#BTS Behind The Scenes | Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021 | Action Sports Photography

 Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021  |  The Story of 3 (Almost)

"Spring is just nature's way of saying, "lets party!""   -  Robin Williams   

Images of Brac Raiford and Ahamed Johnson for Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021

With 41,447 total images submitted to Red Bull Illume this past round, it's mind boggling to think what it took to narrow down the images to the top 56.  Not to mention the category winners and overall finalist.  Cheers to everyone behind the scenes on that one!

When you begin to run the numbers; a single image has a 1 in 41,447 chance of becoming the overall winner if Red Bull Illume was a lottery format.  So you submitted 3 images, like in my case.  That will give you a 1 in 13,825.7 chance of topping the podium.  That does not sound so bad right?  Let's take a closer look at some other odds:

1 in 10,000 chance of being injured by a toilet

1 in 15,300 chance to be struck by lightning (#FloridaMan)

1 in 100,000 chance of dying while dancing at a party (Also a #FloridaMan)

With my calculations, you have more of a chance of injury from "daily activities" than you do of Winning Red Bull Illume, with 3 images submitted.  Yes, there is always the brighter side of things ... Greener grass ...  Light at the end of the tunnel ... I'll stop now.  But, your chances of winning the coveted Red Bull Illume trophy for your desk is a bit better than being struck by lighting! 

A quick fast forward to now.  I did manage to survive all my "daily activities" to make the finals, but apparently my happy feet were just too good to be struck by the Florida Lighting!  It is always an incredible honor to have an image to make the semi-finals and make an appearance in the Red Bull Illume book.  Even more nerve racking to have one hit the finals that "gets it to the party!"  

The Red Bull Illume 2021 Book accompanied by Will Saunders' signature yellow beanie

Final Image of Broc Raiford in the 2021 Red Bull Illume Book

"Do it for the Party"

The #BTS story of the 3 images made for the final run of Red Bull Illume 2021

    I have always been intrigued by architecture that is hidden within buildings.  Working mainly in water/snow sports had, they have never giving me many opportunities to capitalized on locations I have found and saved over the years.
 
    With the final days of the Red Bull Illume submission process coming to a close; I knew I had to pull out a last minute hammer of an idea for a chance to get to the big party.  3 days before the deadline I pulled a few locations that have been saved on my maps for several years.  I had never been to the locations, but they appeared to have the ability to work for most land based action sports.  Assuming I could find an athlete fast enough, my fly in day would be on the final submission day for Red Bull Illume.  The athlete and I would need to hit all the locations and get the images uploaded that evening. 
 
    A few text later I found at that BMX athlete Broc Raiford was in the Los Angles area for the day before flying out for a competition in France.  Still unsure of the locations and the ability to make them work, I booked the flights, packed the gear and headed out the next day.

Be a photographer they said ... 

This is going to work .. Right

"Down the Rabbit Hole"

    The original plan was to shoot in the evening to control the light as I thought it would be overly bright most of the day.  The first Location was a parking garage that had a painted spiral in the middle with a perfect open area for an athlete to send one in.  I have actually seen this spot in a few commercial spots as a few instagram post.  This is one of the few garage I have seen that has the area in the middle so open.

    When I arrived to the location  the natural sun light was perfectly bleeding into the garage.  After doing a few "test" and working with the garage owner I decided to do some "maintenance" on the location.  Downtown LA is not know for being the cleanest city and I had some work to put in.  Once everything appeared to be set, I pulled the trigger on having Broc come out to make the magic happen.  Within 2 hours of landing at the airport I was on location, pulling civic duties, and working on the first image!
 

"This may actually work"

It's not alway crafty and models for photographers

    After a brief ride or two down the spiral garage, Broc Raiford was in the center of the garage and ready.  I had pulled permission from the garage owner before we started so I knew we had all the time in the world to make the image happen.   We managed to get the overall shot fairly fast with the only hold ups being every car taking "victory laps" with their freshly brewed coffee down the spiral garage.

    This was one of my favorite images of the series.  The James Bond like effect of the spiral garage gives with Broc dead center was so unique to me.  The image was lit with a single Elinchrom One strobe head mixed with all natural light bouncing off the buildings above the open roof garage.

    

Semi-Finalist Image "Innovative by Eyem" -unique never before seen
Raw image of Brac Raiford for Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021

Secondary Image "Creative by Skylum" - anything goes
"Edited/Cleaned up" image of Broc Raiford for Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021

#PrintMatters

 

The newly released Elinchrom One putting in it's first day of work

"Hexagons Rule ..."

