Enlightenment arrived at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland tonight August 31, as Chris Burkard was named Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010 winner at an emotional unveiling ceremony packed with photographers, competition judges, athletes and special guests.

The 24-year-old professional...

The world’s best action and adventure sports photographers were revealed tonight at a spectacular unveiling in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. A stunning landscape-style surf photo by Chris Burkard (USA) wowed the international jury and was selected as the overall winner of Red Bull Illume 2010....

The Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010 Unveiling Ceremony is underway very soon! Stay posted to the website the page to view the winners as they are announced live on www.redbullillume.com.

Like what you see? Join the discussion on <link...

There's just one day until Red Bull Illume unveils its top 50 finalists, 10 category winners, one Overall winner and one Athlete's Choice winner.

Who are they? The answers are on these boxes, currently under heavy guard at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Tomorrow night the covers will be lifted...

If you can't make tomorrow night's (August 31) Unveiling Ceremony at Trinity College, Dublin, then stay posted to www.redbullillume.com from 2100 (CET) where the category winners will be revealed live on the homepage.

Fifty finalists, 10 category winners,...

"Photography is not much of a mystery anymore. As a result, photographers need to work harder to surprise the viewer," says Eileen Ryan of USA Today. What...

There’s just over one week to go until the Red Bull Illume Unveiling. After months of anticipation, the best 50 photos and the identities of the photographers will be unveiled for the first time on Tuesday August 31st at 7.30pm (GMT) in Trinity College Dublin.

On the night, category...

Top sports photographer Mark Pain is today launching the first school dedicated to sports photography in the UK.
 
Offering specialist individual tuition to keen amateurs, the award winning photographer Mark Pain will run a full day’s course at various top UK sporting events,...

Photographers don’t need a 3D camera to get a fantastic 3D image. Follow Red Bull Photofiles’ Markus Berger as he works with top Russian BMX athlete Pavel Alekhin and turns a 2D image into a 3D image using the wonders of post-production software.

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Red Bull Reporter is giving one lucky person the chance to report on the Red Bull Illume event in Dublin on August 31.

Applicants...

If you're impressed with the incredible images shown on the gallery on the redbullillume.com homepage, why not embed it into your website or blog?

The gallery is available in different sizes and you can even select which sports you want to display. It will also update itself to show the 50...

The Red Bull Illume unveiling exhibition has been moved forward by a couple of days and will now be on August 31 at Trinity College in the centre of Dublin.

As night time falls, the 50 winning images will illuminate the court of Trinity College. The university, in the heart of Ireland’s capital...

Freesports photographers travel – a lot. Try to get in contact with one and he or she is more often than not on the move to some new city or remote location. For a photographer then, deciding on what equipment to pack for a shoot and get it all safely through the airport and onto the plane is...

Leica have expanded their online community with a new blog giving the company's fans and followers a dynamic space for product news, developments and related events, plus stories and insights from...

Ambitious young snappers take note: the Times Young Photographer of the Year Award, sponsored by Canon, has begun its search for entries.

The ninth edition of the award was launched on July 15 and entries close on August 31. The eventual winner will receive a six month placement to the...

Professional outdoor and adventure photographer Lucas Gilman recently contacted Red Bull Illume, telling us about a trip on the USA’s West Coast where he documented a group of kayakers in search of large waterfalls to launch off.

Here,...

The best 50 photos from nearly 23,000 action and adventure sports images that were entered into the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010 will be displayed in Dublin, Ireland at a stunning unveiling exhibition from September 2, 2010.

As night time falls, the 50 winning images will illuminate...

The 250 semi-finalist images, selected from nearly 23,000 entries, are now online and viewable on www.redbullillume.com and other partner sites. These 250 stunning shots represent the best in action and adventure sports photography.

This is the...

Launched in June, the Manfrotto School of Excellence is a new online platform offering a range of resources for photographers looking to "access the experience and know-how of the world’s most famous photographers and videographers."

Users can log on to <link...

Flash memory quickly became more popular than film or traditional ways of storing data in the last decade as it could withstand intense pressure, extreme temperature and immersion in water. But when a flash memory card claims to be extreme, well, it better have some evidence to back that up. <br...

Top professional photographer Chase Jarvis' latest video has a bunch of great tips and tricks for aspiring photographers to enhance their shoots but who may not have the budget to fork out for high end equipment.

Chase used mid-range gear and some ingenious on-the-cheap solutions on a...

