At the end of June 2014 I had the chance to do a pre-shoot with two paragliders - Paul Guschlbauer and Tom de Dorlodot - to announce their next big adventure called the ‘Adriatic Circle’. The project was a hike-and-fly trip starting and ending in Ancona, Italy, crossing six European countries by travelling over 2000km either by foot or paragliding. We met at the beautiful lake Königssee in Berchtesgaden, Germany to do some portraits, lifestyle and action shots.

After shooting the first portraits and some hiking shots in the morning we started with the action shots. Taking photos of aerial-sports can be pretty hard if you are bound to the ground, especially if you want to include the scenery. That is why we also tried to get some nice ‘air to air’ shots.

But how does a photographer get airborne? With a paragliding tandem which allows the photographer to fly together with a pilot.

Shot after shot the light got better and the sky became more dramatic over lake Königssee. After almost two hours of flying my stomach felt a bit queasy. Usually I don’t get sick easily while flying, but constantly looking through the viewfinder makes it quite challenging. This shot was one of the last we did and after landing we were pretty happy with the outcome. Even though my face was a little green after the shoot it was an awesome experience!

The camera I used for this shot was a Nikon D4 with a Nikon 24-70mm 2.8 zoom lens to be flexible with the focal length. Because I know flying can be a little bit shaky I decided to go with a fast shutter speed of 1/1600 and an F-stop of 5.6.

Due to a super bad snow situation in the northern Alps I followed the Pirates Crew together with Freddy Evensen and Simon Gruber down to Italy where they were drowning in the white stuff at that time.

We checked a small zone right beside the slopes in Arabba for some good kicker spots and Freddy came up with the idea of this huge gap kicker. After some discussion we decided to build the kicker, which took us nearly two days of shoveling.

In his second try Simon nailed this perfect BS 7 into the landing and I got the shot of one of the biggest kickers I’ve ever seen. I used a Canon 5D MkIII and the 8-15mm fisheye zoom.

A slopestyle rider from Sherwood Park, Alberta, Reilly Horan has been progressing his skills and hopes to enter the world of professional riding. This photo was captured on a photo trip from Calgary to Kamloops Bike Ranch.

The whole trip was centered around shooting this jump. After a brief trip to the location the day before to get an idea of angles and to fix up the jump, we returned before the sun came up the next morning. The riders were busy warming up and fixing the jump while I was choosing my one position to shoot from. There was not much time for adjustment once the sun appeared. Just before sunrise I called out to the riders that it was ‘go time’.

It went from 0 to 100 instantly! Flip whips, super flips, truck drivers, and a barrage of other big tricks were thrown down all at sunrise, but I knew it was Reilly's superman double seat grab that would steal the show. Shooting tricks like these, you have to have a fast trigger reaction once you see the rider at the peak of the trick, a split second either side and the photo is worthless. Luckily I was in good form on that early morning and I knew that would be a defining photo for myself.

This photo was taken at the invitation of my friends Joel Benitez and José Carmonathey who told me we had to go to this place away from the big city where I live. In this place there were new houses, with a park with slopes that would help to José jump to the street.

Josè was not afraid by try this trick, and I thought I had to push myself like him. When I saw the houses I thought I knew I could play with their geometry and colors, as it was certain the skater would spend time floating in front of them. So I went up to a wooden pole to give me a higher angle. I was very happy to have found the best place regardless of the sun or the fact the pole could fall.

The truth is that taking the picture was a bit difficult as the pole was moving, my feet were on a mesh and my hands could not hold onto anything, only my camera. The photo was taken with a Canon 7D, I put a 28-70mm 2.8 lens for full-frame and I used one flash, the Lumedtye of 200 watts on the right side of the skater to remove some shade. I synchronized the camera and flash with the technique of PocketWizard HyperSync approximately 1/1250.

In parkour there are both physical and mental challenges to tricks. To achieve this image the athlete made the jump from a thermal tube on to an air-bridge rail. Andrey, the athlete, planned for a month. He said he needed time to overcome the fear mentally.

The difficulty of this trick is that it was necessary to jump over the precipice, over the passing trains from time to time and with that you have no room for error. It was already a difficult jump, but he also had to land on a small rail with both feet, and not miss. That requires special concentration and precise execution.

The whole day we dedicated to training and photography, and at the end of the day, by chance, we were near the desired location. I suggested Andrey go and check the jump one more time, which he did. When he said that he would attempt to land it, I began to lay out the equipment, preparing to take the picture. The resulting image was already made in my head – I just needed to take it.

All in all, everything went fine, Andrey made the jump three times. He was pleased to take this challenge. I was happy that our effort and dedication paid off in the end.

In 2014 some parts of Austria got tons of snow. For shooting snowboarding it was the best winter I've ever had. We used the snow to shoot all kinds of different spots. Streetrails, Wallrides, Powlines, jumps and more.

One day we decided to check out a small resort in East Tyrol. After a little scouting we found 2 nice spots to build a kicker. Especially the second spot worked out pretty well. There were many different options to shoot this jump. During the first tries the sun lit the riders from the side and it was a good light to start the session. But later this day the sun travelled behind the jump and I started shooting silhouettes. This was the time when I got the best photos of the session. To get that silhouette look I had to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/1000 and a F-stop of 22.

