The winning images have been announced in the seventh edition of the Red Bull Illume photo competition. The contest invites photographers to submit images from the world of action-and-adventure sports in one of 10 categories, including Energy, Playground, and Raw. Red Bull was once more kind enough to share some of the winning photos and finalists below, with captions provided by the organizers and photographers.
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Energy Category Winner. One of the most extreme days at the incredibly challenging Shipstern Bluff on a remote stretch of coast in Tasmania, Australia. The irregular bathymetry creates steps in the wave that adds to the unpredictability and creates a spectacular platform at the base of passive, imposing sea cliffs. Local legend Jimmy McKean navigates a series of irregular steps in the face of a giant southern ocean swell. #
© Ted Grambeau / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Innovation by MPB Semi-finalist. Excommunication is five pitches of desert splendor on a sliver of sandstone on a windy ridge in Utah's Castle Valley. The first three pitches follow a striking arete that places the climber in wild positions of extreme exposure as they balance back and forth. I've tried to capture both the position and the landscape and always thought a drone would be the best tool. Multiple attempts over five years provided successful imagery with a standard setup, but high winds, failing light, and crashed drones made the airborne shot elusive. In the spring of 2023, the elements came together, and this shot of Rob Pizem spanning the gap from the arete to the crack became reality. #
© Jeremiah Watt / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Innovation by MPB Finalist 2023. It had to be one of the biggest storms of the spring in Whistler, B.C. We were camping out in the sub-alpine, and the snow had been been stacking up all day. I wanted to shoot with my drone light in heavy snow, so we set out after dinner to get set up in some wide-spaced old growth trees. I was flying the drone back from a feature we had just shot and went overtop this lone tree. We all decided that this would make a beautiful shot with a snowboarder in it. In complete darkness, Torgier Bergrem dropped in, found his way to the light using only feel, and nailed the mark. #
© Mason Mashon / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Energy Semi-finalist. This shot was taken while on a mission in the backcountry of New Zealand. Conor Macfarlane had devised a project where we'd camp off-grid in the backcountry for the best part of a week, along with a couple of other riders; we'd hike huge scree slopes from before dawn until nightfall, sometimes climbing more than 1,700 meters multiple times a day to find the best runs. This image was just as the sun was setting on our last descent of the day. I got pretty beaten up by the rocks fired at me during this one frame; surprisingly, my lens wasn't damaged. #
© Jay French / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Masterpiece by Sölden Category Winner. La Muralla Roja is a huge apartment complex in the Spanish town of Calp and was built by Ricardo Bofill in 1969. This building is just a miracle itself—there are stairs, small corridors, platforms, and concrete walls everywhere, and it's very easy to lose orientation. The building is divided into different zones that are all colored differently in pastel tones but work together beautifully. Athlete: Senad Grosic. #
© Lorenz Holder / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Energy Finalist. In August 2022, Mirko Paoloni asked me to take some photos of him for one of his sponsors. For various reasons, we chose the road up to the Kaunertal Glacier, in Austria, for this shoot. It is beautiful; the road is mostly facing east and starts at an altitude of 2,750 meters above sea level. There's no traffic, and the locals (including cows) are cool with downhill skating. Mitch Thompson took the wheel of the follow car, and I poked my head out of the sunroof. After some minutes of warming up, we came to the fastest passage of the road. #
© Felix Pirker / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Masterpiece by Sölden Finalist. It was late in May 2022 that a series of extreme swells focused on the southern portion of Tahiti. This is where the world's deadliest surfable reef resides—Teahupo'o, also known as the "End of the Road." May 25 was the first in series of days where the swells saw perfect conditions, with huge 12- to 15-foot waves groomed by light offshore winds. Sometimes surfers may find themselves out of position as an extra-large set of waves approaches. In this instance, three surfers found the themselves in this position. Two emerged unscathed from the back of the wave, but the third, Rodrigo Reinoso, was not so lucky. Caught in the breaking monster, Rodrigo found himself at the top of a virtual waterfall, about to be launched backwards over the falls—a surfer's worst nightmare. #
© Ted Grambeau / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Lifestyle by COOPH Semi-finalist. Ever since I saw my first salmon run, I've been addicted to getting some good photos of them. It's one of the most challenging things I've ever really taken on. During their short run season of two to three weeks a year, I would learn from my mistakes and have small eureka moments, and then would have to wait until the next year to try again. After a few milestones and many mistakes over the span of more than a decade trying to capture sockeye salmon, I got a day out with my good kayaking buddy Dennis Werden and was lucky enough to capture this salmon in the wild, while he admired the fish from above. Eagle River, Revelstoke, B.C., Canada. #
© Daniel Stewart / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Playground by Radiant Photo Finalist. I love the architecture. Straight lines, straight shapes. Ever since I can remember, everything had to be straight and structured. No free forms. No living shapes. Everything had to be straight. In this image, the architecture is the built, structured, planned part of the work, and on the other side you see the skater, the natural, the living, the I-point. Cologne, Germany. Athlete: Jann Hinz. #
© Jan Faßbender / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Playground by Radiant Photo Semi-finalist. The Santo Domingo river is the steepest section of whitewater kayaking in the world—a kayakable section. It's short, but extremely steep, linked up and consequential. We went there as a group of five kayakers. We spent five days on this section, and paddled it four times. In this photo is Dane Jackson paddling down the Toboggan waterfall. Chiapas, Mexico. #
