Mountain Visual Alchemist

Would you shoot your best friends for food?
Our emotions come in waves and spiral out of control in this hostile world, framed by the peaks and steep faces of our reality. Life at altitude is made of black and white. The air is dry and biting, the cold radiates in different gradients. And yet up here, colours hit differently and life overflows. Our society moves at a hundred miles an hour, but here everything pushes us to slow down. The vertical ascent demands it. Slowness is the humblest way to feel, respect and draw from what we are given.

Hearts beat for the perfect move and that almost mythical thrill of accomplishment. It sounds abstract until you’ve felt it.Some will say sending it is all about adrenaline. Others would rather charge something steep, throw themselves into the void and breathe the whole thing in. Whatever the discipline, they are all united by emotion. Jeremy Lafond is part of the pack. But he is also one of those who freeze these moments in time. It’s easy to find mates who are keen to ride, but far rarer to find those willing to haul ten kilos of gear up the mountain to shoot the ones sending it on the big day. He wouldn’t miss the perfect shot for anything. He aims high and far, with the sensitivity of a devoted artist.

Born in Hong Kong in 2001, Jeremy Lafond has spent more than half his life living abroad, between Asia, France, Greece and Australia. In Australia he started being behind the lens. Self-taught, street photography taught him how to capture life spontaneously. Along the way, he crossed paths with freeride skier Martin Brias. In the winter of 2023/24, the two found themselves in Tignes, where Jeremy had finally decided to put down his bags. For him, it was a turning point. He fell in love with the mountains and the freedom they offer. Up here, he shoots and photographs the way he breathes. The emerging backcountry scene keeps growing, and Jeremy doesn’t miss a beat. At the same time, he is running trails, climbing, mountaineering and paragliding, so he can get as close as possible to the people he films, right where the performance unfolds. Through his lens, he wants to experience those sensations himself in order to tell their stories. Driven by an almost relentless need to do better, he is rarely satisfied with his work, his passion always simmering beneath the surface.

A perfectionist in his vision, he has turned a sharp eye into his means of expression. With fresh, powerful visuals tinged with an explosive minimalism, he captures free birds inside his black box, their performance revealing their style.His candour and inspiration are enough to let the deep powder speak. Lately, the projects have been multiplying, and his collaboration with Forward has given birth this year to his first major film, shot over the winter and set to travel through international festivals this fall so keep an eye wide open on it. Lately we had Jerem in our sights. He speaks without filters about the poetry of altitude that grips him, the passion-driven work that mirrors his life, and the person he hopes to become — in a world where everything may look effortless, yet nothing happens by chance.

Hey Jerem, I get the feeling your heart is split between photography and video?
Since finishing the film, I’ve felt a little less drawn to video. This summer, I’ve mostly gone back to photography, shooting with my A7 IV, while my Sony FX6 remains my cinema camera for video projects. I started out with photography before moving into video, and these days I don’t really see myself specialising in one or the other. It depends on the project and what inspires me at the time. There are projects where I’ll feel much more drawn to telling a story through video, and others where photography just feels more natural.

The big difference is that video quickly becomes much heavier to produce. On a bigger project, you have the shoot, the edit, the colour grade, the sound… and suddenly there are a lot more people involved. With photography, you can much more easily do everything yourself: shoot, edit and deliver the images. I like that because the project stays much more personal. I think it’s interesting to work across different disciplines, but it’s also a real challenge. It’s difficult to truly excel at several things at once. I think it’s a bit like sport: athletes who are genuinely great across several disciplines are pretty rare. For now, I’d rather keep that freedom and see where each project takes me.


How did your relationship with FORWARD first come about?
With FORWARD, everything started with Common Sense, a small project Martin and I made together. We never expected it to go that far, but the film got some great feedback, and that’s what eventually led us to the brand. This year, we wanted to take things further and make a film we could really put ourselves into. I am signed both as an athlete and a creator, and I invested a huge amount of time and energy into making it. I may have skied less than I originally planned, but I really wanted to make something that felt true to me and that I could be proud of.

For me, it’s about making films with a real identity. I don’t just want to showcase beautiful skiing. I want to create an atmosphere, tell something meaningful and make people feel something. I want the viewer to feel the places, the moments and the energy behind the images, rather than just watching a sequence of ski shots.

Your images are very contemplative and cinematic. Is that something you consciously pursue, or is it an unconscious signature of your style?
I don’t really think about it consciously anymore. It’s just become my style and the way I naturally shoot. I’m always looking for this empty space, a sense of scale and contrast. When I’m shooting skiing, I tend to stay quite far from the subject. I’m much more interested in the whole composition of the shot than in the trick itself.

It’s actually funny because when the guys are skiing, I often don’t even know what trick they’ve done. I’m so focused on the framing, the movement, where the skier is going to be in the shot and how everything comes together that I sometimes have to ask them afterwards what they actually did. I think that comes partly from the fact that I didn’t come from the ski world originally. I naturally look at skiing from a slightly different perspective. I’m more interested in the feeling of a moment, the movement, the light and the space around the skier. So many ski images out there look the same. For me, trying to see skiing differently and finding another way to tell those stories is what makes it interesting.