Action sport photographers working in hard-to-reach locations require portable batteries to create studio lighting conditions outdoors. With the recent launch of the new and extremely powerful BatPac by ProFoto, there is now a healthy selection of portable packs to choose from.

While...

To get gigs as a professional photographer takes years of experience. But how do you get that experience in the first place to learn your craft and shoot like a pro?

Aspiring photographer Ben Dean got the opportunity to fly to the beautiful medieval town of La Rochelle in south-west...

Action sports photographer Chris O’Connell has successfully completed the first ever wireless synced flash sequence with a 1/500s shutter speed.

Chris photographed skiers sliding over a ski lift at Mountain High resort, and over a jump at June Mountain, both in California.

The...

World leading expedition photographer Martin Hartley used a specially tested Leica camera to beat the extreme conditions on a recent successful expedition to the North Pole with the Catlin Artic Survey project. 

The photographs for the mission would normally be impossible to take on digital...

Judging by the amount of submissions to Red Bull Illume, black and white photography is as popular as ever. In the 2007 contest, nearly a third of the finalists were shot in monochrome – thousands were submitted in 2010. Many freesports magazines continue to publish a serious amount of B&W...

Limited edition artwork by Neil Blender and photography by J. Grant Brittain and Dave Swift will be on show on Saturday June 5th at Hensley's in the skateboard mecca of Carlsbad, California.

Known as much for his art as well as his tricks, Neil Blender was a trail blazer for...

Finding a new angle for a photo is a challenge for every photographer. When assigned to shoot at May’s Red Bull Art of Motion free running event in Vienna, Marcel Lämmerhirt decided to think inside the box.
<br...

The Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, USA recently celebrated its first anniversary as the main cultural destination in the city dedicated to photography.

Since its opening in March 2009, the Annenberg has championed digital photography and uses state-of-the-art,...

“A clever man once said that ‘if a photo holds your attention longer than a few moments, it is a good photo.’” So says Fritz Schuster photo editor at Red Bulletin, the “almost independent” sport and lifestyle magazine from Red Bull.

For most photographers photo editors are the link...

The limited edition judges' book has been distributed to all 53 members of the Red Bull Illume jury and its contents kept under close guard.

All 250 semi-finalist photos are printed in the book, but without photo credits or other information in order to keep the judging process as...

Kayak photography is nearly as challenging as kayaking itself. Keeping equipment dry but getting into the action is no easy task.

Red Bull Illume followed photographer Vitek Ludvik from the Czech Republic on his shoot with Olympic kayaker Vavra Hradilek to find out how he got a great...

The Red Bull 5 Pics is calling all photographers in the Netherlands to submit photos to the country's top photography talent search.

Participants are invited to enter a series of five images via www.redbull5pics.nl...

Red Bull Illume has opened up the photo banks to the 2010 Image Quest. Visitors to www.redbullillume.com can now get a glimpse of the world’s best action and adventure sports photography through the website’s new image...

Leica have launched their first superzoom compact camera; the V-Lux 20. The camera boasts a 12x optical zoom, a 12.1MP sensor and its high performance lens has a focal range of 25-300mm, which Leica say makes it ideal for almost any photographic situation.

Other features such as...

We asked our Facebook followers what they thought the most important innovations in action and adventure sports photography during the last ten years were. Here’s a cross section of what they suggested plus a couple of ours.<br...

Red Bull Illume fans will be offered a sneak peak of the world’s best action and adventure sports photography from next week.

Images from the 22,764 submitted into the ten categories will be shown randomly and anonymously on

Pure photography. That’s the underlying message of the new Leica M9, the latest model in the 50-year long development of the M series of rangefinder cameras. Leica’s philosophy for the M9 is simple: “There are no gadgets. No unnecessary electronic trickery. Nothing to confound the act of...

Continuing its mission to revive instant analog films for Polaroid cameras, Austrian firm The Impossible Project have released their latest product. The PX 600 Silver Shade film will be launched at events in Barcelona, London and New York throughout the end of April and is made for Polaroid's most...

Usually in photography there are limits regarding exposure. If there are really light or dark parts in a photo, the photographer has to decide what part to expose.

With a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo, a range of exposures can be set to get a maximum of contrast and colors in the...

The hotly anticipated Photoshop CS5 is unveiled today, April 12 with a flurry of new tools that Adobe say will “deliver improvements in interactivity and performance.”

First released in 1990, Photoshop is the media and publishing industry’s standard software and can even claim to have...