    With only a few hours until Broc had to be at LAX, we crushed some victory waters and went to the second location.  Luckily the spot was only about 15 minutes away from the last one as it proved to be a bit ... more difficult to get into.  The garage is in the middle of a new arts are in Los Angeles that is know for pop up events and commercial spots for Nike, Red Bull, etc.  To say the least it was pretty well guarded as it was a "closed" day for the venue.  With some "artful" parking and the usual ignoring of any signage or gates, we were in and walking the floors of the garage. 

    I dropped off the Elinchrom Stone on the 3rd floor and ran my way up to the 6th floor of the parking garage.  And only after getting to the top did I see the stairs hidden away to the corner.  After 6 attempts at syncing up the tail whip and my trigger finger, we both had exactly what were were looking for.  After a sunset selfie with Broc poncho roof of the building he was off to LAX and I was out to Santa Monica to edit and upload.

    I ended up cleaning up the image to even out the light leaking in from the sun.  After all, it was the Creative by Skylum "anything goes" category.  Upon submission I released that we had shot 6 images, from the 6th floor, with 6 lights and 6 walls!  I was pretty pumped we didn't;t fall short on a 6 to say least.

Finalist Image "Raw by Leica" - straight out of camera
Raw image of Brac Raiford for Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021

 Finalist Image "Creative by Skylum" - anything goes
"Cleaned Up" image of Brac Raiford for Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021

Image of Brac Raiford for Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021 Back Cover

"Wait ... There's More?"

    While celebrating the images being uploaded and out with a few local friends, I received a notification that Red Bull Illume would be extending the deadline by a few days.  Sitting dead in the water with no athlete or locations left, I could not stop thinking that there had to be just one more unique garage. After all, who like an even number of photos.  Instagram sure likes the odds.  

    Fate has it that one of the guys with us had a location scout who had just finished looking for exactly what I needed.  Another round of messages later I had an insane location (that was almost night next to the previous 2) and no athlete.  LA being the land of skip a rock to find what you need, I managed to pull flat land BMX athlete Ahamed Johnson and could not have been happier.

    The next day we met up at the location and lets just say it may have been one of the "more secure" places I have ever had to shoot in.  The building was a very high end tower with the usual full security and "slightly large" bank in it.  That bank happened to use the entrance we need for it's cash drops as well.  This spot would have been impossible to find as it's buried in the middle of the building with little to ZERO access. Veeeery long one short and som e"gaff tape" later we managed to make it happen and Ahamed absolute crushed it in the little time we had.

    I was so excited to have this set of 3 images that are very unique in the same way.  Sadly Ahamed Johnsons' image did not make it to the final cut, but 2 of 3 wasn't so bad.

Submission Image "Raw by Leica" - straight out of camera
Submission image of Ahamed Johnson for Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021

Submission Image "Creative by Skylum" - anything goes
Submission image of Ahamed Johnson for Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2021

The newly released Elinchrom One putting in it's second day of work

    I would like to end this one with a cliche "moral of the story" ... and go.  I always try to find crazy and almost unreachable places to showcase in my images.  Days on end can be spent on finding a spot, sorting how to get there, even just getting there.  A lot the times you can find out it just won't work.  Better yet you can even get there and it is totally different than what you had expected.  This run of 3 locations was just amazing for me.  To find 3 totally unique locations all within 15 minutes of each other is almost un heard of, unless you're Lorenz Holder! This run just goes to remind me that slowing down to look at usual every day spots could lead to a very unique concept.

Behind the Scenes of the New Wallpaper | Terry Adams and Adam Errington for Red Bull

    A few months back I had the chance to shoot a unique idea from the minds of Terry Adams and Adam Errington in Orlando.  The shoot was actually set up around the end of winder snow season.  I was on my way from shooting with the guys at shredtown in texas to do some work at Red Bull Snow Performance Camp in Colorado.   The shoot lined up the day after the Colorado shoot and gave me the ohh so fun opportunity to shoot snow in the morning and then shooting water in the evening.

    The Basic idea was to get a shot of Adam boosting over Terry while performing a flatland BMX trick.  Sounds easy until you begin to realize that there is about a million factors that do not get a long with each other!  Topping off the timing of the athletes tricks, style, position, and speed having to be right on; it was pretty much a hurricane out for the entire two day shoot.  I was also shooting with flashes only giving me one click at a time to get the shot each hit.  Also include everything being in in and around 5 feet of water with a decent white cap chop.

