The action-sports photography niche can be a difficult one to carve out. Finding a way to get the best shot of a snowboarder riding fresh powder in the Utah backcountry means you actually have to take your equipment into the Utah backcountry. Making photographs of the sponsored athletes who are the faces of action sports brands means going where they go, and understanding the lifestyle they live, firsthand. The need to travel to difficult locations and get access to athletes creates a natural barrier for photographers trying to get into the industry.

Red Bull, Smith Optics and Burton Snowboards are three companies that rely on photography to make the most of their brand's commitment to action sports and the athletes they sponsor. They offer three different types of opportunities for photographers who are looking to create careers out of hanging from the side of a cliff or wading in the ocean trying to get that epic shot.


The Open Door

Austrian beverage company Red Bull sponsors more than 400 athletes who compete in sporting events ranging from aerobatic flying to skateboarding to surfing. To make the most of these sponsorships, Red Bull relies on an international pool of roughly 50 "official" photographers who shoot athletes and events for Red Bull Photofiles, the company's proprietary wire service and image library.

Red Bull established Photofiles in 1997 so the company could take an active role in how Red Bull's sports initiatives were documented visually. "The need arose to capture the athletes and events in extremely good quality," says Ulrich Grill, the head of Photofiles, which is based in Austria. "The goal was that magazines would recognize this photographic content as very valuable and authentic information for their readership." Photofiles photographers are assigned to cover events worldwide, and their photographs are then edited and uploaded to Photofiles, where photo editors at various media outlets can download and use the photographs for free. Photographers are paid a flat fee for the work they do for Red Bull, and the fees vary from assignment to assignment. "There is no international rule," says Grill, "except that it has to be a fair market price."

Since its inception, Photofiles has worked with around 1,400 photographers, and they actively look for new shooters to hire. "It's very hard to get started as an action and adventure sports photographer," says Grill. "We want to support young photographers and give them an equal chance to show their talent, without having to know somebody who knows somebody." Red Bull holds national recruiting events called Photochallenges, gives two-month internships to photographers, and conducts trial shoots in certain markets in an effort to find new talent.

Photographers who score assignments for Red Bull Photofiles are given creative briefs that include some branding rules. "We try to give them the most possible freedom in their creativity, within our framework," says Grill. Christian Pondella, who participated in a U.S. Photochallenge in 2000 and has since shot nearly 100 assignments for Red Bull in 15 different countries, says that Red Bull photographers "are given a lot of flexibility and are encouraged to be very creative." Grill says that Red Bull's goal is "to motivate the photographer to come up with the most creative angles and concepts."

Pondella, who went to college in Colorado and used the opportunity to photograph rock climbing and ski trips, says that his goal is to raise the level of his photography to match that of the athletes, which means staying creative. "Depending on the event, my preparation may vary; for a night event I would bring lots of remote strobes. If I was shooting B.A.S.E. jumpers or climbing, I would bring ropes and a harness to lower myself down a cliff or the side of a building to get a unique perspective."

Red Bull's official photographers are given portfolios on the Photofiles site, and their work is sent out in newsletters to more than 7000 media outlets. "As soon as photographers come up with consistently fantastic results and are professional and easy to work with, the chance to be selected as an official photographer is high," says Grill.

In addition to the exposure and fees they receive from Red Bull for their work, photographers are also permitted to market their images themselves; all Red Bull asks is that they get in touch before they sell the photos to third parties. "The diversity of images that I shoot for Red Bull Photofiles makes for an amazing portfolio, which leads to many potential clients," notes Pondella. "Many athletes we shoot have a lot of sponsors and contacts, so there is always the possibility of selling photos for a variety of usages." Depending on the type of shoot and the deal Red Bull has with the photographer, the photographer may retain copyright for the images.

"Shooting for Red Bull has contributed to my career immensely," says Pondella. "It has pushed my photography in so many ways, both technically and creatively." Supporting talented new photographers has become a tradition at Red Bull, says Grill. "After many years it's nice when they say that Red Bull gave them the possibility to follow their passion. That's a very strong relation."




The Client

Tag Kleiner, the marketing director of Ketchum, Idaho-based eyewear label Smith Optics, is constantly on the hunt for the next hardcore action shot or lifestyle image to speak to his 15- to 25-year-old consumer.

Kleiner's image needs break down along the lines of epic, high-shutter-speed photographs of surfers, snowboarders, motocross riders and their ilk, and the softer, intimate studio portraits, which are used across a variety of advertising, point of sale and other promotional materials.

"Our creative needs vary so widely from 'action porn' imagery to more personality driven portraits," says Kleiner, adding that most of the creative centers itself on subjects popular within the actions sports arena, including surfer Bobby Martinez, snowboarder Mason Aguierre and motocross champ Travis Pastrana. "There's a lot of hero worship, and that's where we utilize our athletes as ambassadors for the brand."

And the best people to capture those heroes? Freelance photographers. According to Kleiner, the brand takes submissions from roughly ten photographers in each of the action sports they cater to, with upwards of 20 photographers sending in submissions from the worlds of snowboarding and surfing. (Even within the Smith Optics studio, the shooters are all freelancers.) The need for freelance photography comes with the territory, as the locales at which actions shots are caught are, by necessity and consumer desire, some of the most far-flung regions of the world. By nature, shoots are often so dependent on weather conditions that it precludes having in-house photographers.

"It's really difficult to get the images that resonate perfectly for action sports," says Kleiner. "There's a big expense to get to the locations, and you want those unique shots. In surfing, for example, there is only so much time in the year and only so many epic moments, that it ends up that freelancers work the best."