While wireless flash devices have been a revelation in action and adventure sports photography, allowing snappers to quickly place flashes around the action without getting tied up in cables, relatively slow synchronization times have limited what they can do with the technology.
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The Image Quest 2010 is moving closer to finding its winners as the Judges' Book is currently being pressed and our jury panel of 53 judges are primed to begin voting.

The limited edition book and contains 250 photos pre-selected by a team of Red Bull Illume and Red Bull Photofiles...

The fourth in our series of up close profiles of Red Bull Illume judges from around the world is Brazil’s Paulo Lima.

"Trip is not just a magazine. It’s a...

Red Bull Illume 2007 finalist Vitek Ludvik has won two prizes at the prestigious Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival photography competition.

Czech Ludvik won first prize in the Mountain Sport category for his photo of snowboarder Tommy Brunner on Tomahawk, a huge,...

The third in our series of up close profiles of Red Bull Illume judges from around the world is South Africa's Calvin Bradley, photo editor at Zigzag magazine.

With consistent,...

The Jury for the 2010 Red Bull Illume has now been finalized in time for the judging process to begin in April.

In total, 53 judges from renowned international publications in 30 different nations will choose their favorite photos based on the images’ technical superiority, composition,...

Second in our series of up close profiles of Red Bull Illume judges from around the world is Oceania's Lyn Walker, photo editor at Alpha Magazine.

Lyn's path to becoming the photo editor at...

The pre-selection phase for the world’s best action and adventure sports images is nearly over. Details are now being finalized by the pre-selection panel which is comprised of members of the Red Bull Illume team and Red Bull Photofiles.

Just 250 photos - 25 in each of the 10 categories - will be...

Red Bull Illume relies on the expertise of 53 judges from 30 countries to pick out their favourite images. But just who are they? We spoke to judges from different continents, beginning with North...

Two weeks ago we asked you to predict the total amount of photos that would be submitted to the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010.

At the time of asking with nearly a week left before the submission deadline closed on February 28, there were less than 12,000 images uploaded to the competition and...

Thirty-year-old Czech born photographer David Blazek began his career photographing friends skateboarding after he “fell in love with the skateboard” in 1996.

He now specializes in snowboarding, skateboarding, bikes and product shots and spends much of the year travelling.

His...

Submissions to the 2010 Red Bull Illume Image Quest are now closed. An incredible 4337 photographers submitted 22764 photos. The final day of submissions saw 4510 images entered into the competition.

Up next is the judging phase, where our panel of esteemed international photo editors select their...

There are just hours to go before the Submission phase for the 2010 Red Bull Illume Image Quest closes at midnight (Central European Time) Sunday, February 28 (3pm Los Angeles time, 11pm London and 8am the next day in Tokyo).

A huge number of images have been uploaded since the phase opened...

Primarily known as a skateboard videographer, Fred Mortagne’s photos have a distinct style that the judges of the 2007 Image Quest recognized and rewarded. The Lyon-based Frenchman, picked up the Wings category and Overall Winner’s title for his shot of Andrew Brophy performing a 360° flip in...

So far 3600 photographers have entered over 11,000 images into the 2010 Red Bull Illume Image Quest, the world's biggest celebration of action and adventure sports photography. If you're not one of them, you have just four days to go before the close of submissions at midnight (CET)...

See those blue blocks at the bottom of www.redbullillume.com? They track how many photos have been entered into the Image Quest 2010 and we want you to take a guess on how many images in total will be submitted to the...

Red Bull Illume will attract the world’s best action and adventure sports photographs, so it’s logical that the Jury has to be world-class too. We spoke to judge Peter Taras and former Red Bull Illume category winner Jimmy Wilson, both from <link...

There are now less than two weeks to go before the close of submissions for the 2010 Red Bull Illume Image Quest.

Photographers must enter their best action and adventure sports images before midnight (Central European Time) on February 28, 2010.

Thousands of images have already been entered into...

The winners of this year’s Image Quest will not only receive praise and be honored, they will also be awarded a series of great prizes by Red Bull Illume sponsors - including SanDisk, the renowned manufacturer of storage devices.

Every photographer with a photo in the final 50 images of...

Getting the right shots at a high profile event requires more than just turning up and snapping away. The Air & Style, one of snowboarding's oldest and most prestigious competitions, is one such event where capturing the winning stunt in the best possible manner is crucial.

We spoke to German...

