An institution in their own rights, Sven and Boris are two of the best photographers in the business and have produced countless iconic images. Samantha Dugon finds out more about this dynamic duo.

Bread and butter, pen and paper, Sven and Boris. You just can’t say one without saying the other. They’ve become two of the most influential people in the MTB industry. You’ve no doubt had posters, brochures and product packaging with their work on it, yet not many people know about the unique relationship between the pair, how they get on, function and work together so intensely and efficiently.

With the two seemingly spending every waking moment together during the race season, Boris has gone on to earn the title of “Sven's summer husband”, from Anka, Svens equally rad other half.

“Anka calls Boris my summer husband. He literally spends more time with me than she does.”

However, this duo has been some time in the making, with multiple encounters over the years as Boris worked with German Mountainbike Rider Magazine. Attending numerous events and press launches, they knew each other in passing and more so from frequent email exchanges where Boris would source some photos from Sven. It wasn’t until 2011 when Boris contacted Sven looking to do a “day in the life” feature on Sven as he worked the downhill circuit, that the duo was properly sparked. Boris headed to Val Di Sole for the World Cup event to shadow Sven for a day. As Boris thought their time together was coming to an end and that his job here was done, Sven chucked him one of his cameras and told him to shoot the finals with him, truly thrown in at the deep end.

“After taking pictures of Sven photographing the World Cup, he asked me before the finals if I wanted to help him shoot the race. We’ve never stopped working together since then.” Boris recalls.

Fast forward seven years and I had the pleasure of working with the pair at RedBull’s Hardline event in Mid Wales, where, after watching them work, get on (and not get on) together, I wanted to know more;  more of how their friendship came to be, more of how they manage to balance their working boundaries and friendship, and more of what they valued about each other.

With this curiosity in mind, I contacted them at the end of the season and in a ‘Mr & Mrs’ style interview, I asked them both the same questions, but with neither knowing what the other has said. One of the first questions being: how would you sum up the other in one sentence?

One sentence wasn’t enough for them and they both went on to give two options to use as a summary. Boris started by saying, “If you work hard, Sven works harder! Or ummm, Sven Martin gets shit done, always pushing the limits in photography and his personal limits on the bike.”


Sven on the other hand, his response was, “Well his tattoo says it all, ‘I have no FUKKIN idea where I’m going.’ Oh wait, I know which one fits now; ‘Big Time Boris’. He went from dirt poor sleeping for free in the pits and in press rooms, to flying into small private airports and eating the most expensive food in restaurants and taking tropical beach holidays. He’s on a roll.”

As most of us know, every friend and friendship is different. Some friends are great for spending an hour with, some friends you can take holidays with and share the same room, some friends you can work with Monday to Friday, some friends are great to party with. Yet to find someone whom you can do all of this with and still get on and have fun through it all? That’s a rarity.

Boris goes onto talk about how they handle the extended periods of time together, working or not.

“It’s (mostly) fun to travel and work together, we will always have something to laugh about even after 21 hours of work! But I think one of the best things about Sven is that I can always rely on him, he always has my back I think he knows that he can always count on me.”

The phrase “The most un-German German” was coined by Sven in a podcast, which he reiterated in our interview when talking about Boris. Pressing him to find out what he admires about Boris, Sven says that it is his “quirky humour and positive outlook on life” that he appreciates, along with the fact that “he’s never serious (except in his work) and for him, life is about relationships and not money.”

Rewinding back a little to when they first met, I asked the pair to recall their initial in-person meeting.

Boris: “Let's start a bit earlier. When I started riding and racing bikes in 2005 I also got back into photography, so when I was not on my bike I spend hours scrolling through magazines and web pages. And not like you may think just looking for new bikes and parts, I was totally stoked about mountain biking or more specific mountain bike gravity photography! It didn't take long to notice that there is one photographer out there, who is at every event and race and is always killing it. That was Sven Martin! I just always noticed him in some World Cup footage like ‘Dirt TV’, and that wasn't hard because he was always a bit louder than others, haha.”

The first time we actually met was at a SRAM press camp in Alpe d´Huez, France. SRAM invited me as an editor to race the Megavalanche with some of their new products and Sven was their photographer. It was my first proper press camp and I was so stoked to ride bikes with Brendan Fairclough and to have Sven as the event photographer. I remember that Sven already had an injury on his arm; you must know that he just can’t ride slow and thinks that he can still compete with the pros - he wasn’t just the photographer, he was also racing the Megavalanche with us all!