    I had also never shot flatland BMX before so I needed a little warm up session with Terry to get some timing and style mentally noted.  We took about 5 or 6 pics of the 3 different tricks and we were ready to go.  Adam had a pretty tough job of hitting the kicker around 23 mph and going about 60 feet to flat water with all the force pulling him down.  In the end we were able to get 3 different shots with all the timing dialed in.  There are a few videos at the bottom that show the entire shot!

Nikon D3s 1/800th a sec at F 1.6 on Nikon 85mm F1.4

    The set up i used around the 20 foot submerged platform was all Elinchrom Rangers in the water.  I had them supported by Kupo C-Stand with clamps and J-hoks to hold the packs just above the water.  I fired everything with Pocket Wizard FLexx's and ST4's.

Nikon D3s 1/640th a sec at F 6.3 on Nikon 85mm F1.4

Nikon D3s 1/1,000th a sec at F 2.5 on Nikon 85mm F1.4

Nikon D3s 1/640th a sec at F 6.3 on Nikon 85mm F1.4

Nikon D3s 1/800th a sec at F 1.6 on Nikon 85mm F1.4

Here is the Behind the Scenes Video shot by Spencer Norris for Alliance Wake

Here is the Day in the Life video Terry Adams did for the shoot featured on Alliance of Action Sports

The LIST

Nikon D4 Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.4G Classic Portrait Lens

Hoya 77mm HD2 UV Filter

Hoya 77mm Variable Density Filter

PocketWizard FlexTT5 Transceiver Radio Slave for Nikon i-TTL Flash System

PocketWizard PowerST4 Receiver for Elinchrom RX

Elinchrom Cable for Remote Control for RX - 7.9" (20 cm)

Elinchrom Ranger RX Speed AS Asymmetrical Battery Powered Pack

Elinchrom Ranger Free Lite S Flash Head

Kupo 20" master C STAND with TURTLE base KIT- silver

Kupo Steel Baby Boom

Kupo Convi Clamp (Silver Finish)

Kupo Hex J Hook

Custom SLR ProDot Shutter Button Upgrade (Red, 2-Pack)

Custom SLR Glide Strap with Split Strap Technology

Custom SLR C-Loop Camera Strap Mount Solution (Silver)

Sunset B-Boy Omen | Behind the Scenes

    I have had an overwhelming email response to my instagram photo of B-Boy Omen I did recently.  I had originally done the shoot for a Kupo Grip Behind the scenes Video with Photographer Erik Valind, that is going live early next month.  Thanks to my non stop "is that really not photoshopped" inbox, I thought I might do a quick behind the scenes preview of the shoot!  This will be straight down and dirty as the video has all the information.  My portion was also shot in 15 minutes max so we had enough time for Erik to get 3 different style shots done through sunset and into dark!

My Shot

Nikon D3s 35mm 1.4 1/400th a sec at F 2.2 with a Hoya ND16 filter

3 Elinchrom Ranger Speed AS packs and S-heads and Elinchrom Modifiers

PocketWizard Flexx TT5 and St4 receivers

All Kupo Light stand and Grips

Erik's Shot

NIkon D800 24-70mm 2.8 at 1/250th a sec at F5.6

2 Elinchrom Rangers Speed AS packs and A-heads with Beauty Dish from behind and Strip from Front Left.

PocketWizard Plus III as transmitter and ST4 as receivers

Kupo Turtle Base C-stands and Boom Arms

    I had met Omen a few months before the shoot at the RedBull BCOne in Tampa, Florida.  He actually won the even and went on to the world finales.  It was super awesome working with Omen who has performed all over the world from Japan to Broadway!
    Long story short on this one I had some down time around new years and Erik Valind was in Florida for vacation.  We both wanted to get some video work done while he was here, and Omen said he would be in Orlando for the week before he hit the road again.  I called Erik up and we pitched some ideas back and forth and he was in Orlando the next day!

Here are the 3 Elinchrom Ranger Speed AS 's I used for the shoot charging waiting for Erik to arrive.

We went to the local hardware store and got some cabinet grade wood that was smooth enough for Omen to dance, and spin on.  Always wear safety glass when working with powerful tools.

I framed the wood sheet out with 2 by 4's for stability.  When the chalk line goes mia form the tool box, pink duct tape can fix it!

