Red Bull Illume 2010 Semi-Finalist

Red Bull Illume is the world’s premier action and adventure sports photography competition. After a highly successful inaugural event in 2007, the 2010 Image Quest is well under way. An impressive 4,337 photographers from 112 countries registered to the website and 22,764 images were submitted to the competition before the February 28, 2010 deadline - three times more than the amount entered in 2007. The submission phase is now closed and the judging phase has begun.

Fifty-three judges from respected picture-desks in 30 countries have the challenging task of selecting the best 50 images from 10 categories: culture, playground, energy, spirit, close up, wings, SanDisk sequence, new creativity, experimental and illumination.

My photo pictured here of Ryan Decenzo, submitted into the wings category, has made it into the semi-finals (top 25) and I am anxiously waiting to find out if it will go on to take top 5 honours.

The winners will be announced August 31st in Dublin, Ireland. The overall winner will receive a Leica S2 camera and equipment to the value of €30,000. Every photographer with a photo in the final 50 images of the competition will receive one SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB Flash Memory card, while category winners receive 10 each. The overall winner will receive 20 - a year's supply. Check out the website www.redbullillume.com for regular updates on the judging phase as well as news, interviews and videos about the world's best action and adventure sports photographers.

Ansel Adams Negatives Found At Garage Sale Worth $200 Million

The next time I see signs for a garage sale, I may just be tempted to stop.

A California painter has scored a dreamy estimated value for 65 glass negatives he found at a garage sale back in 2000. Originally priced at $70, he bargained them down to $45. Today, they’re valued at $200 million. Why?

Those boxes contained 65 glass negatives created by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams in the early period of his career. Experts believed the negatives were destroyed in a 1937 darkroom fire that destroyed 5,000 plates. The photographs apparently were taken between 1919 and the early 1930s, well before Adams — who is known as the father of American photography — became nationally recognized in the 1940's

Team Shoot Out 2010 - We Are The Defending Champions

Last year I teamed up with Rome Snowboards and Bear Mountain to compete in Transworld SNOWboarding's Team Shoot Out and took top honours. This year we defended our title against 3 new teams. The photos and video's have been submitted and we wait the announcement of the 2010 TWS Team Shoot Out winner.

Laurent Nicolas Paquin - elbow rail 50-50 to stairs.

Shoot Out Contest Breakdown

The contest goes down in a two-week window: seven days of build time and seven days of ride time.

Each team is provided with a maximum of 210 groomer labor hours and 240 hand crew labor hours by the host resort.

Each team consists of five riders (including one girl). If the team doesn’t include a female, they can only have four riders.

Rider substitutions can only be made if a team member is injured.

One photographer is assigned to shoot each team for the event.

Each team can use a maximum of two filmers to shoot video.

Each team must create a four-minute final video and submit a gallery of six photos for judging.

Judging is broken into the event’s three main components: video, photos, and overall creativity.

The winning team is awarded the September cover.

The Team Shoot Out winner is determined by adding the judging scores of all the contest criteria for the highest possible points total.

Submitted Photo #1 - Eiki Helgason

Submitted Photo #2 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #3 - Will Lavigne

Submitted Photo #4 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #5 - Johnnie Paxson

Submitted Photo #6 - Laurent Nicolas Paquin

Artist "Gabz" Illustrates a Photo of Mine for Red Bull

Gabz is a 31-years-old freelance illustrator based in Poland and was hired by Red Bull to reproduce my photo of Ryan Decenzo.

In 2003, Gabz graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poland with a Masters degree in Graphic Arts and Drawing. After the studies he worked first as an illustrator and later as a graphic designer in various advertising agencies, before choosing to work strictly freelance in 2005.

In the past, Gabz' personal art work has veered towards dark themes. A conscious effort to make his work more broadly appealing and optimistic in tone has coincided with an increasing focus on his favorite way of creating images: he first works with pen or pencil, before the hand-drawn art is perfected on his iMac. He also works with vectors, water color and oil pastels, does graphic design and enjoys typography.

Whether it is a personal or commissioned work, Gabz aim is to keep his works attractive, intriguing and eye-catching in terms of not only the technique and often used color but the whole concept.

Gabz has been featured in numerous publications including Computer Arts, Advanced Photoshop, Joia Magazine and Digital Arts Magazine and accrued an ever growing international client list such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Ubisoft, Sony Ericsson and Red Bull.

Red Bull decided on this version.

The original version that Red Bull did not use.