Seeing him work impressed me a lot, he always puts so much effort into his work and he would do anything to get the shot. (Which also involves shouting at us to ride harder or push back up and do it again!) Another thing that impressed me a lot was his connection to the riders. For them he wasn't just the guy with a camera, there was, and still is, a special connection between Sven and a lot of riders. I am pretty sure most of the best riders in the world would first call Sven a friend and then a photographer. All this then gave me the idea to follow Sven at a World Cup event, to show how hard he is working and how we achieve our World Cup coverage.

And what were Sven's first memories?
“He was one of the journalists invited to attend the press camp in Alpe d’Huez in 2010. It was during the Megavalanche week and I remember he was super keen, he had a very specific idea of the shot he wanted me to take of him for the magazine's (MBR Germany) report. He was a little out of place though in a way, fully kitted out for a DH race. I’m not sure he pedalled much uphill in those days. Come to think of it I'm not sure he does now either if he can choose not to. He can also only turn left for photos.”

Sven began as a mentor to Boris, helping and, more importantly, pushing him to get a camera in his hand. It seems that Sven’s advice has reached into their personal friendship where Boris is still as appreciative of it as ever. When asked what Sven helps him with the most these days, Boris replied “Sven helps me most with life in general, more than photography, he always has advice - whether I ask for it or not!” with a chuckle; “Without him, I wouldn’t be in the position I am today!”

And how does Boris help Sven?  “Well definitely not the driving, and although he will say otherwise, not really the cooking or come to think of it the cleaning. He’s not very domesticated, although he will claim bullsh*t. Oh wait, the question is what does he help with most?  Hmm, well he helps us stay awake, he’s just a super reliable and bankable creative shooter which is what you need in a partnership. He is no longer the assistant or student, rather we’re equal partners.” Sven goes onto talk about how they can rely on each other whilst working, “we know each other's strengths and weaknesses during World Cup events. We both get on with what we need to do and then regroup later in the evening. Having a backup also allows you a little more creative freedom, knowing if you screw up you probably have someone to fall back on. It allows you to experiment a little more and take some risks.”

One of the things mentioned earlier was something that really stood out to Boris, and that was his relationship with the riders and teams. Anyone that has seen him around the pits cannot deny that he’s a photographer and friend to those on the circuit. “It was freaking impressive to watch Sven working and see how he gets the shots I was always looking at. He was all over the place and knew every corner, jump and root on the track, it was easy to notice that he was still a racer! Yet more interesting was how close Sven was to the riders and how much his opinion counts for them, not just trackside when they ask him for the best lines, but also in the pits after training. It was pretty cool to see a team manager come over and ask Sven if he could have a chat with one of his riders to motivate him!”

After a day being shadowed, Sven came up with the idea to get a camera in Boris’ hand.

“I felt like it was a waste of his time to just tail me and it would be more fun for him to shoot some images too. So I would let him use one of my spare bodies and lenses or one of my remote cameras. Basically, if I was shooting wide I'd set him up to shoot tight and vice versa. He learnt a lot more about the decision making processes on the spur of the moment. He seemed to enjoy it and was soaking everything in like a sponge. He thought he was done after Saturday’s DH - I said “not so quick you still have a full day of XC to shoot”. So I ran him around hard lugging my flashes and big lens about and having him shoot as the second camera.”

Having been on the circuit for years and seeing many photographers come and go it was probably quite exciting for Sven to come across someone who had the traits of someone who could not only handle and stick out the hectic race season, but someone who would thrive off of it. Talking about what made Boris unique, Sven says, “basically from that weekend I learnt that he had the main ingredient: passion. Passion for the sport of racing, and passion for the craft of photography. He also had a good work ethic, which was evident as he was up super early with me in the mornings and hung on until I filed my photos after midnight. I think we had to climb onto a teams bus and break into the now-closed press room through a window to steal internet.”

I’ve heard stories of you buying him plane tickets to get to events, are these true? And if so, that’s quite a length to go for a new shooter, why?

“Yes, well it was subsidised by myself and Rachel Atherton. She jokingly said she would help get Boris to the World Champs in Australia if she won the race we were at, (she was having a tough week and didn’t think she would win). Anyway, she won and gave half her earnings towards a plane ticket, I think I gave the rest and gave him free accommodation in the place we had already booked. Over the years, when he couldn’t afford it while still working his other job which didn’t pay well, and before he had his own clients I gave him a couple of my old camera bodies and lenses. I also paid for his editing software and maybe Dropbox subscription etc. He was learning while assisting me so I’d help fuel him living the dream, pay for meals and also pay him real money each event as he started to do more and more. He had passion and desire and was fun to work with, fun to have along, so I would help where I could to make sure he could get to events.”

The duo has been working together not long off of a decade now at World Cups, World Champs and other race events, and show no signs of letting up any time soon. As Sven summed it up “we will be together for a long time as we have it dialled and all figured out.”

By Samantha Saskia Dugon

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