It was somehow foreseeable in the mid-1970s that Peter Mathis would progress from apprentice to journeyman carpenter and work in that profession, but not that this man from Vorarlberg, Austria, would also become a mountaineer and climber—and a very good one at that.
Before long, however, all of this was not enough for Mathis. He taught himself photography through learning by doing and found success, first as a climbing, snowboard, and ski photographer, and later also as a fashion photographer.
He could have left it at that, as he was successful both artistically and financially. But standing still is anathema to him, so at some point Mathis finally became what he is today: a “treasure hunter and collector of moments.” No one can say with certainty why or how this happened, except perhaps Mathis himself. But he says, laconically, “Often I was just in the right place at the right time.”
It is no surprise that Mathis, who has dedicated himself to black-and-white photography, loves snow. Snow lends structure to the landscape. So does the right light, for which the photographer often waits for hours, perhaps freezing and shivering because it is winter. The wait is usually worthwhile, however, as snow and light create compositions that could not arise in any other combination.
With the photographs published in his book SNOW, Mathis says he wants to inspire enthusiasm for snow. And he achieves this in a truly fascinating way.
Unlike his magnificent snow, ski, and snowboard photographs, Mathis no longer captures the exact right moment for its own sake. He is no longer concerned with photographing a mountain athlete at a particular instant in time. It is no longer important to him to document athletic prowess. Rather, Mathis’s large-format black-and-white images are only superficially about the captured moment. This moment attracts the viewer’s attention and points beyond itself to something that exists not only in the here and now, but also in the past and the future: something unique and special that might be called the sublimity of the mountains. To immortalize in photographs the blend of amazement and awe that can otherwise only be sensed when one is exposed to the mountains—this is the art of Peter Mathis.
From being a practitioner and later a chronicler of mountain sports, Mathis has become an image-maker of the mountains themselves. He is uniquely capable of sensing the aura of his subjects, capturing it, and conveying it to the viewer through his photographs. In this way, he effectively squares the circle. He makes the inaccessible accessible, the hidden visible, and the inconspicuous obvious. He presents what has been seen many times in a form never seen before and challenges viewers by teaching them to look, while at the same time revealing what they might never see with their own eyes.
Mathis’s greatest achievement may be that he has transformed himself from a chaser of moments into an observer of the constant. His images are conservative in the best sense because they show what timeless beauty means. It is no contradiction that people can be seen in his photographs, because he feels they “belong in the mountains.” For him, humans are part of nature.
Formerly the focus of his vision, human beings have now been shifted to the periphery. Nature occupies the centre: summits, ridges, walls, and flanks covered in snow. Mathis has found his protagonists. And in his photographs, he provides them with the stage they deserve.
About Peter Mathis
Peter Mathis was born in 1961 and lives in Hohenems, Austria.
He has worked as a photographer since 1986. His professional career has focused particularly on outdoor and sports photography, and his international assignments have taken him to a wide variety of locations around the world.
In 2007, he was awarded the title of Hasselblad Master, and in 2008 he received the title of Master of European Photography from the Federation of European Professional Photographers in Belgium.
His photographs have been exhibited in both solo and group shows in cities including Vienna, Budapest, Moscow, Prague, Berlin, Hamburg, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Turin, Zurich, and Basel. [Official Website]
