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...

Hasselblad have recently launched their new H4D high end camera series which could be a good choice to capture the detail needed for Red Bull Illume's new creativity, close up and illumination categories.

The camera's medium format and 60MP resolution, according to...

The Red Bull Illume servers are switched on and have already begun receiving photos for the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010 submission phase, which opened today October 1.

Amateur and professional photographers are invited to register and enter their best action and adventure sports photos via...

It's not an easy feat trying to fly 8kg of fabric and string, direct another pilot and take photos, but Olivier Laugero and Vitek Ludvik are two photographers whose images have managed to capture the beauty and danger of paragliding.

The duo have been behind the majority of images taken during the...

Red Bull Illume partner SanDisk have upped the ante in the professional photography memory card market, recently launching the new Extreme Pro CompactFlash card line.

The cards which have storage capacities ranging from 16 to 64GB feature a new Power Core Controller which enable them to achieve...

After tallying thousands of online votes, SMS messages and emails, the People's Choice award for the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2007 has been awarded to Desré Pickers.

The South African photographer was also the recipient of the Athletes' Choice prize and Lifestyle category with her shot of...

Canon has just unveiled the EOS 7D digital SLR camera. To make it the tool of choice for experienced photographers and semi-professionals, the EOS 7D not only comes with a new design but also with an array of new features ranging from an 18MP APS-C CMOS sensor developed by Canon to Dual “DIGIC 4”...

It is the battle of photography giants: Nikon vs. Canon

We are asking professional photographers as well as amateurs for their opinion and experiences. What are the pros and cons of each brand? Who is ahead when it comes to recent developments? How do they help evolve photography and...

In April 2009, photographer Ulrich Grill had the opportunity to shoot at a totally unique location. His friend, and former Red Bull athlete, Kurt Bock had handed over his house to Austrian architect Peter Kaschnig, who then fulfilled a fantasy and painted the entire house ultramarine. Everything...

As Red Bull Illume’s goal is to honor the people behind the cameras, we want the photographer community to take actively part in the 2010 Image Quest.
This is why we have created a Red Bull Illume fanpage on Facebook where we would...

Three more weeks to go before you can start submitting your images to the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010 – so get ready and check your drawers and computers for your very best shots!

In 2007 about 2,000 established and upcoming photographers from over 90 different countries contributed...

If some of the best pro surfers and most talented surf photographers get together in their search for the perfect wave the results are expectably first-rate. In June 2009 Red Bull invited surf stars like Mick Fanning and Sofia Mulanovich together with some upcoming talents to the Mentawai Islands,...

Leica has revolutionized photography more than once already – and they’ll do it again. On September 9, 2009 the prestigious company will unveil the next generation of Leica cameras in a live webcast.

Rumors say that the new product line will be equally interesting for pros and amateurs,...

Get the latest updates from Red Bull Illume via short but sweet social networking site Twitter.

News, features and links will all be posted so it's easy to stay informed as the contest progresses from the beginning of the submission phase, which starts on October 1, to the announcement of the...

Every sport comes with a very special and unique lifestyle, culture and sound. To give this essential part of action and adventure sports the attention it deserves, we have created a brand new category for Red Bull Illume 2010: Culture.

The category is defined as follows: Images that visually...

After the spectacular success of the first Red Bull Illume Image Quest, the world’s biggest action and adventure sports photography contest returns for a second enlightening edition!

Around 2000 established and upcoming photographers from over 90 different countries submitted their images in...

The Red Bull Illume website got a facelift! Check out the new look and enjoy the updated and revamped www.redbullillume.com.

Read the latest news and all details about the competition, it’s rules, categories and the