Blue Diamond Cave is situated just above Highway 160 as it runs out of the big city of Vegas, past Mt. Potosi and on towards the dusty town of Pahrump.  The sweep of the road winding its way towards the mountains had caught my eye.  I knew that I could use it capture the sense of passing time as each car left streaks of lights below while I climbed above, leaving my own streaks of light. 
I suited up beneath my chosen climb “M16” (5.11d) and powered on the LED lights that I had strung up my back and across my arms.  These lights would allow me to illuminate the motion of my climb.  By leaving my camera’s shutter open, I could capture the streaking light left behind as I moved from one hold to the next, winding my own way up the 60-foot route.  I climbed quickly, flowing from one position to the next in an unwavering dance up the wall.  The climb was hard, but with each new take I moved faster.  On the fifth take I was finally satisfied with a 92 second exposure.  I could rest my tired arms and shredded skin. I had got my shot.

This shot is the first part of a work for Cheeta, a brand of climbing holds. I had to take a picture to illustrate a new climbing hold’s range named Craters. For the holds to be clearly visible, I wanted the background of the climbing wall to be neutral. A black background was perfect with the red climbing holds. We set the boulder on the climbing wall then we put a black sheet behind the holds. For take the picture, I had to hang myself under the ceiling of the climbing gym. Then, the famous Japanese climber Tsukuru Hori did the rest, I had to trigger at the right time.

After months of meticulous planning and weeks of getting the rhinos acquainted to and comfortable with the ramp we needed to place among them, we decided we were ready to do the shoot. Over the next three days, Eric spent several hours each morning slowly letting the rhinos get accustomed to his movements - until the rhinos would stand, grazing peacefully while Eric was performing his flare just a couple of meters away from them. 
As rhinos have quite poor eye sight, but very good hearing, Eric had to continuously talk to the rhinos while I on the other hand had to remain completely silent and still, so as not to startle them and avoid having them charge off with incredible speed, heedless of who or what stood in their way. It was an intense few days as a situation could at any given moment spiral into extreme danger for both Eric and me. The extreme pressure and enforced patience finally paid off all the way however, when we managed to get this particular shot: just as Eric jumped his Flare, Mattanu, the Rhino, looked up - and the two ended up staring straight into each other’s eyes…time appeared to stop for one breathless moment.

In photography, I am always looking for new challenges. Ever since the “backyard” pool was built in the Suvilahti DIY skate park, I wanted to get a shot with 4 skaters shredding simultaneously in one photo. The park is painted yearly with new graphics, based on an idea by the locals. In 2018 the theme was “The Jungle”. In July 2018, some of my favourite skaters were in town. I got Pat Duffy, Rune Glifberg, Sam Beckett and Kevin Bækkel to get together for a fun session in the jungle, inspired by the legendary eighties “Animal Chin” ramp four handplants photo by J. Grant Brittain. 

The trickiest part was to get the timing correct for all the guys, as you can imagine. The fact that I was standing 20 meters high in this thin metal light pole tower located next to the park didn’t make it any easier. Me shouting down to the guys after each shot about who should be earlier, later, etc. And of course, it was quite windy up there, too. In addition, the shapes of the Suvilahti DIY are all uneven and different in more or less all of the transitions. Therefore, all of the skaters needed to start at a different time. Fine-tuning the timing was challenging but fun - especially when all worked perfectly in the end and we nailed it. I had 2 Profoto B1 flashes on the right pointing to Sam and Kevin to compensate the sun light from the left. Pat Duffy bs smith grind, Rune Glifberg fs grail, Sam Beckett bs lipslide and Kevin Baekkel bs boneless. Artists of the paintjob Jopo, Mummi, Votzsky, Vary, Luca, Croko, Yeezus, Simu, Yrge, SDC, SLP.

Suvilahti DIY has been designed and built by skaters for skaters, expanding and evolving since 2011. The park, with a size of over 1000m2, is one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. Sadly, it is under the threat of being demolished. An association called “The friends and supporters of Suvilahti skatepark area” has been founded in order to save and develop this unique specimen of urban culture.

