shashasha

“Souvenir” is a series of yearly photobooks published by luxury ski resort St. Moritz in Switzerland, launched in 2019. American photograph Roe Ethridge was invited for the second publication of Souvenir in 2020, following Norwegian Torbjørn Rødland in 2019.

With his series for "Souvenir", Ethridge managed to capture rare moments in the life of the quiet Swiss town as well as his spontaneous interactions with the people living there. Though Ethridge had been to Switzerland before, St. Moritz was an entirely new experience for him. Initially planning to divide his time between snowboarding, photographing “a few famous people” and dining luxuriously, Ethridge eventually decided on a different approach: “as the time grew closer to traveling to St. Moritz, I kept thinking about the underlying structures of the place. The services and institutions of this luxury destination. How, in so many ways, I too am a service worker, just like is to photograph a police station or fire department in my hometown of NYC. I mean, they have a fire department and a police station in St. Moritz, right? Can I take pictures there?”

With great curiosity and a sense of humor, he provides a unique insight behind the scenes of the local tourist industry, away from obvious themes and motifs, featuring portraits of service workers, local police, firefighters and confectioners.