Your work seems deeply connected to the people you share the mountains with. What role does friendship play in what you film?
With Martin Brias, it’s really more than friendship. We do almost everything together. We live together, ski together, shoot together, have the same group of friends, and even cook together almost every night. We’re pretty inseparable.

Friendship has a huge place in what we create. When we’re shooting, we have very similar tastes. We’ll look at the shots together and immediately know what works and what doesn’t. It makes the whole creative process really fluid. For this film, I took the lead on the whole production. I edited it, found the sound studio, worked on the colour and basically treated it as my baby. Martin had to trust me and let me make those decisions, even when there were things he wasn’t necessarily convinced about.

But we also have a really complementary relationship. Sometimes he’ll come up with an idea that isn’t technically possible, but it will trigger something in my head and lead me to another idea that we can actually make work. That’s what makes the collaboration interesting. At the end of the day, we’re two best friends who ski together, shoot together and are slowly building a life around it. It’s pretty special to be able to make a living from something we genuinely love doing together.

What lies at the heart of your film? Did such a dangerous season change the way you approach risk in the mountains when you’re shooting?
Having responsibilities towards brands and the resort inevitably changes the way we ski. Sometimes we organise proper shooting days. We go into the mountains with a clear goal, and every run is built around getting the shot.

Last winter, everything was focused on the film for almost six months. Looking back, that was probably the hardest thing to handle. We were so focused on producing that we didn’t always take the time to simply enjoy being in the mountains. When Martin is being filmed, he feels the pressure of the camera. I feel the pressure of getting the shot. I can’t afford to miss it, especially when you’ve brought someone up there for one single line. But last winter also reminded us how quickly things can go wrong. One day, Martin and I went out to shoot on a border day and he got caught in an avalanche. I was way too far away with the camera to be able to do anything. Luckily, he made it out. That moment deeply affected our season. I had already lost a friend who died at the beginning of the winter, and there had been a huge number of avalanches. For a while, Martin didn’t even want to go freeriding anymore.

There was a real tension between wanting to get the shot and having the awareness to know when to stop. That ultimately became the heart of the film: this duality between taking risks and staying lucid, between the desire to push further and knowing where your limits are. It was a great addition having Cyril Pierrel join us for the ride. We were a slightly larger group, Martin was pushed beyond his limits, and, all together, we made safer decisions when faced with danger signs.


Do you think social media has changed the way you judge your own work?
Instagram can be inspiring, but it can also mess with your head. You’re constantly exposed to incredible work, and it’s very easy to look at what other people are doing and think, “Fuck, I still have so much to learn.” Sometimes I’ll see someone’s work and think it’s amazing, but instead of just enjoying it, I immediately start questioning what I’m doing. Without Instagram, I’d probably be much more satisfied with my own work. At the same time, I’ve managed to detach myself from likes and views. I’ve realised that what performs well on Instagram doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the work. I’ve had completely random videos that had nothing to do with the kind of photography or filmmaking I care about getting millions of views. It’s a strange paradox: social media can make you doubt your work, while also showing you that numbers don’t necessarily mean anything. For me, what matters is still making work that I genuinely believe in.


Do you ever get frustrated that you can’t ride what you’re filming?
I love my job, so it’s not a big concern for me. When I’m behind the lens, I’m still at my happiest. Sometimes, though, it’s frustrating to spend a whole day filming lines that I really want to ski myself. In the movie there’s a couloir that’s quite famous in Tignes, we shot it several times now and I haven’t had the chance to ride it yet!

But since breaking my vertebrae, I’ve really changed the way I ski. (Jeremy is just back from a huge backcountry accident on his back last year) Coming back last winter, I wasn’t completely comfortable. I had a real mental block about putting my head down and committing the way I used to. I ski with much less aggression now, but I think I actually ski better. I’m more precise and more aware of what I’m doing.
I don’t feel the need to prove myself anything anymore. I know how lucky I was, and I know that some things simply aren’t worth the consequences. The experience changed my relationship with risk. You go through some pretty intense phases after an accident, but eventually you find a way to move forward. You adapt, and you keep going.


Where was the film shot, and why did you choose to shoot it there?
The whole piece was shot in Tignes. That was a deliberate choice, and something we’re so stoked about. We wanted to show how much the area has to offer without having to travel all over the place. We already live together there, and most of the time we move around by electric bus, so we kept the footprint of the project very low. We barely travelled outside the resort all winter.What’s cool is that we managed to show so many different sides of Tignes: forests, backcountry, big lines, Big Air. The whole film is basically a portrait of the mountains we know and ride every day. It also made the production much simpler. We knew the terrain, we knew where to go, and most of the spots we filmed were places we had already explored before. It gave us the freedom to focus on the skiing and the story rather than constantly thinking about logistics.


What does freedom mean to you?
For me, freedom means being able to spend my time outside. Waking up, heading into the mountains, exploring, pushing myself, feeling the elements and sharing it with friends. That’s what makes me feel alive. Since my accident, I’ve realised how little I actually need. Financial independence matters, but what matters most is having the time and freedom to be in the mountains. I could live in a tiny apartment, own very little and be happy, as long as I can make a living doing something I genuinely care about. I just want to control my time, spend it outside with people I love, and do something that feels meaningful. For me, that’s enough.

Interview by Maxence Gallot.