Precisely because of those challenges, the pool from which Kleiner draws is small, and photographers often work trips into jobs for multiple clients. Patrick Ruddy, a 22-year-old, San Diego-based surf photographer whose work has been used in ads for Volcom, Oakley and Smith Optics, and featured in editorials for Surfing, Surfer, Heavy Water and others, says the unused editorial photos that he shoots on assignment with a magazine are then sent to a stock company, Stock Frame, which in turns sells them to brands looking for shots of their sponsored athletes. Because many of the sponsored riders hold alliances with different brands for every part of their experience—from boards to board shorts—a single shoot can yield relevant photos for a number of companies.

While this circuit-traveling band of photographers has its fair share of entrenched veterans and newcomers impressively cutting their teeth—recent examples include Cole Barash and Patrick Ruddy, who shoot snowboard and surf photography, respectively, for the brand—the market largely remains focused on photos rather than on the faces behind them.

"What matters is getting that beautiful image with unique composition, something that jumps off the page," says Kleiner. "Whether that's an old guy or some guy just in his second season, we don't care."

The biggest prerequisite is immersion, says Ruddy. "It's a very isolated industry. There are no photography students who just came out of school and became surf photographers. It's the kind of industry where you live the lifestyle and if you don't then it won't work. You won't see ads from people who are not in the surf industry or allied with the magazines."

While the high-speed action imagery—the kind used in Smith Optics's point of sale posters and promotional material—has largely been "in the tube" and "getting air" photos, Ruddy says that the portraiture work tends to take on more of a documentary feel, a distinction pervasive in much of the segment's ad imagery. The move is geared—both with Smith Optics and the industry in general—toward giving brand messages stopping power among the plethora of raw adrenaline action shots populating the pages of key magazines like Surfer, Dirt Rider, Powder and BL!SS.

"I shoot with more of a documentary style, as a more naturalist photographer," says Ruddy. "There's not a lot of strobe lights, and it's more about just getting the natural light of the location and shooting [tight] portraits. For the most part, photographers shooting portraits [for brands] are going for a naturally-lit, beach-lifestyle-type of photo."




The Endless Winter (Assignment)

If you live far from snow country, the name Burton Snowboards may not speak to you as loudly as, say, Nike. But snowboarding has long since moved from the action-sports fringe into the mainstream, and Burton is the most venerable name in the business. How do you get to be venerable in an industry that's not even 50 years old? You become the leader in technological innovations, you manufacture high-end boards, and you buy up companies that make accessories such as goggles and shoes. But just as important, you also sponsor and nurture your own snowboarding team, and you use location photography to convey the Burton message of all-around excellence, fierce competitiveness and fun.

Burton has four full-time photographers to do its location work, an approach that's common in the board worlds of surfing and skateboarding, where the products, the personalities of the riders and the action itself are tightly intertwined. The company also hires freelancers, mostly to shoot high-end products that require studio or 3-D treatment. (Recent Burton freelancers include Vincent Skoglund, Embry Rucker, Cyril Müller, Ari Marcopoulos, Thierry Van Biesen, Rob Mathis and Trevor Graves.) "We look at portfolios," says René Hansen, Burton's senior global brand director, "and we hire the same photographers who shoot handbags or shoes, so we're always on the forefront in terms of conveying high-tech products."

Because there are more than 25 other companies looking to bite into Burton's impressive estimated 40 to 65 percent market share, the company works tirelessly to stay on the cutting edge—the two terms that come up most frequently in Hansen's conversation are "premium" and "24/7." The company also takes pains to appeal to everyone, from the novice to the most hard-core rider, without splintering its identity. For young customers, images of the riders do much of the work, in much the same way that Tiger Woods sells Nike. "[Young customers] know very well who these people are," says Hansen. "The challenge comes with people like myself [37] who haven't been part of this culture for a long time. Through our system of segmenting the line—differentiating based on what type of riding you'll be doing—you'll find your way to the products you want."

The four staff photographers spend most of the year traveling the globe with the team. Photographic skill and versatility are a given, but they're also expected to act as surrogate parents to the team members, who can be as young as seven. Dean "Blotto" Gray, who shares the title of principal photographer with Jeff Curtes, says, "Once a rider gets to the pro team, he/she is there for ten years. It's their career path. And you try to guide them through. We tell them not to waste their winnings, not to party too much. The snowpack is very unstable in the big mountains, so we also have to teach the kids to be really, really careful."

Hansen compares his photographers to Annie Leibovitz in her Rolling Stone days, able to get good shots of Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan because she was always there. "Snowboarding is not just a sport, but a culture—a lifestyle," he says. "The riders are the Jagger and Dylan of tomorrow. Their personalities are blown up to a level of mystery and interest with the photographer living with them 24/7. Kids would want to print [Leibovitz's] images and put them on the wall, and that's what kids are doing today."

"It's really hard work in the field, and the days are really long, but I absolutely love it and would not change a thing," says Gray, a self-taught photographer who was an amateur snowboarder and owner of a small snowboard company in Utah a decade ago when Burton asked him to sign on as road manager/photographer. Like Curtes and the other two staff photographers—Chris Owen, who is assigned to the women's team; and Adam Moran, personal photographer for Shaun White, the team's rock star—he is also deeply involved in the creative process. "By early December, we know what we want for the season, and put together a look-book, and that will outline the style of shots and the lighting. I'm shooting so many days and using so many maneuvers around the mountain, I can check those off quickly. Then I document as I see fit. I try to bring a photojournalist/documentary aspect along with the creative effort."

Hansen praises his photographers for their adaptability, their drive and their chemistry with their subjects. "I don't think many could go at that speed and be so driven to continue to progress, and also have the ability to adapt to the riders who come through the system. They're never satisfied, always looking into working with different products. That's challenging, especially when you're constantly on the road with a bunch of kids, living in a bag."