Tom Lippert: Photo retrospective

Shooting great skiers on four continents

Tom Lippert was working as a ski instructor at Squaw Valley in February 1969 when the World Cup came to town. A Sports Illustrated photographer needed a caddy, and Tom schlepped the camera bags. The SI pro agreed to let Tom take some shots, and his full-page photograph of slalom-winner Billy Kidd was selected to illustrate the story. It was Kidd’s second World Cup victory, and the photo launched Lipp’s career.

(photo top of page: Filming with Warren Miller in Verbier in 1973, where Dick Dorworth reveled in a three-foot dump of very cold, dry snow.)

Tom went on to become SKI magazine’s instruction photographer for over 15 years. He covered the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Calgary and Lillehammer. He earned the 1993 Harold Hirsch Award for excellence in ski photography from the North American Snowsports Journalists Association. His photographs have appeared in Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Pilot Getaways, Outside, Smithsonian Magazine and The New York Times, as well as publications in France, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Australia, Germany, Finland, England and Argentina. And he has photographed nine books, including No Hill Too Fast, by Phil and Steve Mahre; PSIA’s The Way to Ski; Managing the Mountain/Terrain Skiing by Seth Masia; and Mountain Dreamers: Visionaries of Sierra Nevada Skiing, by Robert Frohlich.

Tom taught skiing at Squaw Valley for 30 years. He lives in Truckee, California, with his wife, Laurel, a writer, editor and flight instructor.

Photo captions are in Tom’s words: 

The shot that started it all: Billy Kidd winning the Squaw Valley World Cup slalom, February 1969, and published as a full page, in Sports Illustrated.

 

 

A rare opportunity to ski Freel Peak, above Lake Tahoe, in 1982 via helicopter. An amazing day in an exceptional location.

 

 

 

 

 

Glen Poulsen in his backyard, Squaw Valley, in 1991. Glen is a great photo subject, dynamic in any snow conditions.

Eva Pfosi and Dave Merriam, perfectly synchronized, at Beaver Creek in 1994, and on the cover of SKI Magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1969 was a big snow year in Squaw Valley. The Red Dog lift was broken and closed down, so we traversed over from KT-22. Skiers, left to right: Maurice the bartender, Yvonne Scarlett, Bruce Dapprich, Tony Polite, Kim Schmitz, Lito Tejada-Flores, Lois Rice, Willy Zeigler. After all these years, this is one of my most favorite photos. Good friends, great snow, a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ and no one else around.

Nelson Carmichael, 1992 Olympic bronze medalist in moguls, skiing at Heavenly Valley in 1994. Nelson is an incredibly smooth skier, so natural that freestyle judges often underestimated the difficulty of his moves. And he has a great smile.

 

 

Phil and Steve Mahre’s concentration between runs is complete, resulting in gold and silver medals at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stein Eriksen and Birger Ruud, two Norwegian legends, meet at Vail, 1985.

 

 

 

 

Big-mountain skier Scot Schmidt, in his early days at Squaw Valley in 1982, with Lake Tahoe in the background.

A magic moment for our crew (Warren Miller, Pat Bauman, Emile Allais, Jon Reveal, Dick Dorworth and myself) while filming in Flaine, France, in 1973. This was the opportunity to ski with legend Emile Allais, one of the inventors of modern skiing. I set up the shot. I didn’t have a tripod so I handed the camera to a random stranger to shoot it.

 

John Kirschner skiing for a North Face ad in 1985 on a zero-degree super-powder day in Vail’s back bowls.

Freestyle legend Wayne Wong takes to the air in Squaw Valley in 1989.