Evergreen Member Spotlight: Chasing Light with Tyler Hamlet

By Keller Northcutt | Photos Courtesy of Tyler Hamlet

The door opens to an enormous heap of brown fluff—somewhere beneath it, a dog begins. Ella, the massive Newfoundland with a big heart and gentle pace, greets us as we breathe in the mouthwatering aroma of Tyler’s famous Peruvian roasted chicken. The walls of his home tell an adventurous story: hand-painted skis by friend and colleague Chris Benchetler, photographs from ski trips around the world, vintage cameras stacked on weathered books, and a few electric guitars ready for a jam.

(Photo Credit: Bruno Long)

Tyler Hamlet, our latest Evergreen Member Spotlight, is an award-winning cinematographer and director who has shaped some of the most iconic ski films of the past two decades. He has spent his life chasing light through mountains, and over a delicious homemade dinner with him and his wife Lisa, we were lucky enough to hear some of the stories that shaped his journey.

Tyler grew up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where a love for skiing took hold early. A competitive freestyle mogul skier, he and his friends spent their free time filming each other doing tricks on an 8mm digital camera. “We had no editing software or skills, so everything was done in one take,” he laughs. When he wasn’t skiing, Tyler was often whitewater kayaking, sometimes skipping school to chase rivers instead of grades.

In high school, he took his first film class—his only A, he admits with a grin. He was introduced to both the creative and technical aspects of filmmaking, learning different kinds of shots, storylines, and editing techniques.

(Photo Credit: Mitch Quiring)

As his passion for filming adventure sports deepened, Tyler enrolled at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. There, he learned cinematography from the ground up—cutting film on flatbeds, working hands-on with a variety of cameras, and getting his first real taste of production life. Most of his classmates migrated to LA after graduation with Hollywood aspirations, but Tyler still dreamed of skiing, so he bought his first 16mm camera and moved back to Colorado.

Tyler reached out to Johnny DeCesare—a fellow former mogul skier and founder of the acclaimed ski film company Poor Boyz Productions—to ask if he was hiring. At the time, there were no openings. But a year later, Johnny called back with an opportunity, and Tyler jumped right in. He joined their crew for a few clips in Session 1242, the film that helped launch professional skier Pep Fujas into the spotlight, and followed that project with his first full-length ski film X=10 in 2004.  

Tyler and Pep had grown up skiing together in Steamboat, and after collaborating on these first film projects, they moved to Salt Lake City to pursue their dreams. For the next decade, Tyler traveled the world, skiing and filming, helping create nearly a dozen films with Poor Boyz Productions. Both Reasons (2008) and Every Day Is A Saturday (2009) won the International Freeski Film Festival Movie of the Year.

“Reasons is probably the film I am the most proud of,” states Tyler. “It was monumental.” He explains that it was the first time they had set out to make something different, bringing a narrative element into action sports stories.

Another one of Tyler’s favorite memories from his years with Poor Boyz was filming the infamous Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt for the three-part RedBull series Tracing Skylines. “We had an all-time crew—JP Auclair, Julien Reinger, Seth Morrison… even Glen Plake showed up out of nowhere,” he laughs. “It was a crazy trip.” 

(Photo Credit: Bruno Long)

In an interview with Freeskier, Johnny DeCesare was asked who on his team had been integral to the success of Poor Boyz Productions. His answer came easily: “Tyler’s been around for over ten years, and it’s insane. He’s a workhorse, an amazing friend… He’s the guy who doesn’t ask for attention, but he’s a cornerstone of [Poor Boyz’] entire livelihood.”

The films Tyler helped create during that decade didn’t just document a movement—they defined a generation of freeskiing.

After many relentless years on the road, Tyler felt it was time for a new chapter. He left Poor Boyz and moved to Haines, Alaska—a place he’d returned to often over the years to film the steep and endlessly captivating peaks. On prior trips there, he and the crew would stop for pizza at a local spot he’d come to love. There, behind the counter, was the restaurant’s owner—a beautiful and talented chef with a spark he couldn’t ignore.

