MEET TOSHI PANDER

SKIER, FILM MAKER, PHOTOGRAPHER

If you search the term ‘slashie’ online there should be a picture of Toshi Pander. A slashie is someone who creates a life pursuing a collection of professions, paths and career options. A list separated by slashes; instructor/freeskier/ park manager/photographer/filmmaker. Fellow Hotham skier Coen Bennie-Faull caught up with Toshi to talk about his multi-faceted identity and how these strands weave together to build a life in skiing.

Where did skiing start for you? Was it in the club fields in New Zealand or in Japan? Because you come from everywhere. Tell me about how it started with Toshi Pander just skiing around?

It’s a bit of both. My parents had a ski lodge since I was four and I was born in New Zealand in Springfield. We’d spend winters in the ski lodge in New Zealand and then my Dad drove snow groomers in Japan. So we’d spend six months in Japan/six months in New Zealand –back and forth for about 10 years.

So, the seasonal lifestyle has been a way of life since the beginning for you?

Yeah, pretty much. For all of primary school we split our time between New Zealand and Japan until I started junior high and I stayed in New Zealand. That’s when Porters was my local ski resort. Out of those club fields Porters is the more ‘commercial’ one and had three T-bar lifts.

And did you grow up skiing in a club system there?

Porters was the closest ski area to my house. It still had that club fields feel but it’s actually a ski resort and I was in the race team there. It was more developed than a true ‘club’ field but it’s still really small – you know the general manager and he knows you from when you were tiny. The race program though was quite big at the time and we got taught to ride Slalom and GS but we’d be off freeriding and tackling it all. You’re on one pair of GS skis going down Bluff Face to open faces on bumps and ice and crud. We’d do everything.

You can see the racing roots in the way you ski, but you’re not in the racing world now, you’re the head of the parks at Hotham and I see you as a jib-style skier with a freeride influence. Tell us about your racing foundation and the transition to where you are today.

I think growing up in New Zealand and being able to go and ride anything, in any conditions, makes you a stronger all-round skier. We were all out to have fun and rip around. So for sure, as I grew up I did racing but we all freeskied and ripped around, learned how to jump off stuff and whatnot. Until I was 18 I kept up the ski racing though.

And then soon when I turned 18 I did my first proper season in Fukushima in Japan as an instructor. There was a massive crew of free skiers there, the biggest I’ve ever seen; easily a dozen really good park riders, who were all instructors too. It was such a massive influence and opened up this whole new style of skiing. My racing was a great background, but I was discovering park and touching proper powder for the first time. It was completely eye-opening to be introduced to such a loose surfy feel in the powder and the freedom of what you can do in that. Jumping. Rails. It was life-changing.

Do you think that first season in Fukushima changed the direction for you in skiing?

It was probably a combination of things; my first time overseas independently as an adult and discovering a completely different type of skiing. It was a whole other aspect and different style to the skiing I’d known. I was addicted to this new feeling. I was at a point with my racing where from when I was 17 years old I was doing FIS for the first time and it really sucked the fun out of it for me.

I was suddenly feeling ‘I don’t know if I can see myself becoming a top racer or not…’ and then with freestyle it felt like ‘it doesn’t matter what level you are, it’s about how you enjoy your day’.

I can relate to that. Was there pressure with having a family in the ski industry to follow that path also or did you feel like it was something that felt right for you?

It was very fluid I think. It was definitely my choice. I did so many seasons when I was younger I didn’t really think about what I did as a ‘seasonal’ lifestyle. It just felt like a normal lifestyle at the time. It was just about discovering yourself – you’re 18 and just going for a new adventure. I wanted to do something different, get out of the small New Zealand town and see the world, doing what I knew how to do.

You now spend most of your year in Australia, heading up the park crew at Mount Hotham, tell me about that move from New Zealand to Australia?

I did about four or five seasons back at my local resort back home, but it did get to the point in New Zealand where it was like, ‘you’re still my parents’, and I was looking for a change. It’s great there but my family is so etched into Porters and whatever you do, there is that influence and opinion from your parents that as a young adult you want to be free of, to find your own way.

The move to Australia came about through a few people I met in Japan. I met a mate Damien and a few Hotham crew one year in Japan where they all worked for the same ski shop. Usual story, they said ‘you should come to Hotham’. At the time I had no idea that skiing was even a big thing in Australia but I thought, ‘why not try something different again?’ It was feeling a bit too stable in New Zealand and I was ready for another adventure. Park crew jobs are a niche thing and usually quite a tight crew that are pretty hard to get into, so to be asked if I wanted to work at Hotham felt like an opportunity I should take. I gave it a go.

It’s one thing to get into the ski industry, it’s another thing to stay in the ski industry. It can be a transient world and sometimes it’s hard to find a home base with seasonal work. You’ve gone from being a skier who was working in park crew, to making it a career. It seems picking up a camera played a big role in that. How did that begin? Where did photography come into this for you?