© David Sodomka / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Innovation by MPB Finalist 2023. Fernanda Morales is an excellent dancer and free diving instructor and I dedicate my life to underwater photography. One day we decided to get together. We decided to go to a cenote and put all our abilities together and see what we could create in one of the most magical places that I know, the Cenote Chukum. Magic arose, Fernanda began to merge with the water and I began to play with the rays of light that penetrated the surface of the crystal clear waters through a hole in the ceiling of the cave. Tulum, Mexico. #
© Alvaro Herrero López-Beltrán / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Innovation by MPB Semi-finalist 2023. Over my career I have shot lots of mountain bike photos on the North Shore. I particularly love a moody foggy day, the forest comes alive with contrast and shape. It also a stunning condition to ride within and if you experience enough of these days, you also get those moments where the sun starts to send rays of light into the forest. Numerous attempts in the forests on the right days, and I learned that it is very difficult to fly a drone high inside the forest canopy in thick fog and get the result I was searching for. So for this image, I commissioned an arborist to strap a pulley system way up a particular tree that was behind our featured air and root mass. The hard work in it all becomes the wait and prediction for a thick fog day—the easy part was watching Jackson crush it on a mountain bike! The North Shore, Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Athlete: Jackson Goldstone. #
© Sterling Lorence / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Innovation by MPB Overall Winner. One day as I was driving to my local crag, an idea hit me like a lightning bolt where I conjured the concept of illuminating a crack from within on an iconic trad climb. Moab, Utah, has always brought me back time and time again, and teaming up with Angela Van Wiemeersch we found "Seventh Serpent" in Long Canyon. During a heat wave, we only had a few precious shaded hours in the afternoon to rig the lights into the crack. I'll always be a nervous wreck in these situations but when I raced back across the canyon to set up my position to capture, what a spectacular feeling it was to witness the crack come alive as the darkness enveloped around us. #
© Krystle Wright / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Masterpiece by Sölden Finalist. I was patiently waiting all year for moments like this. It had rained for days, so the rivers were not pouring brown and had fresh water so the ocean was really clear. Conditions at Teahupo'o were as good as it gets, not one cloud in the sky at sunrise, no wind so the surface of the water was glassy and allowed you to see through the wave. Teahupo'o, French Polynesia. Athlete: Kauli Vaast. #
© Ben Thouard / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Playground by Radiant Photo Semi-finalist. This image came out of a deeply personal trip after a summer of too much work, I was burnt out and feeling creatively stunted. I packed my truck up with my Moto and camera and decided to drive south to Utah looking for nothing but a good time with no real plan in place. I simply wanted to ride bikes, shoot images and sleep under the stars. I messaged a bunch of Moto riders that I had never met, out of the blue, and convinced them to come shoot with me. On the way back from a ride one night I noticed how the dust was lingering in the air with all the wind in the area and asked the crew to session this one feature, that's when I ended up with this shot in particular. Athletes: Tyler VanZadt and Braydin Anderson. #
© Tyler Ravel / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Emerging with Canon Finalist. I feel at home in the ocean. However, these days, I spend most of time everywhere except the ocean. I get inspired by surf culture, and I wanted to shoot climbing from the water. With this image, I wanted to put an emphasis on movement and the importance of experiencing flow. The only way I could capture that flow was if I put myself in the water, where movement is always taking place. Squamish, B.C., Canada. Athlete: Eden Anbar. #
© Taylor Shaffer / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Playground by Radiant Photo Category Winner. We were shooting for a week around Cusco, Peru, with a video team but when they left, we changed my flight to come to this place, the highest dune in the world. We only had one evening and one morning there as our plane was leaving from Lima the next day. We had to have good weather and all conditions come together. I was suffering from a knee injury and had to climb up the 500m-high dune with almost just one leg. I flew my drone once up there and the view was absolutely breathtaking. The wind just shaped that huge dune with a perfect pattern, the same pattern we can see on a way smaller scale. It was so perfect it almost looked fake. Nazca, Peru. Athlete: Kilian Bron. #
© Jb Liautard / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Innovation by MPB Finalist 2023. The photo captures a personal challenge I had been wanting to undertake for several years, but I was unsure of the best approach. I reached out to Jorge Arias, better known as Kazique, for the audiovisual realization of a project. He's profoundly attuned to the spiritual, elevating his BMX maneuvers to a whole new realm. This image freezes the moment when Kazique fearlessly performed a backflip over a water fountain. Parque Araucano, Santiago, Chile. #
© Juan Garcia Prieto / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
Lifestyle by COOPH Semi-finalist. You could write a book about the challenges that Florian Dungl has overcome, and what he has achieved along with Markus Lahmer. No matter how inspiring, that's not my tale to tell, but I do want to share a simple moment, where I witnessed the beauty of shared joy. Sun's out, pristine water, pristine surroundings. Mountains in the background hanging out, enjoying the show. Flo, the first tetraplegic wakesurfer on the planet, riding that wave with the biggest grin. Right there with him, Markus throws him a fist bump. It's simply a pocketful of joy. Lac Léman, Switzerland. #
© Thibaut Lampe / Red Bull Content Pool Read more -
RAW Category Winner. This was for me one of the most difficult shots to take. In a windy week, a lot of larch in the valley were losing their thorns. So we were looking for the most beautiful larch around Briançon in France, and fortunately came across this magnificent tree with the waterfalls as a backdrop. Everything was perfect. I hooked a flash on a drone and had it flown over the jump and the tree. Our shot window was very short, I absolutely wanted to have the waterfalls in the background while having the tree and Arthur well lit by the flash. A single test allowed us to have all the conditions united in a single perfect shot. Athlete: Arthur Deblonde. #
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