I love climbing and I shoot a lot of climbing competitions. But what I like the most, is the geometry of climbing walls. Sometimes the walls looks like a folded sheet of paper. I practiced origami a lot, when I was a child. Maybe this is the reason, why I love geometry, shapes, and lines so much? The ‘technical inspiration’ for using the tape was Dan Vojtech and his BMX photos. I already had the idea of such a climbing shot a couple of years ago, but to make it – I needed a huge climbing wall free of any holds. And this was the problem, because taking all the holds down is a big task and nobody would do it just for a photo. I did a test-shot in a small bouldering gym, but it was nothing – the holds were disturbing, and I couldn’t show the geometry. Time passed by, but I kept the idea in my mind.
One year ago I got to know about building of a new climbing wall in Saint-Petersburg called ‘The North Wall’. The design of the wall was amazing. It had a huge arch in the middle and lots of climbing surfaces, so the creative ideas are just flowing.
While the wall is being built, the planes are empty with no holds, and you can see all the geometry of the wall, how the light comes on it. It was exactly what I needed!
When we came to make the shot, the wall was still under construction and about 85% ready. During the preparation we got some problems. I spent about two hours putting the tape on the wall, but suddenly it came unstuck and started to fall down. We had spent some more hours putting it back again and fixing it with some screws. I got nervous, because it already became night and all the people from the climbing gym, the athlete, and the backstage team were waiting for me. But the guys from the climbing gym were extremely friendly and helpful. For them it was also a special moment, when they realized, that the wall they were building became alive!
When the tape was finally on the wall again, we started shooting. And it took only a few minutes, to get it done.

The first idea was to document the behind the scene of a little funny internet movie called Moontain Skiing. When I did my research with the team we decided to work in a way called American Night, like Zorro back in the days, you shoot during the daylight and darken it in post. I thought it could be a good idea to do the making of and to try my little project on the side. I ordered a blue filter as it was mentioned as an important part of the process. The filter never came on time but it worked out. 

Anders is the most hardworking athlete I know and always has some crazy ideas. We tried something similar a few years back that didn't work that well. But when he came across this pool in an old school he knew about, we knew this was a go! It's done with a smoke machine in the pool, the temperature of the landing makes the haze stay down there. And I have one flash behind the jump with a blue gel, and one to my left aiming at him. There was a really minimal in-run, but Anders has incredible pop so he still made it look really good!

Maria Sandberg is the mastermind behind this chaos. She called me up and asked if I wanted to join her in dragging a Sea-doo up the mountains as a last hurrah to a great winter.
How can someone say no to that? 
To give it that summer party vibe we brought along a ton of inflatables and had a super fun day. The goal of the trip was to create a movie in story format with our phones, and my pictures would just be the cherry on top.

I took the photo covering the Redbull Snowboard Shape 2019 on January 19, 2019, following several months of very hard and precise cuts of all those features by the shaping crew, we shot over two days. At the end of the day, the shadows were stretching all across the snow which we tried to keep pristine by not walking too close to the features, and regularly having the snow basher redoing the lines. I was shooting alongside my good friends from Blue Max Media who were making the video (https://www.redbull.com/fr-fr/videos/pierre-vaultier-shapes-boardercross) and I borrowed their drone because I knew the top shot would look unreal. I just had to trigger at the right time when Pierre was airborne in between features so the picture would be easier to read.
 

Together with O’Neill and Jordy we went to Surf Snowdonia with the plan to shoot night surf. The concept was to capture surfing with flash in the dark, and color gels to make it interesting and pop more. Color gels is something I played a lot with in the past, it ads that extra bit of creative feel and joy. With Jordys powerful surfing on top, I am really happy with the final image and how it all went down.

The weather forecast for the next days reported excellent weather conditions without clouds. A perfect opportunity to realize my long-planned project.

A prolonged lighting shot, in which a snowboarder gets frozen during a handplant with a flash and a light circle above him is projected with a drone in the sky.

I had taken some test photos with the drone before, but never with a snowboarder riding in the backcountry in the late evening with freezing cold, winds at 1600 m.a.s.l. and lots of electronics and batteries... 

Whether it would succeed was still unclear at that moment. Because some factors had to work together, as I later found out. 

I arranged to meet Thomas K‰lin and Deniz Cinek. They are two handplant experts, an experienced team, and the guarantors for a successful photo session, no matter if there is a photo of the day or not. Fun and good friendship are always a priority for them. However, it is precisely for this reason that good photos are usually taken spontaneously with them.  

Since I knew that it would be a very long day until late into the night, we went to our NBC (NaturalBornChillaz Crew) Homebase at Hoch Ybrig in Switzerland around noon. 

We set off with snowshoes and a lot of equipment on our back, such as shovels, camera, tripod, radio, flash unit, LED headlights and a drone equipped with 2 LED lamps, spare batteries, food and drink for refreshment. 
So we had enough light to see something off the pistes at night and to find our way back to the valley.

