Christmas

Snapshots of a winter

Braving the snow and the cold, photographer Sandro Reichmuth set out on behalf of Swiss Post to capture winter moments. While some of his ideas came to nothing, others were met with applause.

Tramping through the snow in the bitter cold didn’t much bother landscape photographer Sandro Reichmuth: “I’m the outdoorsy type all year round, with everything that entails. When I see the perfect subject, I forget everything around me anyway.” For the new Christmas stamps, the photographer from Eastern Switzerland undertook several excursions around his home region with a view to capturing winter moments: “I wanted to show four stages of winter in chronological order the busy Advent season and peaceful Christmas in St. Gallen, the festive New Year’s Eve with fireworks in front of my house, and a winterexperience on the Schwägalp.” The last of these took several attempts. His first effort had the photographer sledging at high speed past his selftimer camera on the Schwägalp lantern trail: “While the ride gave me a great deal of childlike pleasure, I’m afraid the pictures weren’t suited to the stamp format and I had to discard them.” His idea for the New Year’s design proved more successful. While lighting the fifth firework for the shoot, the 44 year old was suddenly met with applause: “People in the vicinity started clapping it was really quite a special moment.” Reichmuth’s timing for the Christmas design was perfect. “The evening sky still wasn’t too dark, the fairy lights were already on, and a few snowflakes fell right in front of my lens a moment of winter happiness you can now see on a stamp.”