By Ben on June 24, 2010
For the last two days Sam Salwei from the YogaSlackers and Adelaide Marcus of the Shimmy Sisters have been in town on their Discovering Harmony in Duality workshop tour. I always jump at the chance to shoot, hang out or play with any of the YogaSlacker team, so Sam and I had been trying to coordinate something for while they were in town. I had never met Adelaide before, but she is a belly dancer, hooper, stilt walker, fire spinner, and all around awesome performer and artist, so I knew working with the two of them together would make for something magical. The problem was that my schedule was very tight while they were in town, and theirs wasn’t much better. After one of their morning workshops in Boulder at the prAna store, we decided that the only way we would get to work together was to do something after their evening workshop in Denver, which meant we would be starting no sooner than 11pm. We got together at a Boulder park where we played, experimented and shot late into the night. I didn’t really have the time or energy, and I still don’t. I shouldn’t even be writing this post. But I’m just too pumped about how we made the shoot work and what we got from it. There are other things I should be doing, but they don’t stand a chance of occupying my brain right now. I’m stoked about these images and the about joy of be able to work with Sam and Adelaide, and the only way to clear the slate of my mind and get back to other work is to share it all. Their workshop is all about the coexistence of opposites: the stillness of slackline, the movement of hooping, the tranquility of yoga, the intensity of fire. In trying to find balance in life, I find that to get to you goal, you sometimes have to take a path opposite of what you thought it would be. To go faster, you need to slow down. To go forwards, you need to take a step back. And sometimes, to feel energized and full of life, you need to stay up way past your bedtime being recklessly creative. Enjoy!
Hit the jump for the rest of the images! Continue reading “Yoga, Hoop and Fire”
Posted in Action, Fire Spinning, Hooping, Inspiration, Photography, Yoga | Tagged Acroyoga, Adelaide Marcus, Fire Spinning, Hooping, Sam Salwei, Yoga, YogaSlackers
By Ben on June 11, 2010
The Teva Mountain Games are stuffed to the absolute limit with whitewater paddling, rock wall crushing, dirt jump soaring action. But there are two things that that I might like more than the non-stop adrenaline rush of all the competitions, and those are the Emotion and the Lifestyle of the event. For all the athletes who compete, and more than likely the majority of the audience, these sport aren’t just activities, they’re a way of life. And in any given sport at the games you’ve got some of the best in the world competing against each other, and what’s best is, they’re all friends. So as you can imagine, there’s a lot of emotion in the air, as some of the best athletes in their discipline’s compete among friends for in the sport they live for. On top of that, you’ve got the hordes of spectators who are also passionate about outdoor sports, the gorgeous setting of Vail Valley, and the totally rockin’ nightlife like the free Julian Marley concert you see at the top. What I’m trying to say is, you really should have been there.
Hit the Jump for more images! Continue reading “The Lifestyle and Emotion of the Teva Mountain Games”
Posted in Climbing, Competition, Lifestyle, Photography, Sports | Tagged Bouldering, Climbing, Teva Mountain Games, World Cup
By Ben on June 8, 2010
Don’t let the name fool you, these images are actually from the semi-finals and finals, but that would have made for a crappy title. Here are my best action photos from the World Cup crush fest, and after this I’ll be doing one more post on the lifestyle, behind the scenes and emotions of the Teva Mountain Games. Then it’s time to move on. I don’t really have much to say, other than the fact that all of the World Cup competitors all did awesome jobs and the climbing action was non-stop, so I’ll just let the images speak for themselves. Enjoy!
Hit the jump for the rest of the images! Continue reading “Bouldering World Cup Finals – 2010 Teva Mountain Games”
Posted in Action, Climbing, Competition, Photography | Tagged Anna Stohr, Bouldering World Cup, Climbing, Daniel Woods, Paul Robinson, Teva Mountain Games, Vail
By Ben on June 6, 2010
So it’s been pretty busy here, shooting the Teva Mountain Games. I’m pretty much ending my third 18 hour day in a row; shooting for about 12 hours and then editing late into the night, only to wake up and do it all over again. But I’m loving just about every minute of it! So forgive me if I can’t quite get the photos up here as soon as I’d like, and if I don’t have much to say besides, “Coffeeeee…” I spent Friday covering the Bouldering World Cup qualifiers. Even though it was just the first round, the action was plenty hot as the field was narrowed down from almost 90 competitors and over 20 countries represented, to 40 climbers and I don’t know how many countries for the semi-finals. Here are some of the top images from qualifiers. Images from the semi’s and finals are coming soon, I promise. Right after some more coffeeeeee…
Hit the jump for the rest of the photos! Continue reading “Teva Mountain Games – Bouldering World Cup Qualifiers”
Posted in Action, Climbing, Competition, Photography, Sports | Tagged Bouldering, Teva Mountain Games, World Cup
By Ben on June 4, 2010
So, I’m about to head out for the second full day of running around shooting, downloading, editing, crying, cursing and cheering; all the while trying to capture, and also enjoy, the insane amounts of super sweet action going on here at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, CO. Yesterday, things kicked off the the whitewater kayak event, the Steep Creek Championship. Top competitors were were running a section of Class 5 rapids about a half hour outside of Vail. I was getting down and dirty, wild and wet trying to capture as much of the action as I could. I spent a little bit of time shooting with longer lenses, but I really wanted to get up close and make it feel like you’re there. I scrambled around to a few different locations, getting as close as I could to the water and some of the major obstacle, also trying to keep in check with the fact that if I fell in I would at best end up in the hospital.
