Photographer Juleah Claar is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the project ‘Swiss Culture’. To see Juleah’s body of work, click on any photograph.

Mels, Switzerland, 2017.
Cows descend from the alpine pastures at the end of summer, led through the village by herders in traditional dress. The procession marks the seasonal return from the mountains, where farming life shifts back toward the valley.

Seewis im Prättigau, Graubünden, Switzerland, 2021.
Decorated cattle, adorned with flowers and bells, are guided back into the village, marking the close of the alpine grazing season.

Across Switzerland, time is still marked in gathering—through sound, movement, and rituals that return with the seasons. This series follows a selection of these traditions, including Alter Silvester, Fasnacht, Sechseläuten, and the Alpabfahrten, photographed in villages, cities, and alpine landscapes over the last ten years.

Alter Silvester, the “Old New Year,” takes place in the Appenzell Ausserrhoden region on January 13, following the Julian calendar. It preserves an older way of marking the turn of the year, still lived in local practice. On this day, the Silvesterkläuse move from house to house in elaborate handmade costumes, many of which take months or even years to complete. Built from natural materials and intricate craft, they are worn like moving structures. Their bells and Zäuerli—an unmeasured form of yodeling—carry through the villages, turning time into something audible, shared, and physical.

Zürich, Switzerland, 2019.
The Böögg, a snowman effigy, is set alight during Sechseläuten, symbolizing the end of winter. The speed at which it burns is said to predict the coming summer.

Zürich, Switzerland, 2019.
Crowds gather as the Böögg burns, flames and smoke overtaking the square. The event blends spectacle with long-standing tradition, drawing both locals and visitors each year.

Fasnacht is the pre-Lenten carnival observed across much of Switzerland. Shaped by Christian tradition and earlier seasonal rites, it marks a brief suspension of social order before the period of Lent. Masks, costumes, and processions take over towns, where anonymity and performance replace routine identity and everyday structure.

In Zurich, Sechseläuten comes from guild traditions tied to the shift from winter to summer working hours, historically marked by the “six o’clock bell.” Today it gathers the city around the burning of the Böögg on Sechseläutenplatz, in front of the Opernhaus Zürich. The snowman effigy is set on a pyre and burned in a public ritual that has become a collective reading of seasonal change, its timing interpreted as a forecast for the summer ahead.

Schwellbrunn, Switzerland, 2024.
A Silvesterklaus moves through a winter landscape, bells hanging heavy as he wears an intricate headdress, a figure shaped by ritual, endurance, and performance.

Wädenswil, Switzerland, 2025.
A masked figure moves through the crowd during Fasnacht, where costumes, performance, and anonymity transform public space into something more surreal and unpredictable.

The Alpabfahrten are rooted in Switzerland’s agricultural life. Each year, cattle are brought down from alpine summer pastures into the valleys before winter. The descent is both practical and ceremonial, marking the end of the grazing season and the return to valley life. Decorated with flowers, bells, and ornaments, the procession reflects a landscape shaped by seasonal labour and shared cycles of work and return.

I return to these events year after year because they never feel finished. Each visit shifts in small, unspoken ways—light, weather, pace, who is there, what is felt more than seen. Photography becomes a way to stay with that difference, noticing what changes and what quietly remains.

Näfels, Switzerland, 2022.
Herders lead the procession along village roads, maintaining a rhythm that reflects both the practical and ceremonial aspects of the return from the mountains.

What draws me in is not only the central moment, but what forms around it—the waiting, the movement through crowds, and the brief exchanges that build the atmosphere.

Working close to what is happening, images come through presence rather than control. Cultural traditions matter not as spectacle, but as lived experience. Returning to them is less about documenting what they are, and more about how they continue.

I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Urnäsch, Switzerland, 2018.
As the herd passes through narrow streets, residents watch from their windows, turning the return from the Alps into a shared, everyday moment within the village.

Wassen, Uri, Switzerland, 2024.
A young lady leads a llama through the village, highlighting the evolving nature of the tradition, where older customs continue alongside newer, more personal expressions.

Biography 

Juleah Claar (Leah) is an American photographer working in both film and digital, who has called Switzerland home for the past ten years. With a background in anthropology and experience in the corporate world, she returned to photography in 2016, bringing a strong observational perspective to her practice. 

Her work explores everyday life through street scenes, nature, and cultural traditions, with a particular focus on the rhythms and rituals of life in Switzerland. Through a quiet, attentive approach, she captures authentic human moments that reflect both individuality and shared experience. 

Her photographs have been awarded, published, and exhibited internationally, appearing on a Times Square billboard as well as in galleries, magazines, and books, and across a range of editorial and cultural platforms. 

Artist Statement 

Photography, for me, is about seeing the extraordinary in the everyday. Whether in the streets, in nature, or within cultural traditions, I am drawn to fleeting moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed. 

In this series, I explore Swiss traditions as they are lived today—through gesture, atmosphere, and human presence. Rather than documenting events from a distance, I focus on the subtle details and interactions that give these moments meaning. 

My work is rooted in observation and shaped by a sense of curiosity, inviting viewers to slow down and engage more deeply with everyday life, where the ordinary becomes quietly significant.