In my early 20s I was really just trying to make a name for myself, free skiing in my own way and I think it was that first year I met Ben Kaye and we went back to Niseko and were pushing each other quite hard at the time with our free skiing. We did a few trips down to Honshu together with a photographer for some shoots. We’d work really hard, put our bodies on the line and they’d get some cool photos, but often we never ended up with the photos ourselves, which became frustrating.

I feel it’s a 50/50 thing where it’s half the photographer and half the rider to create a great image together. It can be hard for photographers trying to keep a photo exclusive to get more value for it when they’re selling it to magazines but also at the time I’d be feeling, ‘if you’re not going to use it, I really want to have it’. We started getting a bit fed up and figured, ‘well, why don’t we just get better at taking photos and then we don’t need to look for photographers to work with, or ride for them. We can do this for ourselves.’

That’s how it all started.

How does photography and skiing work together for you now? Do you call yourself a skier or a photographer?

I take a lot of pride in being a skier, my heart and core is still skiing but my ambition and focus is to be at the top of photography and filming and that’s what I’m really pushing now. I just want to be the best photographer/ filmer that I can be, but I can also rip.

My goal for now is to sharpen up more on the never ending process of getting better at photography and filming but definitely trying to be the best I can be all-round, at everything.

Photographers that are also skiers have an ability to see a scene before it happens. Having worked with you personally, your ability to set up a shot in a short timeframe and collaborate on a moment that you’ve planned with an athlete is beyond what photographers who don’t have that background in skiing can do. How do you think your skiing style and your experiences, guides your photography?

“IT WAS SUCH A MASSIVE INFLUENCE AND OPENED UP THIS WHOLE NEW STYLE OF SKIING. MY RACING WAS A GREAT BACKGROUND, BUT I WAS DISCOVERING PARK AND TOUCHING PROPER POWDER FOR THE FIRST TIME.”

Just knowing and being able to see what I would do if I was skiing, how would I ride, is what I’m thinking about whether I am skiing it or taking a photo. I still look at the mountain and the faces and think about… ‘what line? Can you go from here? Where would you flash… that wind lip or that berm looks perfect’ and then I move into ‘how would I frame that?’ I’m already building a mental picture of the possibilities and that always comes into the discussion with any rider as I ask them ‘what do you want to do here?’

What’s really exciting is when the idea I have in my head matches what the rider wants to do. I think it gives me a bit of advantage of being able to ride it, so I think as a rider and then I try to find that middle ground where it’s a great frame but it also feels good for them. Sometimes if you push too hard for a certain shot it can look good in the moment but loses the flow for the skier, so I try and capture riding that keeps the flow and motion so you can feel that in the frame.

How do you hold yourself back when you’re shooting and you can see how it needs to be done and the skier isn’t getting it? Do you ever feel you could just go out there and do it for them?

I think that’s the biggest challenge right now for me is the balance. I’m getting more and more comfortable with the transition of becoming more photography focused, but it’s definitely hard sometimes when you want to ride but then it’s a beautiful sunrise and I’m thinking ‘this looks amazing to shoot, but I’d love to ride that’. I’m getting better where my brain can now switch over and be like, ‘okay, I’m here to take photos and that’s what I am thinking about. Riding can come afterwards.’

The relationship you have with Ben Kaye, another ripping skier from Hotham, seems to have been a big influence on your career, do you think you would’ve found this path or was it a bit of a sliding door moment to meet Ben to get into this side of skiing?

I think it’s been a really big part of it, now that I look back at it. I think our attitudes were quite similar but we have our own distinct ways. Our riding styles, our motivations for the riding and our direction we wanted to go and our thinking’s very similar but how we see was pretty much polar opposites. I think meeting someone like that at that right time in your riding career can be a key moment. It could have been a spike, a flash and then gone downhill but we met right as we were on the rise of our skiing abilities and then connecting at that time just catapulted everything for us.

For sure I had a similar experience with Will Nelson and I think if I hadn’t had those few seasons chasing winter with him around the world, would I still be in this industry?

It’s that community aspect of skiing that is really important. At the end of the day we work outside, especially in Australia, often in the rain and wind and that connection you create with people is what’s really important.

Do you think that tight community environment you grew up with in the club fields has guided where you’ve taken your career, from there to Hotham and Niseko?

Yeah for sure. Early on for me it was all about wanting to surround myself with the people that actually made me happy. Not wasting time trying to pretend and make people happy that I didn’t really care about. That’s how we chose who we spent time with. I think that part of the reason there are so many club resorts in a certain area and they all run perfectly; all the clubs are so different but it’s kind of like being taken into a family. People accept you in, you find like-minded crew and you make it work as a community. I just continued on that path when I went over to Japan and Fukushima and somehow was lucky enough to fall into circles of people, and jobs.

I was working in Fukushima when the earthquake happened and that was in March, close to end of the season. We all lost our jobs in Fukushima after the earthquake and the nuclear plant disaster. It was all over the news, and my parents were worried, ‘you need to come home to New Zealand the nuclear plant’s going to blow up.’ But I felt it was too soon to quit and I’d just connected to what felt like the right group of people for me, so I reached out through connections and ended up in Niseko in spring. I had no idea what it was like and ended up working the summer there. Similar to the club field vibe I found a little family and everyone just clicked so well.