This spot in particular was something we saw on the way to shoot another feature. We drove by the parking lot several times, and each day the parking lot was packed full of people. Not ideal for what we wanted to do, so we really had to plan to shoot it at the end of the day, so less people were around.

Our guide was not optimistic about shooting this location, as we were sure to get kicked out. After sessioning a spot just around the corner, we decided to give the feature a quick look to see if anyone was there. It was towards the end of the day, and luckily the parking lot was completely clear!

The crew made quick work of placing snow in the landing and prepping the in run. Just as the sun was going down we nailed this shot, cleaned up the spot, and no one knew we had even been there. Quick hit and run street spots are sometimes like getting away with burglary. It's so rewarding when you get the shot, and get out without any hassle, and without anyone knowing.

The second half of 2015 was not too good for me regarding business – I had surgery on my shoulder and I was struggling with jobs. After I got the call to ask if I could go on an assignment to shoot Orlando Duque and Jonathan Parades diving from Victoria Falls, I was highly motivated. I know both athletes and it is always fun to work with them. Besides, the location was amazing.

On the day of the main shoot we arrived at the location, which I had not seen before. There weren't a lot of angles. There were two of us taking photos and the second photographer decided to go on the right side. I was looking for a nice angle on the left. The most important aspect was to find an angle where the divers would be as far as possible in front of the waterfall as you cannot really see them with the rocks in the background.

I spoke to Orlando and Jonathan, told them what I wanted and they both told me where approximately they would fly. I was really happy with this one! You can see the height of 30m on this photo. It is really full of energy. And this was the only time that Jonathan dived from that height. No room for mistakes!

While in Dubai we heard about these abandoned planes out in the desert. We went out to scout it and saw the potential it had for some images. The next day we got up super early to get to this spot before sunrise. Driving an hour to get there and imagining this beautiful light over the desert. Unfortunately, this day was completely overcast and it stayed foggy for hours. We had to laugh because, getting up that early had been pointless. Towards the afternoon the fog started to burn off and we began to shoot.

This was the last shot of the day. Jason Paul, the Red Bull Athlete in this photo actually did two other tricks off the front of the plane before we shot this one, which were more difficult and challenging moves. However, that doesn't always register in a photograph. In the end, I think it’s the feeling of Jason and the plane being together that makes it so special, as opposed to this plane just being an obstacle for him to do tricks off of. I shot this with a Canon 5d Mach II with a 70-200mm lens.

I made this shot with a team of experienced pilots. We took off with our paragliders from the Rothorn summit above Zermatt, Switzerland. The west faces of the huge mountains release thermals until the evening there, so we were looking forward to getting good light conditions while still flying in altitudes of 4000 m.

We did a four hour flight together to explore the conditions and the scenery. Then we found this glacier. It was free from dangerous turbulences and there was a westerly thermal wind. So, we could stay in position without losing altitude.

I did this shot from a tandem paraglider. To get the synchro flying and the gliders’ shadows in this frame we needed a couple of tries – and a lot of radio communication! At about 8.30pm the sun was low enough to let the shadows fall into the picture. When I released the shutter of my good old D3 I knew I had something that doesn't come around every day in a photographer's life. For me, this photograph is outdoor poetry.

It had been a struggle shooting with Drew Bezanson in his hometown of Truro, Nova Scotia for his ‘Uncontainable’ movie project. It rained and rained for weeks, delaying the shoot for almost a month.

His idea was to build a bunch of ramps on shipping containers with potential for huge air but the highlight of the set-up was this 30ft, flat take off drop into a steep wooden landing. He practiced into an air bag for a week before actually trying it for real into the wooden landing.

When it came time to go I'm pretty sure Drew was nervous. All of us watching were definitely nervous. I set up two cameras, one shooting colour on the clean and paint-ed front-side of the obstacle, and this one on remote camera with a 15mm fisheye lens shooting black and white with all the leftover equipment and wood hiding in the foreground of my shot.

He started by successfully strait airing the jump then slowly working his way up to harder and harder tricks. Here I captured him doing a 360 X-Up halfway though the jump. Moments before it started to rain again, ending the shoot for the day.

I spent eight days in the Engadin Valley in the Swiss Alps with two different crews. One crew was after night time powder shots and the other just wanted to go riding and maybe shoot something. This shot was obviously with the second crew!

Iker Fenandez and Michi Albin last shot together over 10 years ago, so it was really nice to shoot with them in Michi's back yard.

The snow was pretty windblown up high so we started looking around for pockets of soft snow on the back of a ridge. We found a couple of good spots, but I talked the boys into building this one as the background was just so amazing. I really wanted to shoot backlit so the snow trail would light up.

They both jumped three times until Michi's binding broke on a hard landing. Iker has such a lazy style and you can see he's just enjoying himself up there. This is a very classic snowboarding image, the trick is timeless, the style gold and the landscape beautiful!