70 Of The Most Powerful Action Photos Of 2016

"Senad and I were on the way to a different location early in the morning, when we passed this scenic spot.
One thing that was a little annoying was that the lake was covered with leaves which had fallen from trees, so the reflection of the bridge in the lake was just not there. I then tried to clean the lake by hand. I’d chosen a very low camera position to get an almost perfect mirrored scene on the water surface. The bridge looked like a perfect circle and the light was still very good. When Senad was on the bridge, it took us two or three tries to get the shot."

"After seeing a portrait in a bookstore where I was able to see the photographer’s silhouette against the reflection of an eye, I got the idea to make something similar.
We decided to use my cat. We used a 6x9 meter white sheet meant for shooting cars as a softbox. In front of that Erik Orgo and Kristo Õismets started to perform. We made several good shots, even a few in black and white but color worked out the best."

"I always wanted to photograph the Red Bull Air Race and I finally had the chance when in 2015 it was organized in Hungary.
I decided to shoot a sequence which could show the rapid change of direction of the airplanes. I was curious also to see how an image could demonstrate height and speed.
I took this photo with a Nikon D3 camera with a fixed 50 mm/ f.1.8 lens. I used f.11 F-stop to reach the right focal depth and a shutter speed of 1/1000 to freeze the motion."

"One frozen foggy morning we decided to shoot BASE jumpers parachuting from the 40m high lighthouse that sits in the waterways of the Gulf of Finland. A magical fog was all around us but it was so thick that we were afraid we would not find the lighthouse. However, soon the lighthouse tower appeared on the horizon.Four BASE jumpers climbed onto an open platform outside the lantern room. I took only a quadrocopter drone from my equipment.
Then the BASE jumpers started to parachute from the top of the lighthouse and I began to shoot in burst mode. Only one photo from the huge number of images was in high quality. It shows Semen Lazarev making his jump"

"Nitro Snowboards came up with the idea to let a group of riders jump through a cloud of helium balloons. Besides organizing enough balloons, helium and covering material for storing the filled balloons, we also had to find the right location.

After some brainstorming we came up with Kitzsteinhorn, where they built us a special gap-kicker. A bowl in the middle allowed us to hide the balloons and the crew who had to lift them. After a couple of tries and analyzing the timing and perspectives, we were able to get the right moment and all the effort we put in paid off."

"I was taking a walk to scout spots for a landscape picture and as I was walking through the swamp area around Murnauer Moos, I found this unique spring-bowl with crystal clear water and awesome colors.
I decided that a bird's-eye view must look incredible and I wanted to get an action sport picture here. However, the closer I got the less snow was on the fields. When I finally got there, it was a big shock: no snow, just wet grass.
I talked to the snowboarder Max Horn and we discussed what we could do and he just made the call, trying it out without snow.
I think we had like three tries before the grass got dry and it became impossible to get enough speed. The image came out differently to what I expected, but with no snow around I think it makes the photo even more special."

"I had an idea for a series of photographs incorporating light trails coming off snowboarders’ boards a while back. When we met with Sage Kotsenberg, we were shocked to find there was no snow to be seen. Sage is a pro though, and wasn't fazed. After a couple warm up hits, he started blasting over it. It was almost too dark to see and Sage wasn't sure how many more attempts he had left in him. Luckily as the sky was showing its last signs of life, Sage launched a perfect one and I caught the moment."

"Red Bull asked me to do some portraits and action photos of the Flying Bulls. It was cloudy so the final image looks very dramatic. The pilot also turned on the smoke so you can see the trail behind.

The camera I used for this photo was Nikon D5 and Nikkor 16/2.8 fisheye because there was almost no space and I wanted to show inside the part of the airplane I was sitting to show the pilot’s POV."

"Nobody had done an extreme sport shot from inside the car having the rider riding on the windshield. I understood that a shot like this had to be made in an iconic spot and the spot had to be in a city so it was clear that New York City with all its bridges was the place. And what could have been better than a NYC cab to shoot from?

