SPORT PHOTOGRAPHY + MOTION Jun 2017

Alex Buschor, founder of APiX, has made a name for himself on the outdoor scene, with special focus in the areas of cycling and mountaineering, in the sports industry and with promoters of sports events. His sense of scenic action sports photography, plus the fact that he is an avid mountain biker, rock climber and back-country skier makes him a valuable team player.

Even when carrying twenty pounds of camera gear, he can outclimb many a hiker in order to be ready for the next shot.

Alex′s photos can be seen in Outdoor Guide, Schweizer Familie, Schweizer Mountainbike Magazine, Ride, Bike, Mountain Bike and in many other national and international outdoor magazines.

APiX
"Our photos tell stories of architecture, of personalities, of landscapes. They can give you wings, in the truest sense of the word. Using drones, we produce photo and film shots from a bird′s-eye view. If your product is the main protagonist, we′re equipped for that as well and take product shots or pack shots in our own photo studio."

Iri Greco came of age in the 1980s New York art and punk scene, but longed for the wild. Jim Fryer grew up in laid-back southern California but found passion and intensity as a professional bike racer.

As a team, they bring out each other’s best traits: big thinking, spontaneity, pragmatism, authenticity, and balance. Together, Iri and Jim create serious visuals "without taking ourselves too seriously!"

Together, they are BrakeThrough Media, New York and San Francisco-based editorial and commercial photographers with a collective aesthetic. The company specialises in sports and fitness and active lifestyle content. From mountaintops in France to the Kona coastline, from the piers in Brooklyn to Bay Area headlands, the duo shoots everything and everywhere. Clients include lululemon, Oakley, Specialized Bicycles, CLIF Bar, Polar and Speedo.

"Our clients are our aesthetic currency. We build relationships, not transactions. Collaboration is our keystone. We pay attention. Our work is bold and nuanced, raw yet refined. We cultivate a documentary style with an inclusive emotional appeal. We seek out the perfect moment - whether candid or crafted. We are storytellers. We strive to capture, hold, and move the audience while never being commonplace. We smash ordinary.

We BRAKE THROUGH.”

Specialising in sports, lifestyle and landscapes, some of Duncan Nicholls' recent commissions include work for New Balance, Virgin Media, Travelodge and Women's Health.

Duncan is also exhibiting a series of landscapes at The Brick Lane Gallery in London during June 2017. Contact him directly to attend the private viewing.

Felix Shumack carefully choreographs moments to produce intense and authentic sports and fitness imagery. He uses a skilful blend of ambient and studio light, amplified in post-production, to create his signature hyper-realistic style.

Working with both stills and motion he approaches each project with diligent planning, great professionalism, and excellent execution.

Over the last few years Felix has taken his work in a fresh direction combining his previous advertising and commercial experience with his passion for sports and fitness. He has recently received an award for personal project 'The Grind' in the PDN Adrenaline - Sports and Action photography competition. Recent commissions include easyGym, SCI-MX nutrition and various professional athletes.

Fredrik Clement shoots premium sports images in a reportage style, capturing the moment and the unfiltered emotions. He works worldwide for clients such as Adidas, Red Bull, BMW and The North Face, to name a few.

Fredrik is represented by Take Agency in the EU, Stem Agency in the UK, and Josette Lata in the US.

Graeme Murray loves creating - his whole career has been in the image industry. After training in professional photography, his early days saw him working at one of New Zealand’s top audio/visual production companies creating, developing and producing product launches using various types of multi-media - from theatrical lighting, to video/slide projection and interactive graphics, to set design and the most fun: pyrotechnics. During that time he travelled around NZ, Australia and the Pacific. After a period working in television production, the desire to be shooting led him to run his own successful photography business.

Graeme now works with clients and agencies across portraiture, people, lifestyle and sport for advertising. His prior experience in AV and TV has been translated into his photography work, so dealing with any situation has become effortless. He has a great rapport with clients and production crews and goes beyond the norm to make sure a shoot exceeds expectations.

Clients include Red Bull, adidas, Samsung, John Deere, AIG, Bendon, Ozone and Atomic, among others. He shoots both in the studio and outdoor on location.

Graeme is also an official Red Bull international Photographer.

In his spare time he loves to go mountain biking, surfing, kitesurfing and snowboarding: anything that gets him out in nature.

Laura Barisonzi is a NYC-based photographer specialising in shooting people and movement on location. She cast and produced her most recent personal project 'Makers', a series of more than 10 real artisans and creators working in their environments.

Laura's hobbies of running, climbing, swimming and hiking mean she'll do whatever it takes to get a shot. On previous shoots this has included being chest deep in murky water she just spotted an alligator in, standing in the bed of a moving pickup truck on a highway, and pressing her face against the subway platform in New York.

Clients have included Adidas, Poland Spring, Dove, Samsung, Danner Boots, NFL, Runner's World, Vibram Five Fingers, Women's Health, The Nature Conservancy, Sierra, Reebok, Gap, Fitness, Adweek and New Balance.

Manfred Heiduk is based in Dusseldorf and travels constantly to Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Cape Town and London. Manfred spent many years as an illustrator and creative director in digital media, and with more than 20 years of experience in photography he is specialised in shooting in extreme conditions.

His latest work includes filming in highest quality video format with a qualified team at his side that accompanies him through to post-production.