Then I added pre-measured legs to get the platform to sit just below the water line.

Here is the final platform and some of the Kupo Grip stands and grip arms used for the shoot.

It was also about 50 degrees out that day with 30 mph wind gust!  I originally had planned to use an Elinchrom Octabank with Westcott Scrims for the shoot, but that was not going to happen without an army of assistants.

Erik and I carrying the large platform into the water. #frostytoes

I used F-stop Loka bags to hold the Elinchrom Ranger packs in the water.

This is the High over head stand from Kupo and a last minute Ranger holder to keep the pack out of the water.  (kupo makes J-hooks that you can attach to the stands to hold the flash packs)

The Elinchrom 51inch Strip attached to the Kupo Grip arm and Adjustable C-stand for uneven surfaces.

Here is the Key light setup with the beauty dish, and strip down low.  This will give really solid even lighting for upright and upside dow positions Omen would be throwing down.  You can also see the Kupo boom arm being used to extend the light far over the water.  This is also before the High Overhead got moved into the water.

This is me on the platform checking out light positioning before Omen comes out into the cold.  You can also see one of the rim lights to the back well out in the water.  The F-stop Loka was attached to a ladder and the Ranger S-Head was secured with a Max Arm instead of a light stand to the ladder.

The final setup with Omen warming up on the platform.  You can see the Kupo High Over Head stand in the water, and the other rim light well out in the water to the right.

Omen getting into position for the buddha shot.

Omen just before the final position.

One of the other "freezes" I shot.

A nice view of most of the setup and open doing a spinning freeze.

Imediately after the water shoot, we moved everything to a different sport for a single and then a 2 light set up for Erik Valind to shoot.

One Erik's final shots again.

     Thans for checking out the #BTS of the Omen Buddha shoot and be sure to watch out for the video in the coming month!  Big thanks go out to Erik Valind for the help, shooting with, and video work!

FREE | Desktop Wallpaper

    Check the right side of the blog for a link to download this week's wallpaper of Melissa Marquardt as seen in the 2011 Alliance Wakeboarding Magazine Photo Annual.  This was one of my favorite pictures from my first year of shooting wake.

You can also click HERE

A little behind the scenes

2 Elinchrom Rangers at full power, flexx TT5, Nikon 10.5 fisheye on the D2x, 1/1,000th f5.6, flash boat about 3 feet on average directly behind me on the tube at 26 MPH.

Print Biz | Cover Shot

    Pretty excited that one of my favorite shots from last season finally made it out.  I think this was day 3 of the Chad Sharpe kicking shooting week!  This is exactly the same setup as the shot that was ran in Transworld Wakeboarding in this blog.  The only difference is we flipped the kicker around, shot mid day, and I was directly below him in the water.
 

Cover of Unleashed Wake Magazine Dec 2012

    I have been wanting to shoot a kicker directly into the sun for a long time.  After shooting every angle for a few days this was the last option that we had left.  I set the 2 Elinchrom Rangers with A-Heads on the ladders fairly quickly, due to setting it up so many times before.  I used the Pocketwizard Flexx TT5 and Power ST4 receivers to make the magic happen.  I had to use a 6 foot ladder to elevate the flash pack up enough off the water to avoid the wake from his Malibu Wakesetter.

    I had to set the camera to a higher speed to freeze the motion, but a low enough speed for the A-Heads to actually paint the light onto the photo.  On a Nikon DX crop frame 1,250th is pretty solid with the A-Heads at full power.  The boat would be going about 23 MPH and he would be cutting into the kicker adding additional speed.  I was guessing that he would be around 40 MPH when he hit the kicker.  Using a fisheye up close at that speed you generally need at least 1/4000th a sec to freeze the motion.  So I would have to track with him a little bit to keep any motion blur to a minimal.

    On the first pass I shot a hair late getting the "fisheye effect" in the shot.  I really wanted to keep the horizon in the middle of the frame to keep it level, and to hide the fishy lens.  Chad took a couple more passes dialing in a few tricks before we took a few minute break to let the water calm for the glassy look in the final photo.  Chad nailed the shot on the first pass after the break.  Its almost surreal shooting kickers from water level with a fisheye.  The action is so fast and so big through the camera.  It also helps the Chad is known for going the biggest off of any kicker as well!

Nikon D2x 10.5mm Fisheye 1,250th sec at F 7.1