Fated

One of the world’s best high-alpine cinematographers, Bjarne Salén has found love despite tragic loss.

- John Stifter

COWS GRAZE IN MUDDY FIELDS. Windswept juniper bushes call for Hank Williams to ease the solitude. A low-lying winter dew suppresses the smell of cow dung. Clouds cling to the rolling rust-colored hills and shroud 14,180-foot Mount Shasta’s ivory massif. A long gravel road leads to a farmhouse, where a porch light in the distance suggests life.

There, Bjarne Salén and his girlfriend, Jadda Miller, greet me on the front stoop of a nondescript single-level home near a sustainable cattle ranch where Miller works. Salén, 27, wears a knitted Kask headband, his shaggy brown hair jutting out like a tumbleweed, surrounding his narrow jawline and transparent blue eyes.

Inside, Salén serves his homemade veggie patties. Next to the dinner table, camera equipment and a large monitor form the offie and editing bay of one of the world’s most accomplished high-alpine filmers. Over a spread of fresh vegetables and a tube of Kalles Kaviar, a culinary staple from his Swedish homeland, Salén explains how he landed in Northern California after living in the ski mountaineering epicenter of Chamonix for five years.

“Love,” he says, smiling. He grabs the hand of a charming Miller.

He goes on to explain how he’s kept busy with freelance film work for clients such as Patagonia and Salomon, and an upcoming project focused on how professional skiing sisters Anna and Nat Segal approach fear (the film, Finding The Line, premieres fall 2017).