Josef Ritler

Josef Ritler was born in 1939 in Naters, in the Swiss canton of Valais. He attended primary school in Naters and later moved to a school in Brig. In his free time he often helped his father, a building foreman, and as a young man he wanted to follow him into the trade. During an apprenticeship as a mason he found he was allergic to cement and had to stop. By then he had discovered photography, and he moved to Lucerne, one of the few places in Switzerland offering photography apprenticeships at the time, to train as a photographer.

After his training Ritler worked for various newspapers and for the Swiss Army. In the run up to the Expo 64 national exhibition he photographed the filming of an army film, and the pictures led Blick's editor in chief, Werner Schollenberger, to offer him a job writing and photographing for the paper. Ritler was hesitant because of Blick's tabloid reputation and agreed to a single year. He worked there from 1963 to 2003 and became known as "Blick-Seppi".

As Blick's man in central Switzerland he covered crimes, disasters, police operations and political events, and photographed figures from Switzerland and abroad. He was there when Lucerne's Chapel Bridge burned. He had a reputation for seeking out the people behind a story and for preferring to interview people after a press conference rather than during it. His work also brought hostility: according to his family's announcement he was threatened and at times had to work under police protection.

Blick retired him at 64, a year before the regular retirement age. In autumn 2003 he joined the central Swiss regional station Tele Tell as a video journalist, the oldest in Switzerland according to his family. He later wrote and photographed for Seniorweb, where he spent about 16 years on the editorial team and wrote around 500 articles, and for the magazine Schweizer Soldat. His photographs appeared in books including Bernhard Russi (1971), Unser Gotthard (1980) and GoldVreni (1989).

Ritler lived in Lucerne. He was a husband, father and grandfather. In his later years he posted a daily "Morgenbild" on Facebook, a photograph taken on his early morning walks along Lake Lucerne, as well as selfies with well known people he met. He stepped back from the Seniorweb editorial team in September 2026 on grounds of age, while remaining an occasional contributor.

Josef Ritler died in Lucerne on Thursday, 29 October 2026, after a short illness, aged 87. His family announced his death, and it was reported by the Swiss media magazine persoenlich.com on 30 October. He had kept publishing articles until a few days before he died. Funeral arrangements had not been made public.

Over four decades Ritler documented much of the news history of central Switzerland for one of the country's most widely read newspapers. His career was recognised with the Swiss Press Photo award in 1997, the Ringier Media Prize in 2003 and the lifetime award of the Swiss professional photographers' association in 2007. Colleagues at Tele Tell described him as a total professional who knew central Switzerland like no one else and had an eye for the perfect picture.