Before Daniel Conrad Loosli ever carved a line in LAAX or framed a rider against a winter sky, he was a kid behind a screen: black metal in his headphones, pixels and code in front of him. Somewhere between the first awkward turn on snow and the first time he picked up a camera, something shifted. He discovered that the same dark tones and distorted reality could live in the mountains, that a backlit cloud of snow could feel cinematic, that a single turn could look like a dream.

Today, Daniel moves through winter as both skier and image-maker, half athlete and half director of his own dreams. The scrape of edge, the breath in cold air, the low hum of fear that keeps you sharp. In his work, action is never enough on its own. The trick matters, sure but what matters more is everything around it: the rare light, the halo in the lens, the strange detail you only notice later. 

LAAX became his school and his mirror—a resort that doesn’t let you coast, where architecture, park lines, and riding culture raise the bar every season. Surrounded by riders and artists who refuse to settle, Daniel learned to merge worlds: fashion aesthetics with alpine landscapes, fragmented storytelling with the raw honesty of action sports. Breaking the old rules of ski photography and replacing them with something more human, more fragile, more true. In his universe, sport is not a performance to be documented but a language to be rewritten: turn by turn, frame by frame.

Getting creative

“I wasn’t sporty at all until I was 18. I was a nerd. I did informatics, IT. I played a lot of video games, like Doom and other things. And I wouldn’t have considered myself creative back then. I think sport helped me get this vision and somehow shaped me into the creative space. But some things remain. I loved things that were a bit darker—rougher. I love to play with a kind of “horror” scenario. More dark tones, more mysterious. That still remains. I loved black metal, heavy metal. I don’t listen to it anymore, but that imagery remains in my photography.

Now I feel like darker tones are present in sports photography—through the mood, the shifted colorways. Personally it’s really important that passions are mergeable—that you can combine them. Because different visions, different instincts can produce something good. I think it helps a lot. Over the last three or four years we could see low-shutter shots, more glow and other things that became more popular, because there was a sense that photography was getting boring. You can merge visions—it’s always a compromise—but it can work. And the more passion there is, the easier it is to merge.”

Half athlete half image-maker

“When I started out—freestyle skiing on one side, photography on the other—my thinking was pretty simple: ‘That trick looks sick. This light looks sick. Let’s get a sunrise shot. Let’s get something good’. When you’re young, you’re often driven by that idea of being seen—being sponsored, being validated. Honestly, looking back, I find some of it wrong. But then you grow, you evolve.

For me, injuries changed me a lot. They forced me to slow down and reframe what I was doing. And in a strange way, doing both—skiing and shooting—became my biggest advantage. I can understand how something will look almost instantly. I don’t need the back-and-forth you sometimes get between a photographer and an athlete. I can see the trick and the frame at the same time. I can tell you right away if it’s good or not. Eventually, it all merged. I don’t separate it into “me as a skier” versus “me as a photographer” anymore. It starts as an idea—an image in my head. Then I decide what the best way is to bring it to life: Do I shoot it myself? Do I bring in another athlete? A writer? A photographer? An art director?. It’s the same logic as building anything creative, even a product. First comes the idea and after the vision. Then you figure out who’s best to execute it. That’s how it’s been for me, too. I kept notes, kept pushing it forward, and then the collaborations found their place. 

Even with skiing, it’s similar. Snowboarding has this beautiful way of carving—playful, expressive. Skiing can be so alpine-driven, so performance-driven. Not always fun-driven. My turns aren’t the most efficient or technically perfect. But they feel incredible. The head is close to the ground. You feel the snow. And it also looks good. For me, it’s almost never ‘athlete first’ or ‘brand first.’ It’s the idea first—how it could look, how it could feel.”

Behind the lens and in the frame

“If I have to be honest there’s a self-centered element to my photography. I want to be proud of what I’m doing. My skiing isn’t the highest level in the world, but I have a huge drive. And let’s be real—any skier or snowboarder who ends up on a cover and says they don’t care about the exposure… that’s not true. Most humans like recognition. It’s natural. The important part is knowing where the limit is.

If I want the most insane backcountry kicker shot with the cleanest method it’s not gonna be me first person doing it. In those cases, I’ll bring in a bigger athlete, if time allows. For example, I’m working on a project with Nico Porteous, an Olympic gold medalist. He can do things I will never be able to do. No question.

