Dark settled in Atlanta, and Red Bull warns the public: PREPARE TO BE ENLIGHTENED. Red Bull Airforce sky divers descended on March 20 from the starry sky above Piedmont Park and 50 glowing, illuminated cubes emerged out of the growing darkness. Fifty intense, beautiful images lept out of their frames and overwhelmed onlookers.
“That’s crazy. That’s just crazy,” a woman said in wonder. She stood in front of a black and white photograph of a person diving with an air of freedom and adventure into a jagged canyon . Several others gazing at the illuminated photos had the same expression of awe and wonder. Red Bull drinks and copies of photographs were being sold by Red Bull staffers, while business boomed at a bar on wheels near the park entrance, making the atmosphere relaxing and easy to enjoy.
The Red Bull Illume Image Quest photography contest took a tour stop in Atlanta to showcase its 50 best images, selected by 50 of the top photo editors from international top publication, from the 28,257 photographs taken in 124 different countries.
The photographs submitted went through 3 judging rounds, Pre-selection judging, round one, and round two. In pre-selection judging, the Red Bull Illume international judging panel selects 25 images from each of the 10 categories, and those selected advance to round one of the judging.
Round one is judged by photo editor judges, picking the top 5 images in each category. Finally in round two, one of the 5 finalist images in each of the 10 categories are chosen as the winners, in case of a tie the Red bull Illume international judging panel breaks the tie, and determines the winner.
Out of the top 50 images, the winners for each category were presented in the exhibition. Some of the top 50 photographers, Zak Noyle, Dave Lehl, Ryan Taylor, Jimmy Wilson and Theodore Van Orman, came to Piedmont park the opening night to meet local Atlantans, and speak about their photographs while Red Bull athletes performed for the audience.
It’s famous slogan “Red Bull gives you wings” was taken to a whole new level with Red Bull Illume. It first began in 2007; Image Quest 2013 is the third edition of the competition. For a fairly new and young event the contest pulled in a wide variety of contestants, with greater success each year. The Red Bull Team, including the top 50 photographers, tours the world, touches down in major capitals and hotspots, such as Vancouver, Hong Kong and Scottsdale, Arizona.
For the contest, extreme sports athletes submitted their photographs that they believed captured the essence of the spirit, creativity, and of course, the “wings” that puts Red Bull on the map. All the photographs were judged under 10 categories: close up, energy, experimental, illumination, lifestyle, new creativity, playground, sequence, spirit and wings.
All of the images had intensity in them, magnified even greater by the lightboxes and the onlooker almost got assaulted by a beautiful photograph. In Athens, Greece a man seemed to be suspended in mid-air next to a bird, their dark silhouettes intensified by the black and white landscape, as they pulsated out of its frame . Behind a few of the images was a sense of nostalgia that one knew had a great story behind it to get lost in. The sound of outspoken opinions and praise of the art travelled softly from viewer to viewer, with vibrating bass notes behind the music that added to the atmosphere as the night went on.
Red Bull Illume has many more years to grow and become more well-known, but already Illume has made a significant impression on Atlanta . The soft, irradiating photographs showed the untold stories of the surfer, skydiver, kayaker and adventurer who live life to the fullest and conquer their dreams everyday.
