There’s nothing like taming a volcano to get the wheels spinning. Film wheels, bike wheels, figurative brain wheels, or all of the above if you’re Peter Kaiser. A keen photographer and mountain biker from Innsbruck, Peter Kaiser is currently deep into filming (and riding) for Tape, a short mountain biking film project he's working on. The film is all about what goes into mountain bike filming and photography: more than just the riding, it’s about the people and process behind getting a shot. One chapter of that project took him freeriding on Mount Etna, chasing dusty volcano lines in his favourite Mons bike kit with Axel Weinmann and photographer Moritz Ablinger. We sat down to hear how it went.
What was the idea behind this chapter, and how’d it come together?
I’d heard a lot about Etna and wanted to shoot something there with my mate Axel, who was on the motorbike. Originally it was just going to be the two of us, which got tricky logistically, until photographer Moritz joined for part of the trip. I’d mostly filmed alone before, static shots, so I wanted to try something different this time. That’s where the zoom lens idea came from: shoot the whole chapter as one continuous zoom, start to finish. I set up the shot and either trigger the zoom myself or hand it off to someone else. It worked out well, and as a three-person team it stayed manageable. Didn’t get complicated or resource-heavy.
Any hurdles getting the shoot together?
The idea came to me on the drive to the ferry in Genoa, and it got more concrete once I picked up the zoom motor from a camera store there. It worked well, except I had to update it in the middle of nowhere, which meant driving around for hours just to get reception. That cost about half a day.
Talk us through building the jumps.
Axel was already out in the desert and knew the location a bit. He and Moritz built the jump together. Generally we’d scout a lot of spots and just start building to see if it worked. You can plan as much as you want – it always turns out different anyway, so staying flexible is key. The jumps rode a lot harder than they look in the clips. I spent one night with a headtorch finishing the shaping over a rusty old car. By the time it was done, there wasn’t much time left to shoot, since I had to drive back anyway; I’d lost my license plate somewhere along the way. We ended up shooting it quickly, right at the last moment.
What was the location like?
Drier than usual for the season, so we carried a lot of water and could drive straight into the desert in my 4WD. It’s a wild region, with corroded and eroded slopes that are tricky to ride. But with the right light, riding out there was incredible.
Most memorable moment from the trip?
The nights the three of us spent in my old T3 camper. Pitching a tent wasn’t really an option at most of the spots. Moritz put his own tent up at first, which is actually what motivated me to get a rooftop tent for the bus, so there’d be more room for the production gear inside.
And Etna itself, the trip highlight?
Etna was the wildest place I’ve ridden. It’s a mix of winter freeriding and volcanic landscape, with these green bushes scattered around that look soft but turn out rock-hard, basically perfect little side-hit features. I wanted to get some turns in closer to the camera, got swept up in the light and how fun the riding felt, and ended up getting too close. Sprayed the lens and killed one of the cameras.
Any closing thoughts on the trip?
An old T3 camper, a bike, skis, and plenty of adventure with a camera and good people. In the end it was just about enjoying the time together.
