stands out by opting for 100% silver

Having left barely of age for a year of physics and biology studies in Lausanne (Switzerland) then in Grenoble, he knew very well that his desires were elsewhere.

“I was going to ride every other day, I arrived in snow boots in class, it was scandalous, he smiles.

This bachelor's degree in physics and biology was my excuse for the parents to finance me a little.

And even though I passed my first year, my plan was to become a photographer as soon as possible.

»

Because for Jérôme Tanon, the passion for photography catches up with that for snowboarding.

Especially from a click, when he turned to film at the age of 22.

“It pissed me off to have the same snowboard photos as everyone else,” he explains.

The grain and texture of film hooked me and I started to become the only snow and skate photographer to shoot 100% of the time on film.

»

Hours to “find the perfect angle”

His eye and his taste for film photography are appreciated by athletes, such as Victor de Le Rue: “He always manages to take THE photo, with a great silhouette, to highlight the rider”.

For nearly 15 years, Jérôme Tanon has been developing his works himself, hanging them with clothespins in his old-fashioned bathroom.

He explains how the fact of having abandoned digital has changed his relationship to photography.

It can take a month and a half before I discover my photos.

With film, you focus on making every shot count.

That's what's great: I really feel like taking a photo, and not activating a burst mode.

As the rider climbs, I spend hours moving 30cm to find the perfect angle, the one that will ensure the rider doesn't have a tree behind them.

I have a fraction of a second to act, and as I am a decent level snowboarder, I know what angle to take depending on the figure of the athlete.

»

Self-taught for the photo, he is just as much in the cinema, since the release in 2016 of

, in which he makes us live all the backstages of his travels with about fifty riders, in order to show their reality. .

"It's by choice that I didn't go to photography school or film school," he says.

I wanted to do everything on my own, so as not to be influenced.

I wanted original, honest, funny films with personality.

His directorial debut “instantly became a cult film,” and now has 1.6 million views on YouTube.

“He is able to make fun of us”

Follows in 2018

(nearly 5 million views on YouTube) with snowboarder Thomas Delfino, where he finds himself pulling sleds for 170 km in Kurdistan.

His friend Victor de Le Rue (33) remembers: “He was just recovering from a cruciate ligament rupture in his knee, so I thought he was sick to take part in this gigantic loop. .

He drooled but we saw that he gave himself a phew”.

The latter, who nicknamed Jérôme Tanon "the chameleon", for his ability to adapt to all environments, is delighted with the rendering of

 : "I like the authenticity of his work: he is able to our mouth while demonstrating self-mockery.

Since he's a friend, it doesn't pose the slightest concern to see him filming the intimacy of our experience all the time.

With exactly the same wrinkle images available, this film would be very different without its touch, its humor”.

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"I'm living my dream vicariously"

It gives us here 13 days of adventure,

, where we see the band having fun giving names to the Alaskan peaks they inaugurate, like The Big Lebowski to begin with.

With a crazy daily routine: getting up at 3 am to hunt for beautiful lights, then “up to 5 hours of ascent for 2 minutes of descent” for Sam Anthamatten and Victor de Le Rue.

Our off-road file

“I am living my dream by proxy, savors Jérôme Tanon.

I'm a fan of all these riders, they are my heroes.

Ten years ago, the Holy Grail for me was having my pictures in a snowboard magazine.

I never thought that one day my films would be seen by millions of people all over the world.

Nor that he would contribute, with his snowboarder friend Victor Daviet, to exfiltrate 14 members of the Afghan national snowboard team, threatened with death by the Taliban.

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Montagne en scène continues until January 24

There are places left for this edition of Montagne en scène (17 euros), notably in Caen, Chamonix, Le Mans and Avignon this Thursday (7:30 p.m.), in Lille on Friday, at the Grand Rex in Paris on December 9 and 12, in Toulouse on December 9 then on January 11 and 12, in Lyon and Metz on December 13, in Lattes-Montpellier on December 13 and January 11, in Grenoble on December 15 and 16, in Marseille and Nice on January 12, and finally in Rennes on January 24.

Reservations and information here.

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