Yet Daher’s father worked at a hospital and finished his medical degree near the ski resort of Serre Chevalier in the French Alps. That’s where Daher formed his first ski memo-ries “skiing in the street in front of the house and jumping from the roof to the deep powder in the garden.” Daher wouldn’t truly transition to full-time ski town life until his teenage years, but those first experiences helped him think creatively when it came to skiing. Daher avidly consumed magazines as a teenager and was obsessed with skiing, mountain biking, and climbing pub-lications. It was around the time of the freeride revolution. One day, a 15-year-old Daher saw a picture of Glen Plake in a magazine, and immediately decided he wanted to move in with his grandparents in the mountains. His father told him that as long as he passed his bacca-laureate exam and graduated high school, he was free to do whatever he wished. Dom passed, and immediately headed to Grenoble—smack dab in the middle of the French Alps. Dom and his friends began to build some momentum in the growing freeride scene, with Danish photographer Jakob Helbig capturing shots of Daher doing his best imitations of the Mohawked One. “We had a crew of friends, but we were not very good, just a bit crazy,” describes Daher. “We did backflips and jumped cliffs because we saw pictures of Plake. In Grenoble, I skied as much as I could. I went to alternate school two days a week, but the rest of the week was to earn money and ski.” Helbig introduced Daher to Bellaurd. Belluard remem-bers Daher being enthusiastic—still one of Daher’s calling cards—and eager to communicate his many ideas for ski media. Daher began documenting some of his winter ski trips for the magazine through words and photos, and showed a real knack for journalism and storytelling. “He learned that it’s not necessary to think just like an artist, but also with a meaning, a goal.” says Belluard. “Don’t make it for yourself, do it for the others.” Daher parlayed his part-time hustle into a full-time edito-rial position with the magazine, and his career began to take shape. Skieur financed a one-year photography course and tasked him with photo selection for the magazine, while providing him film and an in-office photo lab. Dom shot with his Canon EOS 3 in the mornings (a camera he purchased from the world-famous Jean Marc Favre), then processed the photos, taking notes about which exposures worked well and which flopped. He built skills on the fly, rely-ing on his ability to think outside of the box to make up for his developing technical skills. He began to travel the world with athletes who became close friends, and eventually went freelance full-time. During that period, Daher started to realize how the freeskiing of the early 2000s could blend into big mountain lines. His commit-ment to combine the two set his work apart. “He was one of the first to notice this fusion between free-style and freeride with skiers like Phil Meier,” says Belluard. “He is really curious and has this feeling for skiing. He has this sensibility.” That feeling created a mutual attraction between Daher and skiers with innate artistic vision, who leaned on creativity rather than rigid technique. The European freeski scene was small in the early 2000s, and he often shot with names like Phil Meier, Thomas Diet, Loic Collomb-Patton, and Candide Thovex. But Daher didn’t discriminate—he was always eager to shoot skiers in any environment, mirroring the creativity exhibited by his newschool crowd. “He always has a new idea,” says Belluard. “It can be tiring. It’s this vision. When you can see or imagine something crazy first, you can’t be a bad photographer, even if you’ve never done a shoot. Everything is a question or idea, even if it’s nothing really serious at first.” It wasn’t as much the aesthetic of jib-centric skiers that attracted Daher, but their receptiveness to fresh perspectives. “These riders were motivated to follow me into any kind of idea,” says Daher. “And I would follow them.” Skiing the streets of Paris was one plan that emerged from this open dialogue (and a few cold beverages). Daher, Diet, and a small crew rented a refrigerated truck and snagged leftover slush from a local ice rink, creating setups in front of the Eiffel Tower. They were kicked out by police, but still managed to snag some of the only urban ski photos ever published from the French capital. His wide-ranging knowledge of ski disciplines, terminol-ogy, and experience in journalism helped Daher catch the at-tention of Nicholas Hale-Woods, the founder of the Freeride World Tour. Legendary Swiss skier Francine Moreillon had approached Hale-Woods about Daher ahead of the Verbier Extreme in 2004, suggesting they bring on someone who could shoot photos and write with the proper vernacular. “The journalists they hired back then had no idea what line choice was or the technical terms you needed to have,” says Daher. “[Hale-Woods] was interested in what I did, and invited me on a trip. I’m a freelance photographer as well as a writer, so maybe there’s an opportunity there. And when Nicole started with the Freeride World Tour, I was the first to work with them 13 years ago.” Dom Daher 089
The Ski Journal Volume 14, Issue 1: Page 89