(Photo Credit: Todd Glaser)

Eventually, Tyler worked up the nerve to ask her out for a drink. Lisa was driven, creative, and deeply knowledgeable about cooking delicious food. (The sauce she paired with our dinner was applied by all in spoonfuls, a recipe which we later begged for…) They decided to move to Glacier, Washington in 2014 and were married in the moss-covered forests near Mount Baker a year later.

“[Glacier] was pretty rough back then—no internet, no cell service. I was hustling random jobs,” he recalls. But after taking some time to reboot, Tyler decided to start his own production company, Flagship Independent. With two other cinematographers on the team, they work as freelancers on a variety of film projects.

One of his first gigs led him to Nimbus Independent, where he helped create the ski film Contrast. Although Tyler had crossed paths with Chris Benchetler over the years, this was their first time collaborating directly, and their connection was immediate.

Chris—an imaginative artist, visionary skier, and boundary-pushing filmmaker—shared Tyler’s innate instinct for visual storytelling. Their collaboration with Teton Gravity Research created Fire on the Mountain, which set a new benchmark for creativity in the ski film world. Equal parts psychedelic odyssey and transcontinental ski adventure, the Grateful Dead–inspired film fuses art, music, and mountain exploration into something wholly original—a cinematic experience unlike anything the genre had seen before.

In 2017, Chris invited Tyler down to his home in Mammoth to help with a different kind of project. “He called me and said, ‘I’m doing some work with Atomic for my pro model—you should come down. Oh, and by the way, my wife’s pregnant, and I want you to film the whole thing,’” Tyler recalls.

It was an unusual request, but one that immediately intrigued him. “I was enticed by the idea because it was more documentary-style,” he says. “I had just finished a Red Bull film, and Free Solo had just come out, so I was inspired to dive deeper into storytelling—showing the life behind a professional athlete.”

(Photo Credit: Ben Moon)

Tyler began filming Chris and his wife, professional snowboarder Kimmy Fasani, in their everyday life. What was meant to be a nine-month project evolved into a seven-year journey. In 2021, just months after the birth of their second child, Kimmy was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Chris wanted to continue documenting their story through it all.

After a double mastectomy and thirty rounds of radiation, Kimmy regained her health and strength, ultimately earning an incredible third-place finish in the prestigious Natural Selection Tour. Tyler captured the entire arc of her journey and shaped it into his first documentary, Butterfly in a Blizzard, which was officially released this year. 

We asked Tyler what it was like to work with Chris, especially after being so intimately intertwined with his personal life. “You definitely do things for your friends you wouldn’t do for others, and you have to work pretty hard at times. I don’t know how or where or when, but I always know what he wants, and he knows what I am capable of. We have an instinctual, brotherly bond,” he says.  

In the hallway to Tyler’s office hangs a painting on wood that Chris painted and gave to him—a vibrant piece of skeletons enjoying all kinds of adventures, capturing the crew that created Fire on the Mountain. “See that little guy riding the narwhal? That’s me,” Tyler laughs.

(Photo Credit: Elijah Christie)

The rest of the space is a reflection of his craft: shelves lined with camera gear, one-of-a-kind Atomic Benchetler skis, and multiple monitors glowing with works in progress. Two massive camera lenses rest on his desk, and when I ask to lift one, I’m startled by the weight.

Hauling that kind of equipment—up mountains, through snowstorms, in every imaginable condition—takes more than creativity. It demands strength, endurance, and an unstoppable drive to capture the perfect shot.

“The most recent movie we worked on was crazy, it was like working doubles for weeks on end. We’d be carrying 50-80 lbs of gear, setting up lights at 10pm, filming in the middle of the night in the dark and cold, going up and down the mountain… it was extremely physical,” says Tyler. in 2022 Tyler tore his ACL on the classic “last run of the day” during a shoot, and continued to film in a brace for the rest of the project. Not only does he need strength to carry gear and film, he also has to keep up with professional athletes.

