Peek Action and Peak Action Pique our Interest

Despite the never-ending barrage of "peek action" shots from the Beijing Skin and Summer Sports Exposition, such as gallery upon gallery of volleyball "hand signals" and the deconstructions thereof, and water polo warddrobe malfunctions, and closeups of gymnast and hurdlers uniforms that seem to exist only for the "we-know-sex-and-skin-sells" clickthrough value there's also been some genuinely interesting sports images published in the past few weeks--both from Beijing and beyond.

This gallery from Germany's Stern actually covers the full range of Olympic imagery, -- from amazing, to inspiring, to sexy, to embarassing, to painful, to comical and more--offering a rounder perspective on the games than many galleries we've seen. Sure they've got a couple of gratuitous barely covered athletic glutes, and an accidentally bared breast in water polo action in the mix, but overall it presents a great sampling of the sights and scenes of the Summer Games.

But of all the sports images I've seen in the past two weeks, the one strikes me the most has nothing to do with the Summer games, or skin, or sweat or sweltering, or even sunshine.

Yes, it is blazingly hot here on the East Coast today, yet all I can think about is big mountain action after seeing the amazing September 2008 cover of Skiing Magazine. It's a  strobelit shot of powder spraying behind skier Bryce Phillips as he attacks a trail at Alta, Utah. And at the same time, it's a four-hour wide-angle star trail shot of the hills, valleys and heavens.

  Photographer Grant Gunderson  popped a remote strobe as Phillips hit the trail for the foreground illumination and then they waited in 14 degree conditions for four hours for the star trails and ambient light to fill in the background. Honestly, it is one of the most original ski or boarding magazine covers shots I've ever seen.

Newly installed editor Jake Bogoch tells us the September 2008 marks the first issue of the "reinvented" Skiing magazine. We hope they keep pushing the limits of winter sports photography on their covers and inside the magazine. If Gunderson's killer shot is any indication, we're liking what's to come in the next months -- including their big photo issue which is right around the corner.

Now excuse me while I spend the rest of the afternoon searching for earlybird deals to some big mountain west of the Mississippi.

Comments

[Scott Fillmer]

Great image, make me look forward to the winter games in Vancouver in 2010... I think I have had about enough heat for one summer anyway. Great post.

[Denny Montgomery]

Its tough to shoot something different when it comes to a ski shot, i.e. the powder shots, huck shots, big turns, sunlight "star effects", etc, but this certainly is not your average ski mag photo. Great job by the photographer to think through the setup and composition and properly execute what he envisioned.

Super job by the "Skiing Magazine" editors to recognize what they had and to find a way to put in on their cover. Its already hanging on my wall!