By the late ’80s, Von Doersten was back in Jackson living part-time in an infamous ski-bum cabin called the Simpson House for $89.99 a month. His roommates ranged from dumpster-diving misfits to acclaimed adventurers like Ste-phen Koch, Mark Newcomb, Julie Zell and Doug Workman, who profiled their ski-bum palace in Powder Magazine . About this time, Von Doersten began stashing his posses-sions in the Simpson House basement and taking extended trips to Europe. Long trips to Chamonix and Norway, guid-ing on the rivers and in the mountains while spending his free time with world-class athletes in sports from skiing and snowboarding to base jumping and paragliding. He’d hang out with such guys as pro snowboarder Jay Nelson, UIAGM guide Bernd Schulke and extreme snowboarders Jerome Ruby and Dédé Rhem, carving his photography hobby into a burgeoning career. When guiding was slow, he’d take odd jobs to support expeditions, or throw trips together by find-ing last-minute athletes and sponsor travel budgets—always shooting photos for his ever-expanding portfolio. His first big break came when the infamous Colonel Narendra “Bull” Kumar hired him to guide and shoot a river expedition in India and Nepal, traveling from the source of the Ganges in the Himalaya to the Bay of Bengal. This led to some of Von Doersten’s first published images in trade magazines and publications such as Paddler Magazine and Canoe and Kayak . About this time, his ski photography started making print, too . Von Doersten looked up to adventure photographers like Ned Gillette and Galen Rowell, dogged hustlers known for their tenacity in chasing down sponsorships for huge expeditions. “Similar to Gillette and Rowell, I became friends with ath-letes and climbers,” Von Doersten says. “I was very comfortable with high-angle terrain and rope work, and just being able to hang with the crew.” All of that time in high places gave Von Doersten a chance to craft stories with the athletes themselves, as well as start to build his own narratives behind the lens. He brought his first high-end camera, a Nikon F4, to Chamonix in the late ’80s and began spending less time guiding and more time shooting photos. In Chamonix, he got a shot of snowboarder Dave Seoane tweaking a grab against a backdrop of royal blue sky far above a horizon of the Alps. The photo not only found the cover of the young and independent sNo Board magazine, but it was also licensed to an East Coast ad agency back in the age of rights-managed photography. They paid him $35,000—still one of the largest sales of his career—and his photo was featured in the 1989 international ad campaign for Molson Ice. Von Doersten describes this sale as surreal; he used some of the money to fund new equipment, but more importantly it gave him confidence that he had both the talent to create great imagery and the negotiating skills to make real money selling photos to big clients. In the early ’90s, Von Doersten began working with Marmot, one of big mountain legend Doug Coombs’ major sponsors, and accompanied Coombs on climbs in the Tetons and heli-skiing in Alaska. Renowned adventure photographer Ace Kvale also shot for Marmot during that time and took the young Von Doersten under his wing. “GVD is always driven,” Kvale says. “Driven to produce cutting-edge photos, working to get that angle, to get the shot for his editors and for his own self-motivation. He’s not a spec-tator; he’s a participant in his own photos and expeditions.” In pitching stories and expeditions, Von Doersten began looking off the beaten path for compelling stories. He favored smaller teams with more modest budgets over high-profile expeditions. “If you’re just executing the sea of sameness in the same location over and over again and getting pretty shots, that’s great. But that’s not how I view my job,” Von Doersten says. “That’s not how you continue to craft that iconic stuff.” That stuff, he says, comes from dynamic light, unique angles and locations, subjects interacting with the natural world in interesting ways and, most importantly, images that tell stories. By the mid ’90s Von Doersten was publishing work with such magazines as Men’s Journal, Outside , and National Geographic Adventurer and had established what would become long-term relationships with brands such as The North Face and Patagonia. His work took him all over the world, and across disciplines. Jane Sievert, longtime friend and photo editor at Patagonia, says Von Doersten has the rare ability to shoot any sport successfully—on skis, by boat, or from a climbing rope. “He really hangs it out there on some big expeditions,” Sievert says. “He has such a great range of photography from underwater tropical, to the Grand Canyon, to deep powder, to beautiful scenes from Antarctica.” That breadth of work, she remembers, always occupied a massive physical portfolio, a beautiful handcrafted work of art in itself Von Doersten carried around the halls of the SIA trade show (now Outdoor Retailer) as he spoke with brand reps, athletes and photographer friends. He knew the value of his work and that of his colleagues. “He’s always been a strong advocate for photographers and a bit of a pain in the ass,” Sievert says. “But he really ne-gotiated with photo editors and buyers. His goal was to open the eyes of the outdoor industry to the risk and difficulty and value of the images these guys were creating. I think he can take credit for elevating that discussion, for sure.” 084 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 15, Issue 2: Page 84