“In the off season, those guys are working out and training all day. Me, on the other hand, I am sitting at a computer editing for six months straight. It’s hard to live this kind of dual life, take meetings, have a job, and then go keep up with these athletes on film trips.” That’s when Tyler found Evergreen Strength.

Having grown up training for skiing, he knew what going to the gym regularly felt like. He would go for bike rides, was staying in as good of shape as he could, but when his neighbor invited him to try Evergreen, he was ready to be fit again. “When I first went to a class, I was so smoked I couldn’t go back for another week. Now I am there three days a week and have much better endurance,” he says.  

(Photo Credit: Bruno Long)

Tyler is excited to have a stronger baseline going into this winter. “I don’t even look at the workouts, I just like to go and have someone tell me what to do.” Having dealt with herniated discs as well in the past, Tyler is always wary of throwing his back out again and knows strength training is the best way to keep his back strong. He also quit drinking, follows an anti-inflammatory diet, and takes better care of his health than he used to. “Getting older sucks…I’ve got to stay primed,” he laughs.

Beyond skiing and the gym, Tyler is also an avid surfer. When working for Poor Boyz, which was headquartered in Hermosa Beach, California, he learned to surf during long summers spent editing. “I love surfing. I suck at it—but it’s the best.” When not making trips to the coast to surf, Tyler gets his water fix closer to home, swimming in Lake Whatcom with his loyal companion, Ella. She’s a natural in the water. “She could swim for hours if I let her,” he says. “It’s good for her too.”

His approach to fitness has become wholistic, rooted in his work and the activities he loves to do. Sometimes he gets last-minute calls to go to a shoot, often at high elevations. “Being ready for that has made a big difference in my ability to capture some crazy shots,” he states. 

Tyler recently finished his latest collaboration with Chris, Mountains of the Moon—a multi-sport film that, as the excerpt describes, “explores the unseen connections between sport, life, music, and the living earth.” Filmed almost entirely at night and narrated by mycologist and author Paul Stamets, the film is a meditation on the dance between light and dark, life and death, and the invisible threads that tie us—as humans and adventurers—to the planet we move through.

“It’s sort of a sequel to Fire on the Mountain. We wanted to take what we did with that film and do it even better, push it even further.” He told us they had to beg, steal, and borrow to get that first film out into the world, but this time big names, like Arc’teryx and The Grateful Dead themselves, were offering a hand in production before it even began. Mountains of the Moon moves beyond just skiing, and includes mountain biking (with a segment including RedBull athlete and Evergreen Member Hannah Bergemann!), climbing, free diving, and surfing. 

“Honestly the climbing was my favorite segment, mostly because it’s not something I do, and it was a fun piece to put together. I have a huge admiration for those athletes,” says Tyler. As the Director of Photography for the film, Tyler played an essential role in making each and every frame stand out, and spent countless nights underwater, in the freezing snow, hanging off rocks, and even watching mushrooms grow, to make this their best film yet.

But that is what Tyler has always done—put his heart, soul, and body into his work as a lifelong cinematographer. “I love filmmaking because it is a craft I have been able to hone over the years. It is always evolving, I am always learning something new. It’s this thing you never really master,” he says. 

(Photo Credit: Todd Glaser)

With Mountains of the Moon set to premiere in Los Angeles on November 15th, he is looking forward to taking some time off this winter and finally getting out to ski just for fun. “I haven’t really had time off in seven years, I am looking forward to not having the mental load of something big on my plate,” he says.

As our evening together came to a close, I felt a fullness and excitement from getting a peek into Tyler’s world. His eye for movement, light, and storylines has truly defined and elevated the modern ski film industry. An adventurer to his core, I know that there is another chapter on the horizon for Tyler, one that will continue to delight everyone who encounters his work.

In the meantime, give Tyler a high five next time you see him at the gym, check out some of his epic films, and don’t miss the new trailer for Mountains of the Moon! Thanks for being part of the Evergreen community Tyler, we’re lucky to have you!