Red Bull Illume Boston 2007
Story by Adam Blauer
The Red Bull/N’East Magazine Illume Photography Workshop was amazing! Huge thanks go out to both of those guys for putting it on. On the night of the 15th, we were split into two teams of 5 photographers. Snapwater, Shem Roose, Brian Norling, Dave Londres, and myself made up the White Team. Skye Nacel, Mathieu Couture, Chris James, Jon Webster, Steve Melidossian made up the Green Team. We were kept in the dark as to what we were going to be doing until about an hour before we got on a bus the next day. We traveled up to Boston from Plymouth, and met at the Good Life Bar. There, each team was assigned two skateboarders and two freestyle mountain bikers to bring around Boston in a limo and shoot photos at the spots we chose. The skaters for the White Team were Kyle Burroughs and Sean Stam. We had 3.5 hours to take as many shots as we could.
We started with Government Center, thinking that would be the first spot we would be kicked out of the fastest. Sure enough, a little climbing on things attracted the attention of the guards, but not before we could snap off a few photos.
Next we headed to the Aquarium, where we got some waterfront shots, and some gnarly shots of Kyle, one of the skateboarders, skating down the glass T station entrance.
We finished up down by Fenway Park. Unfortunately there was a Red Sox game going on, so we didn’t get any photos near the park, but did find a few good spots to shoot.
We all piled in the limo and headed back to the Good Life, where each of the teams had 1.5 hours to select their 50 best photos to put into their slideshow. Both teams took longer than expected, and were penalized with a shot of Red Bull and Vodka.
Finally, we were ready and the slideshow began. The green team went first, with lots of applause. Then the white team’s slide show went up and we took home the win! Both teams had great photos. The prize: a year’s supply of Red Bull and a one-year subscription to N’East Magazine!!!
After that, voting commenced for the photo from the top 10 which would be displayed in the Red Bull Illume exhibit in Portland, Oregon at the beginning of August. Shem Roose’s photo of Chris Rotax was chosen as the winner! Brian Norling was also selected to be given the cover of the next issue of N’East Magazine along with a 2 page photographer bio. Congratulations to both of them!
Just want to thank both Red Bull and N’East Mag again for putting on such a great event!!