Hit the jump for the rest of the images! Continue reading “Teva Mountain Games – Steep Creek Championship”
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By Ben on May 31, 2010
This week, I decided to setup a last minute yoga shoot. I found out that I would be able to use a local yoga studios space to photograph in, and started trying to round up a person to shoot with. The lovely Lucinda, who you see above, jumped on board and we were ready to roll. The only problem was, the day of the shoot it turns out that no one can come let us into the yoga studio. Now I’ve got a pretty model, an assistant, my camera bag, and a truck filled with studio lighting equipment… and no access to electricity. Times like this always make my head go straight to “Crap. I’m gonna get nothing.” And I think that’s every serious photographer’s secret fear: coming home empty handed. Luckily my thoughts never linger there for long, and quickly shift into figuring out how to make it work, as was taught to me by an important mentor. Continue reading “Make It Work”
Posted in Inspiration, Photography, Yoga | Tagged Pentax, Photography, Tips, Yoga
By Ben on May 17, 2010
Saturday night was the final round for The Spot Gym’s Battle In The Bubble bouldering competition, and it was off the hook! The Spot pulled out all the stops for this awesome night of elite climbing. It seemed that there was a bit of a hitch at the beginning when one of the first problems was missing it’s starting hold. But everyone was pretty stoked to find out that it was being delivered via skydiving. A few minutes later the hold was on the ground, bolted to the wall, the competition was underway and the action didn’t stop until 4 hours later when the final problems went down to the two winners. Hit the jump for a breakdown and my favorite images of the event. Continue reading “Battle In The Bubble Finals”
Posted in Action, Climbing, Competition, Photography, Sports | Tagged Battle in the Bubble, Bouldering, Climbing, The Spot
By Ben on May 15, 2010
Last night was the first night of the much anticipated Battle In The Bubble bouldering competition, which is being put on by The Spot climbing gym in Boulder. Competitors were trying to qualify for the main action, which will be tonight. There are a lot of things that are unique about this comp. For starters the finals tonight are going to be held outdoors at the Boulder Reservoir. But also, the top 20 men and 20 women from last night will go into the semi-finals this morning, and have a chance to advance to the Pro Invitational Finals tonight. The finals won’t be like most comps, where all the final climbers climb each route and are then judged according to their cumulative performance. Instead, some climbers will be eliminated after each one of the 4 finals routes. It will be a much faster and more brutal form of elimination. If you suck it up on one problem, there is no making it up on the next one. Your just gone. Sounds like it will be extra nerve racking. I can’t wait to see what kind of mutant climbing action my lens can capture tonight! For now, hit the jump for a few more of my favorites from last night. Continue reading “Battle in the Bubble – Day 1″
Posted in Action, Climbing, Photography | Tagged Bouldering, Climbing, Competition, Photography, The Spot
By Ben on May 11, 2010
A few weeks ago, my friend Bryon gave my a last minute invite to go with him to Moab; in the form of “I’m going either way. Do you want to come with me?”. Let’s see… Ride to Moab. Activities already planned. Cool dude to go with. I’m in! Moab is a little bit like Chuckie Cheese’s for adventurous adults, but without the bad pizza. This one small area is packed with world class rock climbing, mountain biking, off-roading, hiking, and not to mention it’s being flanked on each side by the gorgeous Arches National Pack and the gorge-eous Canyonlands National Park. It was a good time. There was some rain and some wind, but mostly just a whole bunch of sand and sunshine! I could launch into some verbose story right about now, but I’ll spare you all and shut up. Hit the jump for the rest of the photos! Continue reading “An Adventure Photographer’s Dreamland”
Posted in Action, General, Landscape, Photography, Trip Reports | Tagged Adventure, arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Photography, Utah
By Ben on May 3, 2010
This last weekend was one of the first truly beautiful weekends of Spring here in Boulder. So on Saturday Genny and I decided to just grab our bikes, our water bottles, some camera gear, two coupons for a free bagel at Einstein Bros and hit the bike paths with no agenda (besides getting free bagels). After our tasty treat, we decided to head over to the Boulder Skate Park because Genny thought it would be fun to shoot a little skateboard action. Little did we know that it was the Spring Fling skate comp, and the place was jammin’ with good skaters. Score! Continue reading “Homage”
Posted in Action, Photography, Sports | Tagged Photography, Skate park, Skateboarding, Sports
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