It’s these moments that keep me in this industry with these people. I’m 30 now and it’s been 12 years of pretty much back-to-back seasons and not getting bored a single moment.

My Niseko ‘family’ now crosses over to the Hotham ‘family.’ It’s that community vibe that glues us all together.

It can be a tough industry to make a living and shooting skiing isn’t necessarily a means to an end. You’ve transformed what started in skiing to something a lot bigger. How do you make it all work?

It’s pretty hard to make a living off ski photography full-time, so I juggled fitting it in around my full-time job. In Australia for example I’m working in a full-time job in the Hotham park but was building lots of good connections with companies and sponsors that gave me a chance to do shoots with gloves, outerwear and goggles. Those slowly brought in a little bit of extra income but the biggest thing was getting real experience in actual commercial style photography. That was the start for everything for me, doing a little bit of that gave me the experience as I shot more and more product-based stuff. Then I started to do more lifestyle shoots which built up my skills to transition into tourism-style videos and photos and I do some of that now with Hotham resort management.

Opposite photo: This image is from 2018 when I was shooting for Mt Hotham social media takeover. Ben Kaye the rider is one of my great friends that together helped me start my photography career and also pushed me as a freeskier.

It’s all about being there and you never know where the next connection will come from. That’s what happened when I first met Aaron Jamieson about seven years ago when he was looking for a skier for talent and I started shooting with him. He has been involved in the running of the Niseko Shootout film festival since the beginning, so I’d always make an effort to do a season edit or put something together for the competition. It was time-consuming and tiring but it was good to improve each year and be part of it. It helped show the world Niseko and Hokkaido and what we were doing. And then a few years go by and here we are, our own production company doing professional commercial work, government and tourism projects. These opportunities working in highend real estate and tourism related businesses keep me in the snow industry and allow me to play to my strengths. I’m still getting the riding shots and the landscapes I love, but shooting in the snow all the time is harsh. It’s tough on you and your equipment, everything is frozen, fogged and difficult being outside in the cold and the elements. We’re taking all those skills and tackling whatever jobs arise, and we’re pulling it off.

You won Best Short Film in Niseko Shootout this year – tell me about what that means to you as a photographer to take out that prestigious honour?

Yes, I made a four-minute film called Painter about a day in the life of Shigeru Tokumaru (88 years old) who is one of Niseko’s favourite artisans. Niseko Tourism now run the event and every year I’ve put something in, usually a ski edit. Tokumaru has lived in Niseko for something like 55 years and he was keen to work with me and Aaron on a documentarystyle video about his work and his life, and we thought ‘let’s do it’. So many more people wanted to see it, and we put it in the festival for something different, it’s super local to Niseko but of course not a ski edit which is what everyone was expecting. [It was the first time a non-ski/snowboard film has won]

It was really nice to have the skillset to be able to create the film and story and there’s something about sharing a film, giving it away and sharing it with others that I enjoy. I’m really motivated by how my photos and video can help others, like my early memories in the park taking photos as people are learning their first grabs and capturing it for them. To be able to give them that photo and see them so excited about it, for now that’s all I really focus on.

You are very humble and clearly work driven by passion rather than for any recognition. Do you think that is just you, or is it part of your upbringing?

I guess it’s a little bit of everything. There’s a lot in the Japanese culture that has rubbed off on me. There’s definitely a bit of both sides in my personality. My father’s Dutch and Dutch people can be very stern and strong where Japanese people tend to be culturally quite humble and respectful. I think I do have a very mixed and split personality like that and it’s partly up to my own accord. Some people spend lifetime working out what kind of person they want to be. I think I was lucky enough to have certain people early on in my life that showed me how being humble, just being respectful but also strong about what you want to do, can direct how you can be as a person.

I think I decided early on it that I don’t need to brag about anything. I’ve realised the more you can give back to the people around you that you care about and the connections you make – that’s the best way to go in life, to be as happy as you can be. Looking back, some of it might be the influence of my Japanese culture, but I think it’s as much about the people you surround yourself with. Just being open and taking every moment – you never know when you might find your best friend or another connection that you aspire to and it helps direct your path in life.

What does the future hold? What’s next?

Currently me and Aaron Jamieson are kicking off our production company – Tanuki Productions – based in Japan. So that’s really concrete now and this passion/job is steadily evolving and we’re really committing to this step. Last winter was a really big leap to realise I’m ready to head into this next stage and putting 100% into my photography and filming to take it up to the commercial level. What started off as one job in Niseko turned into working every day and we were booked out for the whole five months I was in Japan, and even on jobs that were completely outside skiing. It was also cool working on commercial projects connected to skiing like a 10-day shoot we did with Faction, doing a whole range of ski lifestyle and product photography and taking it to another level.

Follow Toshi’s creative journey on the gram @toshi_pander, say hi if you’re in the park at Hotham and keep an eye out for more coming soon from Tanuki Productions.