Choosing Aaron Chase as the rider was natural. He has been a friend for a long time and happened to be a pioneer of street riding in our sport and is almost a local in New York. It took us one year of preparation, one full day of work, involved a few people and a bit of money. But I kept shooting and 12 attempts later I nailed this shot."

"The Taipan Wall of Grampians National Park in Australia is a massive wave of overhanging sandstone with bullet hard rock and nails hard rock climbing.
We had been shooting at the wall on and off for a week or two. Wiz Fineron was looking to take another lap on one of the finest routes in the world.

I jugged up my fixed line and had someone pull the other end way out from the base so I could capture the immenseness of the wall and the position Wiz would be in while climbing. On the lower half of the route, he flipped around and was facing out to catch a rest. I grabbed the frame and knew I had captured something unique in the world of rock climbing."

"I was traveling with a group of Brazilian bodyboarders. At each end of the beach were sheer cliffs that would refract the swell causing crossed-over peaks, perfect for bodyboarding.
Shooting from down the beach trying to capture some of these abstract formations I didn't even notice Renan (pictured) in the shot until afterwards. It’s got a kind of duality to the meaning; it could be seen as a salute to the power and randomness of the ocean, or it could be seen as a mocking attempt at some kind of manipulated sorcery, showing man’s unending quest to control nature."

"The main instruments in rock climbing are your hands and arms. With the help of two medium soft box sets on both sides I focused on the hands and fingers, their owner hiding in the shade. I wanted the viewer to see more than just the hands of the athlete, Rustam Gelmanov. In this picture color is not important, the contrast is."

"A good size swell was bound to hit Siargao Island. It was off season. There hadn’t been decent surf for a while so everyone had expectations.
There was so much water from the swell already and the high tide was peaking. Hammered by set waves, I got washed back a few meters. Manuel Melindo was paddling back to the line-up after taking one of the waves that got me. When we went under I pointed my GoPro at him, swam back to position and forgot about the shot. I knew I had some good barrel shots but I was surprised to see this amazing one while sorting on the computer."

"My buddy Jimbo had been opening new hard routes in the area and we wanted to try and capture some of the climbs. The angle of this image happened by chance. We were setting up for another shot but when I looked back I knew we had to change plans and grab the shot with the sea and horizon in the background, framed by this huge rock roof. There was always a chance that Jimbo would fall, so I was ready for it. For the couple of seconds leading up to the big move I was holding my breath and ready to fire. I could definitely feel the adrenaline pumping! We had planned to grab some cool climbing shots, but in the end this image of Jimbo mid-air was the shot we felt captured the intensity of the climb."

"This winter some friends and I went to Hakuba in Japan to ski some deep powder and big mountains. The day this shot was taken was a really windy one but the snow was still really good, so we went out into the backcountry.
We hiked for a while, and discovered a group hiking across the ridge above us. The wind and the clouds looked amazing, so my friend took out his camera and started shooting. I hated myself for not bringing my camera. Luckily I had my mobile phone in my pocket.

I had completely forgotten about the shot, so I was pretty stoked when I found it. I edited it to black and white in Photoshop Express on my phone, and was really happy with the result."

"In March 2015 I traveled with professional climbers Rahel Schelb and Klemen Premrl to explore the possibility of climbing inside the glaciers and on the icebergs found along the southern coast of Iceland.
During one day of exploring we discovered a giant iceberg that had broken off from the glacier. We spent hours watching the ice before we decided it was safe to climb. As the sun went down we noticed that the Northern Lights were visible. Rahel then climbed the face while I snapped photos from below."

"Senad Grosic and I took a road trip and drove all the way to Senftenberg. I shot this unique location a couple months before this action shoot as a landscape picture because I just liked the whole structure and the way it was integrated into the landscape. We discussed and fine-tuned a plan that would look rad on photo. Senad had the idea to be dressed all white to give it more contrast, because I didn’t want to use flashes to keep the structure as evenly lit as possible. The angle is almost the same angle I chose for the landscape picture. It’s actually an architectural picture with the spice of action sports in it."