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.

Art?

2 Day Shooting Extension Proves Productive

In the years past our crew of surfers, filmers and art directors have been extremely lucky with decent swell size and sunny dry weather, but that was all about to change. This seasons Ripzone photo shoot in Nicaragua was looking grim. We showed up and the waves were pretty big but it rained all day and night, making the weather less than ideal for shooting. By the time the sun did come out the swell had dropped and the waves sucked. To make things worse, all the rain water flowing to the ocean through the rivers, collecting mud, garbage and sewage along the way turned the water mud brown and left most the surfers with bad ear infections. Just before our departure date the swell models jumped and good surf and weather was in the forecast. Adrian Millar, Ripzone's marketing manager made the call and extended our trip to catch this new swell. And good thing he did because those 2 extra shooting days made the trip worth while.

It was this afternoon that the swell started to fill in. A fun little right hander?

It doesn't get any better looking than this.

Sam Zuegner bottom turns on a set wave at the outter reef.

I am still wondering why Sam is looking back at me? Does he not see that pit?

The tide was dropping really fast, rocks were showing and that meant it was time to come in. Unfortunately its just too dangerous now.

I love sitting back and shooting empty waves, thinking just what could have been.

Nicaragua Catalogue Photo Shoot

I'm back in Nicaragua again with Ripzone, shooting their spring and summer clothing catalogue. Along with team manager Geoff Andruik and the team riders, I left Vancouver Sunday night on the red eye hell ride to arrive in Manauga early Monday morning. We headed straight to the beach, dropped off our bags and checked the surf. Swell is up and pushing 8+ foot. A little too big for out front. Some of the outer reefs have been going off....so we were told. The ol' should have been here yesterday game again. Either way, there is some surf around somewhere and we have Roberto to drive us around and find it. It's raining pretty hard so shooting is out of the question. We hit up a new zone and found some fun head high waves at a river mouth just north of where we are staying. Due to the abnormal amounts of rain in the area, the river is flooded and running strong. This creates some less than desirable water color in the lineup and it tastes a lil' funny too!

Some days you just have to lay down and enjoy the shit.

Team Rider Sam Zuegner, different strokes for different folks.

The more civilized way to cross a flooded road.

The daily commute in rural Nicaragua is slow but no one seems to mind.

Right now it rains everyday and if your not lucky, it rains all day. Quite surprised to see something so bright and clean.

For a second there I thought Mike Reno of Loverboy was hanging out of our truck. It was only Sam Zuegner. Damn!