For Karstadt Sports he shot in the Italian Alps, Austrian Glaciers, Mojave Desert and Death Valley. He is continually booked for running, biking, ski and fashion productions. His latest project saw him shooting POS motifs in Karstadt House with the focus to gain new target groups.

Manfred mostly works on dramatic and exciting locations. His focus is on people, lifestyle and sports photography, always offering the best results to his clients.

Offering full service international photo and video productions, his clients include Adidas, Puma, Nike, Sportarena, FIFA, Sidestep, Runners Point, C&A, Kaufhof, Boecker, Deichmann, Globetrotter, Kwench, V-Market, Joy, Shape and Metro Group.

Matthias Hangst is an award-winning sports photographer based in Germany. He worked as a freelancer for more than 10 years before becoming a staff photographer with Getty Images in May 2014.

Having been a competitive athlete himself, Matthias brings a passion for sports and movement and has an eye for that very special moment. His dynamic style and his ability to capture interesting moods and perspectives have brought him assignments for top sports associations such as FIFA, DFL, FINA and Wimbledon.

In addition to earning numerous awards for his work at global sports events, Matthias has photographed successful advertising campaigns for notable brands and works regularly on behalf of sponsors and organisations.

Mitchel Gray: photographer, videographer, author. He has to his credit two best selling books; 'The Lingerie Book' and 'Lingerie Fantasies' (St.Martins Press) and has illustrated many more, particularly in the active lifestyle/health/fitness field.

Mitchel has photographed over 100 magazine covers and thousands of magazine, advertising, and web pages. Eight of the images in this edition of Production Paradise are excerpts from the 'Bodies in Action' series, which has enjoyed two New York City gallery shows this year and will be going on the road shortly.

The series illustrates what the bodies of great athletes are actually doing while performing their sport, in an artful, dramatic style. The series includes Olympians, professional athletes (MLB, NFL, NBA), and professional dancers (NYC Ballet and Metropolitan Opera). There is a unique aspect to these photos that make them truly a “first” in the genre - each photo appears to have two people in it, yet there is only one - the same person shot in opposition to themselves. This approach allows Mitchel to illustrate two sides of the same body in one frame, seamlessly and within the construct of the action.

Photographer PEROU shoots portraits of some of the most iconic names in sports, music, fashion and Hollywood. Based in London, working worldwide, PEROU is a camera-eye for hire, hustling a living out of being a photographer and director and also making the occasional TV show - he was judge and mentor on ‘Make Me a Supermodel’ and star of E4’s Dirty Sexy Things.

PEROU’s talent has led him to photograph for some of the world's super-brands and celebrities, actors and musicians and has photographed advertising campaigns for the likes of Adidas, Pearl Drops, Benetton, Reebok, Investec and Nair.

He regularly gets commissioned to photograph portraits of fashion and sports legends and editorial features for Vanity Fair, The Guardian, GQ, Dazed and Confused and Esquire.

Peter Baiamonte loves telling stories and communicating a sense of deeper meaning with his images, while giving his audience a glimpse of a unique place, or revealing the special personality of his subjects.

Peter’s work includes many genres. He is passionate about sports, portraiture, travel, and landscapes. Although based in New York City, he has a second location in the Berkshires and works regularly with clients in both New York and Boston. He has easy access to the entirety of New England.

Leica Camera USA recently chose Peter to field test one of their new systems, and he used it to shoot Jump Fest 2017, a grassroots ski-jumping competition in Salisbury, Connecticut. Some of the images from that test are featured in this Spotlight.

Peter's clients include Ernst & Young, Con Edison, Panasonic, Bayer, Harrison and Star, Novartis, Berkshire Magazine, TevaNeuroscience, and Webster Bank.

Peter Beavis' work perfectly encapsulates the intensity and energy of his subjects. Spurred by a natural sense of adventure, Peter immerses himself in every environment to create a sense of comradeship with his subjects. This affords unprecedented access and leads to his uniquely candid and visual storytelling style.

Recent work has taken Peter to New York where he has run Parkour across the city. While there, he shot hoops in The Cage in Greenwich Village and captured the ferocity of handball in Brooklyn. He also photographed runners in Rio for Nike and found himself taking to the BMX Vert ramp back in the UK. Each of these mini adventures has produced a fresh collection of striking pictures. 

While every job holds a special place for Peter, his time in the Mentawai Islands with Alena Ehrenbold for Allianz Insurance sets itself apart as the ultimate gig, blending as it did his two personal passions of surfing and stunning imagery.

Willie Petersen is an award-winning advertising and editorial photographer based in Denver, Colorado.

Willie worked as an art director in New York City for over a decade before moving to Denver and following his true passion in photography.

Willie combines colour, texture and action to bring his passion for sports into his photography.

Wojtek Rudzki is a Warsaw-based photographer, operating worldwide. His work documents the natural movement, personality and striking elegance of athletes, the inherent connection between their effort and beauty.

Wojtek is relentlessly pursuing the perfect moment of each run, exercise, dance or competition. In each person he’s looking for a story that wants to be told. In his experience, the most effective way to reach this goal is to have an open mind and confidence in his models.

He has had the pleasure and privilege of working with Olympic athletes, football players, fitness instructors, dancers and influencers. Among the companies that have trusted his instincts are Nike, T-Mobile, Aztorin, 4F, Poste Italiane, Jack Daniels and Finlandia Vodka.

In photo shoots Wojtek seeks adventure, new challenges, and the opportunity to extend boundaries. But first and foremost, he meets extraordinary people who inspire further development.