When I arrived at the planned location, I had the feeling of finding a beautiful panorama for the photo and immediately started looking for the right perspective. Based on this, we positioned the quarterpipe on the crest.   
We illuminated the route with LED lamps and two flashes I positioned behind the quarterpipe, which I then triggered at the right moment by radio remote control. The illumination of the mountain comes from the two LED lights of the drone.

As long as it was still bright, Thomas and Deniz had enough time to come in, and I made the final preparations. All that was missing was a small platform to launch and land the drone in the deep snow. 
When the whole setup was finished, we waited for the shooting until there was no more ambient light.  Finally, the show started. Thomas and Deniz were ready at the top, and I flew the drone over the quarterpipe. There I circled them with a 5-meter radius. I gave Thomas the signal to start ridding and then released the camera for 20 seconds. 

At the right moment of the handplant, I also triggered the flashes using the radio. This turned out to be extremely difficult, as I was quite far away, the radio connection didn't always work and hardly saw the right moment at this distance in the darkness. 

The first rechargeable battery from the drone was already exhausted after a few attempts. The other two batteries were already damaged shortly after the take off by the cold, without even a photo. 
So we only had two left, which lasted only 10 minutes each, because of the cold and the weight of the LED lamps on the drone. Instead of the usual 20 minutes of flight. 

As time passed, I was also suffering from the cold. I didn't feel my fingers and feet anymore after standing for so long.

In the end, we succeeded in taking this photo. We are happy with the end result as everything works together perfectly. You get the feeling that Thomas K‰lin is snowboarding on another planet thanks to the stars and the ambiance.

As every year, I was following the Nitro Snowboard-team to their spring team shoot at the Swedish resort Tandådalen. The resort had already closed for the public, so the shape crew was able to build jumps all over the small mountain. This year, the whole focus was on filming funny little stuff with the riders hitting smaller obstacles.
During one of those film sessions, I decided to try out some stuff with my converted infrared camera. The cool thing about this camera is that it shows something that we can't see with our own eyes: The infrared light. When plants are doing photosynthesis, they reflect the infrared light very strongly. Everything that is red in the picture is mostly the result of the photosynthesis. A funny little detail is also that Griffin`s clothing shines in red, but that doesn't come from the photosynthesis, but from the colour shift that you need to apply when you shoot infrared. 
I had a lot of fun behind the camera trying to find an angle that showed both: the perfect styled switch-indy of Griffin but also the nature with the reflection of the infrared light.

Makatea is the highest atoll in the world. It's one giant plateau of 60m high rising above the ocean with cliffs all around it. For 60 years, 1900-1962, the island was a phosphate mine. From 3000 people living on the island back then, only 80 remains today. The natives. 
June 2019, Maewan adventure base and a group of professional climbers came there to install climbing routes for locals to develop outdoor tourism. 
What remains from the phosphate extraction is abandoned buildings, rusted train and rails and holes. Holes made by man. From the sky, it all takes an other perspective. You can see giant holes everywhere. Probably the size of 20 soccer fields. After seeing it from the sky, it all came together and I had to find a way to illustrate the best way possible the climbing and the phosphate extraction at the same time. Helped by Solenne, we set up the rope on the ground and pretended she was climbing through those holes. From a drone perspective, it feels like Solenne is climbing one of the most unique and aesthetic route in the world. In fact, it's just a top shot, she is lying on the ground. 

The first reaction I see from people looking at that shot is that they intentionally move their head sideways, because the image looks rotated. The funny thing is that they seem a bit more confused, because they still think that something is wrong.
My intention was to create that kind of feeling, where people need a while to figure out what is going on. Once you understand that trees always grow straight up towards the sky, you get it. I accidentally found this amazing, artsy location while riding my bike through the city of Cologne and it just got me straight away and I knew I wanted to do something there. Vladic Scholz also lives in Cologne and after a quick phone call we decided to give it a try on the next day. So sometimes good stuff happens accidentally and very quick! By the way, when I showed Vladic the shot on the camera, he intentionally moved his head sideways.

Aleksey Maglov, World Cup 2018 in Moscow. With my friends and photographers we made a crew. Every time during different events, we made a contest between us, who could make the best shot or best selection. Sometimes we bring different stuff like a glass ball or mirrors for made some ‘creative’ shot. My friend brought these mirrors and I asked him to share it with me for one shot. I decide to make a sequence and try to make a circle with the flying athlete. I shot maybe one or two jumps and gave him mirrors back. 

