Photographer Sam O’Hare makes all the attendees at this year’s Coachella festival look really, really tiny, courtesy of the now familiar tilt-shift lens – used to perfect effect in this setting.

Words from the director:
“I wanted to portray a unique view of the incomparable Coachella experience. Following the crowds in the sunshine from arrival, camping, exploring the art in the arena, all the way through to the headliners at night, this film brings a miniature feel to this huge festival. For more information about how it was done, please check the Aero Film blog post here.

We have glorified freestyle running, parkour, free running, whatever you want to call it many times before. I am too lazy to link all the previous posts so you just have to trust me on this one. Anyway when done right free running is pretty bad ass jumping from building to building like spiderman looking like an original Peter Parker. These videos are usually edited in great detail and put together with some killer music. What these awesome videos fail to show you are all the brutal falls and crashes that don’t make it into the video. Long story short, don’t free run or you will probably die. (as shown below)

When going into work on Friday and seeing this kind of video you just want to do a Matrix style superman dive out the 3rd floor window into a barrel roll, get right into your car and peel out to start drinking and partying. The film was made by Devin Graham (Directed, DP, Edited). It was filmed on a Canon 5D Mark II, 2 Canon 2Ti’s, and one EX1. They used one steadycam, and had an assortment of lenses, Canon and Nikon. The people in the video are from the Ensoul team, who is a team of extremely talented bikers , break dancers, poppers, and free runners. They had several of there team members doing the stunts for the video. You can check out there facebook page here.

Red Bull Illume is the world’s premier action and adventure sports photography competition. First conceived in 2007, the second iteration of this competition ended on August 31st 2010, with a grand ceremony at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. There were a total of 10 categories, with a grand prize winner in each. The photograph had to have been taken after 01.01.2007, and the winners were selected by a panel of 40 esteemed photo editors from around the world. This year’s competition saw over 22,764 images submitted from 4,773 photographers in 112 countries around the world. Below you will find the winning photograph for each category for both 2010 and 2007. The images are absolutely incredible! Be sure to visit Red Bull Illume for more information and photographs. As always and especially for these photos click on the image to view larger in it’s full beauty.

CLOSE UP
Images that show extreme detail of one or more aspects of an athletic feat: a tight shot of the action, the equipment, the body, the face, etc.

Photographer: Nathan Smith | Athlete: Andrew Mooney | Location: Wamberal, New South Wales, Australia | Camera: Canon EOS 1D Mark III | Lens: 10-17mm | ISO: 200 | F-Stop: f5.6 | Shutter speed: 1/1600

Photographer: Dawn Kish Athlete: Adam Strong | Location: Sedona, AZ, USA | Camera: Canon EOS-1V | Film: Kodak T-Max 3200 black and white

See the other 9 category winners below.
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Ken Block and DC are back at it again in Gymkhana. We’ve covered the previous episodes but if you missed it you can check the first on here, and another here. Shot just south of Paris, France in Linas at l’Autodrome de Linas –Montlhéry, this 1.58 mile oval track, built in 1924, features banks as steep as 51 degrees, which is more than double the standard incline of most NASCAR ovals. Chosen by Ken for this specific reason, the ramp-like banking proved to be a unique and exciting challenge. The driving physics for the stunts performed were totally unknown until Ken attempted the maneuvers during filming.

This incredible skate video was shot at 120 frames per second to give it an awesome feel and look. The tricks pulled off are in super slow motion to give your naked eye the chance to see what goes into pulling off those gnarley tricks you see the pros pull. Shot by Raphaël Aupy using a red camera. Song: It’s Alright, Artist: Bang Gang, Album: Something Wrong. FYI.

Rope swings and cliff jumping is one of the coolest and most fun things to do on Earth, simple as that, so when I saw this video I was just blown away with it’s pure awesomeness. The video features Mike Wilson killing it on the Truckee River doing 60 foot double and triple back flips. The video is very well put together and great music to go along with it. I love how everyone rafting down the river pulls over and enjoys the show, as would I. If this doesn’t get you in the mood for the weekend, I don’t know what will. You can visit Mike Miller’s site for more extreme stuff found here.

Gnarcade is a short film meets rap music video, which mixes up 8-bit video game characters and dynamics with competitive skateboarder and snowboarder videos. The video really starts going at 45 seconds in so don’t bail on it before then, it is an awesome skate and snowboard shred video with unreal visual effects. A videogame invasion has hit Mt Hood and High Cascade! Check out Scott Stevens, Micah Hollinger, Chris Beresford, Tim Eddy, Ben Bogart, and Casey Wrightsman as they live life like it’s one big game: You can check more videos and shredding at knife show’s website found here. Music by Ground Up. Check out their latest stuff at their website: groundupsounds.com/

Gnarcade from Mike Benson on Vimeo.

With there success from the video above they have also put out other gnarley videos including the one below which I thought was pretty awesome as well, check it out below.
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Designed by Mike Simonian and Pieter Schouten, Flowboards have 7 wheels each on the front and rear, making it look like a mutated skateboard. Riding one is like snowboarding or surfing on land. You have to love anything that opens up the possibilities to riding no matter what kind of area or weather you are in. With the Flowboard you can snowboard or surf, or just flat out skate, all year round. Most of the boards run around the $80-$100 range, but you can check out all the boards at the website to order found here. Check out more pictures and a video of the Flowboard in action with some bad ass shredding below.

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