If you have questions about this year's Red Bull Illume Image Quest, or just want to talk photography, visit us at stand 224 in hall A1 at this year's Winter ISPO exhibition in Munich.

The exhibition takes place between February 7-10 at Munich's gigantic Messe International.

Members of the Red...

The deadline for Red Bull Illume, the world's premier action and adventure sports photography competition, is fast approaching. Amateur and professional photographers are invited to enter their thrilling photos via this website before February 28, 2010.
 
Red Bull Illume 2010 is...

It’s not easy to get hold of a Leica S2 to try out, but our Red Bull Illume tester went down to Samy’s camera shop in Los Angeles to give it a go.

Allowed 10 minutes with Leica’s newest medium format DLSR camera, Joaquin had just enough time to get a feel of the beast and snap a few...

The judges' panel for the 2010 Red Bull Illume Image Quest is growing steadily as 31 judges have now confirmed their participation in the world’s most spectacular action and adventure sports photography contest.

Among the newly confirmed judges are some of the world’s most renowned photo...

Dawn Kish doesn't spend much time indoors, preferring to travel the globe in pursuit of great photography. Born in Arizona and given her first camera at age 17, Kish has an enviable list of clients from National Geographic to Sports Illustrated and MTV.

The winner of the Close Up category at the...

Twenty judges from 14 countries have confirmed their participation in the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010 and can be announced.

They will make up a select panel of photo editors from around the world who have the difficult task of selecting category finalists and winners.

So...

For anyone who knows snowboarding, Thomas Stöckli’s Energy category winning photo from the 2007 Image Quest will give them goose bumps. The shot shows snowboarder Reto Kestenholz bashing through a windblown lump of snow, sending powder up in the air as if it had exploded.

“’WUFF!’ Can...

In the fifth and final part of our Location Check series, we take a look at Africa’s kayaking focal point: The Zambezi River.

The 3,540km long Zambezi is a gigantic and intimidating force of nature. From its source in Zambia, Africa’s...

Australian-born Tim McKenna began his professional life as a surf photographer in the 1980s, and has since branched out into other action and adventure sports, as well as landscape and fashion photography.

The forty-one year-old won the Experimental category in the 2007 Red Bull Illume...

The fourth stop in our series of great locations for action and adventure sports photography: Yosemite National Park.

With up to four million visitors every year, the Yosemite National Park is one of the USA’s major tourist attractions and also one of the world’s most interesting climbing...

Gian Paul Lozza’s winning shot in the Illumination category from the 2007 Image Quest was a perfect fit to the competition. It’s nighttime, and professional snowboarder Travis Rice taps his board on the top of a brightly lit box that makes up the upper half of a small quarter pipe.

The...

The third stop in our series of great locations for action and adventure sports photography: Barcelona.

Barcelona isn’t just a city full of historic landmarks, amazing architecture and Spanish joie de vivre, since the skating boom of 2002 it has also become the ‘unofficial’ capital of...

From all of us here at Red Bull Illume, we wish you a happy Christmas and New Year's period, and look forward to seeing all your submitted images in 2010!

We'll be posting stories and news over the break, so stay posted and if you have questions regarding Red Bull Illume or any issues uploading,...

The second stop in our series of great locations for action and adventure sports photography: Alaska.

With its rugged terrain and breathtaking mountains, Alaska not only is America’s last frontier, but also a Mecca for backcountry skiing and...

Composing the right shot for the SanDisk Sequence category in the 2010 Image Quest is no easy task. The technique is often used in action and adventure sports, but putting together a sequence photo for the first time can be daunting.

Which is...

It's not easy deciding where to try and get that perfect Red Bull Illume image, so we've put together a series of five of the world's best action and adventure sports locations. Here's part one: Hawaii.

To most surfers and surf photographers, Hawaii...

There were no less than six surfing photos in the final fifty images in the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2007, and for a sport so well documented, it seems appropriate that there are now movies about the surfing documenters, not just the athletes.

Fiberglass and Megapixels is the new...

As the New Year is rapidly approaching, we’re already halfway through the submission phase of the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010.

Since the time window for entering images into the contest opened in October 2009, hundreds of photographers have submitted thousands of shots into the ten...

Although winter is somewhat slow in coming to the Alps this year, 2007 Red Bull Illume finalist Ray Demski encountered near-blizzard conditions on the Dachstein Glacier in Austria when capturing German biathlete Michael Rösch for an Olympic profile in September. Accompanying them as assistant...