I had that shot in my mind for a long time. It took several attempts and hours of waiting at different mountain lakes until the water was mirror-smooth. On this day, my friend Marco and I started another attempt in the late afternoon and we hiked to the Bachalpsee above Grindelwald, Switzerland. When we arrived, the conditions were once again not good. So, we decided to make a small hiking trail and return at sunset. Back at the lake, shortly before sunset, there was suddenly a window in which the wind flattened and the lake turned into a huge mirror. Ten minutes later, the wind increased again, but this time I had the shot in my camera and was very happy with the result.

Facing the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in 2019, we thought about exploring the moon as a playground for riding. The idea behind this shot was to create an action image in which you feel like you're on the moon, looking down at Earth. These days many people would think of Photoshopping this background first, but that was not my way of doing it. To create this, I bought a huge beach ball that looked like the Earth and hung it up in the background of the action. 

The black light kayak is another piece of my UV project ‘Beneath the surface’ - it is a sports series that is lit only with UV radiation. You can read all about it in previous posts of mine. 

This time I connected with Viki Wolffhardt, one of Austria’s best kayak and canoe athletes and a super cool and down to earth character too. She was immediately motivated for the project and put good spirits and a lot of paddle power into the shoot.

Apart from Viki I tried to find an artist to design her kayak and suit for the shoot. Originally the plan was to color the water and make it glow but eventually I realized that it would be way to bright and too much light for the image after all. I wanted to keep it more clean and dark, also to fit the other images from the series. Therefore I came up with the concept of designing everything else but the water and trying to merge Viki within the graphics, so she would be one with her kayak.

I made some calls and wrote some emails and eventually somebody knew somebody that might be a good fit. Thats how I found Emanuel Jesse, a crazy talented artist and super nice and relaxed dude.

He immediately picked up on the idea and organized all colors and equipment he needed himself. We did some testings before and the we were ready to go.

In the afternoon while Jesse was designing and finishing the kayak I did the setup and test runs with Viki.

It became more of a challenge than expected because even if you stay at one spot, the water is always different and changing. So Viki always comes slightly different into the course, which made it very difficult to focus and get a good shot with good body position, kayak position and water surface including splashes. In total, I was roughly standing almost 2 hours in cold water and Viki was giving her best to give me as many runs as possible to get a good outcome.

And at the end it was totally worth it again and I am happy we pulled this project off. Not with money but just with willpower and belief. Thanks to Viki, Emanuel, Michael Ramhardter and Verbund Wasserarena!

Every year, the legendary Suvilahti DIY skatepark in Helsinki is painted with new exciting artwork based on an idea by the local skaters and artists. In 2016 the theme was “Iceberg Ocean”. During the HELride skateboard event held in Helsinki each summer, Suvilahti DIY has served as the scene for the breathtaking deathrace contest. 

I am always in search of new unseen angles, and therefore I climbed the sketchy ladder up to 20 meters height of this metal light pole tower located next to the park. In shoots like these, you need to be right at the spot, hitting the shutter just at the right time. I shot many skaters during the deathrace, but my man Roope just got it perfectly aligned when he passed, and I managed to capture my idea into a picture. This angle really twists your mind, and you gotta love the beauty of the background. Artwork design by Laura Lehtinen.

Suvilahti DIY has been designed and built by skaters for skaters, expanding and evolving since 2011. The park, with a size of over 1000m2, is one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. Sadly, it is under the threat of being demolished. An association called “The friends and supporters of Suvilahti DIY skatepark area” has been founded in order to save and develop this unique specimen of urban culture.

SAVE THE GLACIERS – PROTECT OUR WINTERS!

I wanted to shoot this picture for years. I hooked up with Mats Grimsæth, who is used to shooting pictures of surfing by being in the water himself. He wanted to be the light assistant in the water with the flash. We went to Red Bull and told them about the idea. They were stoked and after months of planning we got the legend himself, Mick Fanning, to join us.
We all went up north in Norway, to Lofoten in early November. After a couple of days and nights waiting for the lights to appear, around midnight on the third day the shoot was finally on. I rigged a camera on tripod facing the sky to be able to see if the northern lights appeared. We did an hour of northern lights watch each, during the night. Half asleep, Mick Fanning jumped in a wetsuit and ran into the water, screaming in excitement by all the stuff going on.
There where so many elements that had to come together at the same time. Waves, northern lights, no clouds etc. Technically this is one of the hardest pictures I’ve captured. I would not have been able to do this without Mats assisting with the lights in the water. High five to Mats.