RED BULL
EVENT PHOTOGRAPHER
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In February of 2024, Red Bull built out the Minneapolis Saint Paul Capitol Building as a snowboarding competition site, inviting a handful of street snowboarding’s best riders to compete for a chance at Heavy Metal Champion. The contest featured three different zones where the athletes would have as many tries as possible within a sixty-minute period to ride away from their attempted maneuvers. Zone Winners would be declared at the end of each session, with an overall champion crowned based on the total of their three scores.
My role at the event was from the long-lens perspective, allowing me to capture the action and vibes of the crowd right there in the middle of things. For practice and contest breaks I changed gears and snapped lifestyle moments, rider portraits, and Red Bull products and marketing pieces.
The production team and site managers did an incredible job putting this event together from start to finish, and a crowd of 8,500 people showed their appreciation by standing in the cold for hours, letting us know just how into it they were. The crowd noise was on another level! Being a part of a snowboarding event with thousands of spectators in attendance is rare, so I took in as much of the stoke as possible while keeping my camera pointed at each and every moment. Congratulations to Luke Winkelmann and Egan Wint for their efforts and perseverance in winning the overall title and walking away as Red Bull Heavy Metal Champions 2024.
Photography: Dean Blotto Gray
Red Bull Production: Casey Peterson, Luke Westnedge
Photo Collage Creation: Ryan Forde Studio
