Zack Arias... Transform

Zack Arias talks to us all in this introspective piece. I think you'll enjoy. Got me thinking about what is most important in life. Thanks Chase Jarvis for the link.

Amgen, Tour of California, More photography

A couple more shots from the Tour of California, including my favorite shot of the whole trip, my 2 year old son Graham, just finishing up his first street message on the last climb of the day. I think he's ready for France:


Specialized Cycling Team:


Francisco Mancebo and a few other riders for Louis Garneau:

Photographing the Tour of California and Lance Armstrong

The original plan was to head out to photograph the peleton crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, but mother nature had plans of her own. If you watched the first few days of this years Tour of California, you know what I'm referring to: miserable, down pours, wind, and pure ugliness! In fact, during an interview with Levi Leipheimer (overall winner of the tour for 3rd time in a row), the question was asked "what have the first few days of the tour been like for you?". Levi told the interviewer to head home and turn on the shower to the coldest setting, take off your clothes, and get in. Now plan on staying in there for roughly 4 hours! Yikes...! With that in mind, our original plans changed and we decided to head down and shoot the 5th and 6th (including the time trial) stages. Here are a few images from the couple days of shooting. More images will soon be available on my website at Kevin Winzeler Photography or art directors and photo editors feel free to drop me an email: info@kevinwinzeler.com

Levi Leipheimer: GC and TT winner

Lance Armstrong in his classic Time Trial position:


Stage 5
Just a few spectators on the last climb of the day. We waited for a few hours here:

The break away group - 10K to go:


And the Peleton Chase...



Then it was off to the beautiful town of Solvang for the Stage 6, Time Trial. There were riders on the course right up until the start of the time trial working on their sub 60 minute times :)

Random riders:

Let the TT begin:
The Felt team getting after it!

And Schleck with Specialized:


Tom Boonen
And lastly, we were doing a little pre-drive on the loop about 2 hours before the Time Trial started when the Astana boys came casually riding by in a little warm-up lap. I was taking a bunch of test shots of random riders working on different angles and compositions when they appeared. Pretty cool coincidence. Thanks Lance, for helping with the set-up!



And one final shout-out to the town of Solvang for putting on a spectacular event. What a beautiful area!

Tour of California with Lance Armstrong

I'm getting ready to Calif. this week to photograph the latter half of the Tour of California including what should be a pretty epic Time Trial in Solvang. Of course, the tour has already drawn huge crowds with the Lance comeback as well as many other big name riders in the sport. I have to say, it was a bit of a shocker this morning when I opened up twitter to see that Lance had his time trial bike ripped off from the back of their team truck yesterday (btw: that guys posts more than anyone I'm following). It's the only one in the world they say, so hope whoever pulled that manuver is smart enough to drop it by the end of today's stage before the TT later this week. Not so sure I'm diggin' the Astana team colors below...


I'll post some tour photography this coming weekend (signing off: Utah Advertising Photographer: Kevin Winzeler Photography)

Snowboarding Utah's Backcountry: Photography

Photographers come to Utah from all over the world to create images that just can't be matched in too many other locations. Athletes of course, follow right along and enjoy skiing and snowboarding in the epic back country that Utah has to offer. Timing is everything and fortunate for me, our group was heading down from from a third lap in the Grizzly Gulch area when we spotted a few Snowboarders just finishing the take-off of a large kicker for a little evening session. It was about 4:30pm and the sun was quickly dropping in the sky. I pulled up along side the riders and asked if it would cool if I shot them for a bit. They obliged in a thick New Zealand accent and the shooting began. A big thanks to the guys for being so cool and hopefully we can hook up for a sponsored shoot in the near future.

Fortunately, I already had a few strobes along to shoot earlier laps in the deep stuff with the Gardners (who were getting after it as well) and they definitely came in handy as the day turned to night. The riders in most of the images are lit with one strobe (580ex II) at full power and ambient light filling the rest of the scene. I was digging the little rider in big environment feel similar to this surf shot in from last year in Hawaii as well as this ridgeline mountain bike image. Designers always love lot's a open, clean space for type; an added bonus in this case.

First up, Trevor Gardner throwing a large back-flip:

And the NZ boys showing old and new school style...



fav shot of the day:

Real Salt Lake // Major League Soccer Photo Shoot

Doing some more advertising photography lately including a really cool shoot with the local Major League Soccer team, Real Salt Lake: check 'em RSL. I was hired to shoot some "intense" portraits for their upcoming season to show the new 'face' of the RSL team. A few of the photos are below and definitely keep your eye out for a behind the scenes video and some more still images in the next few weeks. The players were all super cool and easy to work with even when we asked if they would let us dunk their heads in a bucket of water in order to get the look we were after! So on a final note, if you haven't been to Rio Tinto stadium and watched the team play, get on it! We have some serious talent here in Salt Lake City, Utah! 55 days, 2 hours, 33 mins., 30 secs. til kick-off (click on the pictures to make them large)

Kyle Beckerman #5:
Yura Movsisyan #17
Robbie Russell #3

Tony Beltran #2
Robbie Findley #10
Ian Joy #13
Javier Morales #11

Tilt-Shift Photography & Happy 30th Steph!!!

First and foremost, Happy 30th Birthday to my beautiful and supportive wife, Steph!
In line with the topic of conversation today, here's a tilt-shift portrait that I'm sure she'll appreciate me posting :-).


I first discovered this technique roughly 3 years ago after seeing an Olympic photographer win several awards with 10 images all done tilt-shift style. Recently I came across this article which includes 50 "amazing" examples here.

Here's a few from my adventure photography archives:

Roll out the Crash Test Dummies...Please (Corporate Photography)

I don't know of any photographer that wouldn't jump at the chance to do an advertising photography shoot involving a crash test dummy. Collision Safety Engineering (CSE), a niche company with a big name in the industry of accident reconstruction came knocking along side Eli Kirk creative agency, a few weeks back. In a nutshell these guys get hired to defend the likes of car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Acura, Toyota, Volkswagon and most of the other big dogs when a law suit is brought against them. They've been around forever and have a reputation that precedes them when discussing any court case involving large sums of money, accident victims, and top tier car manufacturers. So what's to not to like...eh? Fire up a few SL-Class Mercedes-Benz, throw a dummy or two into the front seats and send her screaming at 50 mph into a brick wall. And while your at it CSE, do any of your recent recontructions involve vehicles with faulty gas tanks? Just curious...hehe. Blowing stuff up for pictures, especially $100k + vehicles would be quite an enjoyable day of on the job advertising photography if you ask me! Okay, before I get too much further into this fable, the dummy never made it into any action shots sadly enough. As much fun as we had talking with the folks at CSE about all of the action shot possibilities, we decided the art direction needed to remain in the realm of professional, on-the-job portraiture. However, the promise for our next shoot, (crossing fingers) involves gasoline, dummies, and something speeding along at 40 mph+!