The Red Bull Illume Cliff Diving Event in Hamburg was extremely challenging for the three photographers, Ray Demski, Marcel Lämmerhirt and Chris Stadler who were commissioned to cover it.

Red Bull Illume spoke to Ray to get the inside view. Check the video above for the interview and...

Capturing fast moving action sports is a tough challenge. Traditionally popping the subject out from the picture and keeping it sharp, requires one or more strategically placed flashes. But this method usually means much of the background light is lost.

The restricting factor with old...

If you feel like a bit of gambling during your office break or have some time to spare in between shoots, the brand-new Illume Shuffle Puzzle game is the perfect challenge for you.
 
Available in different difficulty levels, the puzzle takes winning images from last year’s Image...

Photographers looking for inspiration in order to enter images into the new culture category in the 2010 Red Bull Illume Image Quest should look no further than American Martha Cooper.

Most famous for her work in New York during the late 1970s and early 1980s,...

Objects of Desire

If you’re looking for that perfect gift for the photographer in your life or don’t know what to put on your list to Santa, here are our top five present ideas for Christmas 2009.

Leica M9 camera
OK, so we might be...

Canon Announces New Mark IV

At the moment, the photo community is abuzz with rumors about the new Canon Mark IV, but until it is officially released in early December 2009 only a lucky few will be able to get their hands on it.

However, Canon has released some details on what...

At Red Bull Illume there’s nothing we like more than perusing a glossy photography coffee table book while drinking a cappuccino, and we’ve picked out a few that action and adventures sports photography fans should take a look at.

Warming up chilly winter evenings is Tim McKenna’s 2007...

Good news! The deadline to submit images for the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010 has been extended to February 28, 2010. This extra month of submission time gives photographers the chance to take more shoots in one of action and adventure sports photography’s busiest times: the winter...

Photography events to look out for

If you are interested in photography and happen to be in London or Munich this weekend, you might want to drop by at this year’s Vision09 event or Photoshop Convention.

The Vision09 taking place on November 27, 2009 at London’s Business...

Red Bull Illume Image Quests receive a fair proportion of freeski and snowboard photos, and while the action itself usually appears clean and simple, getting the shot is far from easy. We talked to renowned Swedish freeski photographer Johan Stahlberg about what goes into winter sports shoots and...

During a recent spectacular photo shoot with Mark Watson, Red Bull hang-glider and world record holder Jonny Durand became the world’s first athlete to surf the notorious Australian roll cloud called ‘Morning Glory’.

A hundred meters long, between two and four kilometers high and moving...

Red Bull Illume is all about enlightening the world of action and adventure sports photography, and it looks like Leica's new Pradovit D-1200 is the perfect tool for illumination.

Not content with producing the world's sexiest cameras, the Pradovit had the Red Bull Illume testing team...

Put yourself in the picture with Red Bull Illume's Illuminate Yourself application, now on Facebook!

The app lets you customise a magazine layout with your photos and text and share the...

As card technology moves exponentially faster, Red Bull Illume took a breather to ask a photographer on the front line what the growth in speed and memory means to the industry.

A photographer for over ten years, Craig Kolesky has a wide ranging porfolio from fashion and labels to sports...

The first one thousand images have been submitted to the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010, well above the level at the same point during the 2007 Image Quest.

Almost 500 photographers from 57 different countries have registered for the competition and so far the quality has been extremely...

Photographer Desré Pickers won the lifestyle category of Red Bull Illume 2007, plus the athletes' choice and peoples' choice awards. We asked her what it takes to be successful in action and adventure sports photography.

Desré, you won...

Check out the new Interactive section on this website and get closer to Red Bull Illume.

Pick up your Facebook badge, choose from a selection of wallpapers or put yourself in the picture with the Illuminate Yourself application...

Confirmed today: the winner of the 2010 Red Bull Illume Image Quest will receive a Leica S2 camera and equipment to the value of €30,000.

The winning photographer's image must make it through a number of stages before being chosen as overall winner.

Once the submission phase...

Top windsurfing champion Jason Polakow (AUS) and renowned ski photographer Dom Daher (FRA) talk about the important relationship between athletes and those behind the lens.

Jason explains why things in the water can get dangerous and Dom talks about why an athlete being willing to give time and...

Are you a member of the Illuminati or just an outright fan of Red Bull Illume?

Visit our Facebook page to get your own Illume badge and show your friends what photography means to you. Choose from one of six designs, slap it on your profile and share it with others.

Click <link...