A lot of the time, in my photography the process is more communal. I have a strong relationship with my friends, and many of them have become genuinely creative over the years. Some of them even started shooting themselves and enjoying it, which makes me happy, because they’re discovering a passion I already live with. When it’s a high-stakes job—brand work, limited time, one day to deliver— I have two or three people I trust completely. And then a wider circle of friends who can help.

Plus there’s another layer people don’t always understand: authorship. Sometimes a friend takes the photo—the shutter click—but the framing, the concept, the grading, the decision-making is mine. We still credit the person who shot it, because without them it wouldn’t exist. But I think of myself more as the director than the photographer in those moments. That’s not unusual if you look at other industries. Big fashion photographers often work with teams—assistants, retouchers, stylists—everyone contributes. The image is still a vision executed collectively. For me, there’s also the reality of time: I’m getting older. I got injured. So I’m always trying to pivot further into photography—do more, build more—without losing that part of me that still wants to ski, still wants to be capable, still wants to feel proud of the movement itself.”

A place that raises the bar

“In skiing and in photography, LAAX shaped me massively. I didn’t grow up as a freestyle kid. I started around 18 or 19. Before that I skied with my parents on holidays, and I was in a ski club, but I wasn’t doing freestyle. LAAX is a high-level environment. And honestly, I haven’t skied that many other resorts—at least not in the same way. I’ll travel for powder, but not internationally. I’ve never even skied in the US But in LAAX, every year I find new lines, new zones, new angles. And the level is high in multiple ways: visually—architecture, layout, design—but also in the riding culture. If you’re not good, you don’t progress there. You don’t “accidentally” become great in a place like that. Being around riders who grew up in that scene changes your standards. And that pressure is productive. I look at my work and still think that could be better. I look at what other people do and feel pushed. If you’re connected to the community in a healthy way—without bitterness—everyone grows. That environment made a huge impact on how I see, how I ski, how I shoot. I’m endlessly grateful I got pulled into it over the years.”

Feels like memory

“I’m not sure I’ve ever fully put it into words. But if I had to describe it, I’d start here: a single action shot can be boring. Action shots are important—covers, hero images, key visuals—of course. But the work becomes meaningful when there’s storytelling around it, when it has personality. I’m drawn to images that feel like a dream you half-remember. Not everything is sharp. Not everything is literal. It can feel surreal—like you can’t quite place yourself inside it, but you still feel something. Halo effects, rare light, details that you might not notice while you’re skiing, but that can be revealed through the camera.

I want people to experience the moment—not just see one frame and move on. I don’t love posting a single image without context. I want a series. I want you to feel the turns, the texture, the joy. And I also want it to be accessible. My skiing is “reasonable”. Maybe not with the exact same body language, but the door feels open. A triple cork 1620 on the pro line in LAAX—that’s not something you just attempt. But if art becomes only about the unreachable, the culture stops growing. I think photography—and creativity in general—should be understandable. When people understand, they connect. When they connect, the community evolves.”

When fashion meets the mountain

“My photography is about framing—angles, composition, the willingness to break the “classic” rules of action sports.

When I started, a photographer told me the goal was to put the rider in the sky. Make it look huge. Show the takeoff and landing so the viewer understands. At the time, I thought it was a rule. Now, after years, I partly disagree. Some of it is still true: you do want the viewer to understand what they’re seeing, but that’s why series matter. The athlete’s experience is fragmented: they see the kicker, then the landing, then the spray of snow. Fashion photography teaches you how to build a narrative from fragments. It uses more angles, more experimentation, more risk, because the competition is intense and the industry is massive.

Action sports imagery has often been closer to documentation. But it can go much further: detail shots, off-angle perspectives, moments that are provocative or uncomfortable. In a way that tells the truth of the sport. A crash. A consequence. A strange detail. Fashion has always used provocation as a storytelling tool, and action sports still has so much room to explore that visually. And you can see it changing: grain, blur, dreamy frames—those aesthetics are everywhere in the last five years. The audience likes it because it offers a new way to feel the sport.

I also learned a lot being on the other side—as a talent on commercial shoots. In fashion, photographers often don’t care about your “perfect” body position in the air the way a ski photographer would. They see something else—shape, silhouette, mood. That’s interesting, because it shows how different visual worlds prioritize different truths. At the same time, if you come from fashion without understanding the sport, you miss key things. A brand team might not know what trick reads well, what body position matters, what makes something look clean. Sometimes that knowledge can disappear. That’s where the merge becomes powerful: you can borrow fashion’s eye—its narrative, its angles, its bravery—without losing the integrity of the sport. You can make it feel elevated, but still real.”