ISPO "Best Photo in Sports Business 2014"

Jan 9, 2014 at 20:22
by Ian Hylands  
ISPO is the abbreviation for International Trade Fair for Sports Equipment and Fashion, and it's the worlds largest sporting goods trade show. It takes place in Munich, Germany in January every year, and covers many different summer and winter sports.

This year they're running a photo competition called "The Best Photo in Sports Business 2014" and this mountain bike photo is currently in second place. The photo was taken by Markus Greber, who I think is probably one of the top photographers in bike industry, and the rider is Andreu Lacondeguy who should need no introduction.

Copyright Markus Greber Rider Andreu Lacondeguy Location Livigno Italy Vote for this photo in the ISPO public choice awards here http community.ispo.com contest award-public-choice-photo


The contest is open for voting until January 15th, so do your bit and go vote, and get on facebook and tell your friends to vote as well. Lets help a great mountain bike shot win a contest against photos from other sports! You can see all the entries and cast your VOTE HERE

See more of Markus' work at Markus Greber dot com

Author Info:
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Member since Jun 23, 2008
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80 Comments
  • 28 1
 Come on guys, lets make this picture win, and vote now! Wich I did as well.
  • 82 0
 There's other sports?
Besides mountain biking?
  • 19 1
 What are these " other sports" in which you speak of?
  • 49 1
 I researched this and discovered the other sports are boring. They require one less ball when compared to mountain biking
  • 24 0
 its now in first place by 12% The power of pinkbike!
  • 6 0
 RIP second place.
  • 8 0
 Yeahhh I'd vote for it but like... that guy standing there... psht, totally ruined the shot.
  • 3 0
 You can vote multiple times if you use different browsers.
  • 4 0
 I almost feel like advertising the contest on pinkbike is cheating (not that I really care).. the other guys can't possibly stand a chance
  • 3 2
 What if I don't like the picture ?

Looks too unnatural to me , the sun is clearly behind yet the photo is over lit in the front.

Looks like it's been cut and pasted ( i know it hasnt )
  • 4 1
 bigburd- I feel like I'm chastising a 12-year-old but... if you don't like it then don't vote for it. It's a revolutionary concept, I know.
  • 15 0
 If I was Markus Greber, I would have a few choice words for the one the guy standing in the shot.
  • 1 0
 Shit, I might have blurred out the sponsors on the ramps too. Incredible pic, but "FIAT" stands out almost as much as Andreu unfortunately.
  • 10 2
 I was about to vote, but it looks over edited when I enlarged it on the voting site, especially the flags, ramps, and the guy standing there. Just my opinion though...
  • 3 6
 It is not over edited. Maybe sharpness, saturation and a couple other quick adjustments. Every photo you see on this website or any website for that matter is edited as much as this photo if not more. There is no evidence in anyway to say this shot is edited a lot, so if you do not know what you are talking about then you should research things a little bit more next time Smile
  • 4 2
 If you have two eyes, you can clearly see it's edited, but this kind of sticks out and I think that's what Gordon's saying.
  • 3 1
 What about one of the POY finalists from last year? So many better photos!
  • 4 0
 The position of the sun makes it impossible for the tower on the right to be illuminated the way it is. As a mountain biker, I'd vote for this; as a hobby photographer, I can't.
  • 2 0
 They are using flashes to light up the foreground. There's no way the sun could illuminate the towers from below. No amount of photoshop could do that
  • 2 1
 I'd vote for the photo but honestly think that it sucks. It looks fake because it is. I'm all for tweaking photos but this one is completely ruined.
  • 1 1
 I've looked closer, and it does look rather fake. The Giant flags are pretty shoped.
  • 2 1
 If you look at the right castle/post there's a hard shadow cast upon the left side of it. Quit hating people, this is a normal amount of editing. It's just a lighting goof-up, I actually voted for the surfer! f*ck CONFORMITY
  • 1 1
 Yeah that's what I'm thinking. It's not that the photo is *actually* fake, but how are you gonna vote for a photo with a lighting goofup in the photo comp? It just looks weird. Go swimmer pic!
  • 1 1
 The flags certainly looked pasted in, but they are there in a lot of other pictures of the event. It is probably an artifact of scaling and sharpness adjustments.

Source: Searched google images for Fiat Nine Knights mtb.
  • 2 1
 It looks like an amateur cranked up the contrast, sharpness and definition to 11. Basically, it looks like a kid randomly adjusted levels in iPhoto. Whatever the real reason is for looking that way, it doesn't deserve to win a photo competition.
  • 3 4
 And this is reason #362 why I love Pinkbike, all the people that spout off about experts about something they quite plainly know nothing about. If you don't like a photo please just say "I don't like it" that's totally fair and you're allowed to have an opinion. But when you start justifying your reasons for not liking the photo with a whole bunch of photo knowledge you don't have, it just makes you look less than intelligent. But please keep doing it, it's more entertaining than most reality shows...

Wait, maybe we should make this into a reality show?
  • 2 1
 I can't speak for others here, but I do know some about photography, and I'm a front end web developer that works in photoshop every day...
  • 4 0
 IanHylands, your criticism is ironically criticism of yourself. You have no idea what we do for a living and yet make assumptions as if your knowledge is superior. I have been using photoshop since Mac OS 7.1. The criticism of the photo is justified and accurate. The only thing petty and unfounded here is your reliance on personal attacks rather than rebutting the opinion you disagree with. The reality show mentality you're complaining about is entirely your own creation. Before your personal insults, the commentary was purely directed at the quality of the photo in question.
  • 1 1
 Ian is assuming you guys know nothing about photography cause your reasons do not make sense. The reasons just don't make sense and are not true. If I went into a mechanics shop and told them how to do their job I hope they would laugh at me. I would deserve it.
  • 2 0
 The reasons don't make sense? What doesn't make sense about " It looks like an amateur cranked up the contrast, sharpness and definition to 11."?

The "to 11" part is a spinal tap joke. Perhaps the word amateur should have been left out. But otherwise this is a specific and justified criticism. Take a look at the photo again. Do the overly sharpened edges of the mountains, jumps and towers look natural to you? To me, within the first second of seeing the photo, that's what stood out. It immediately looked overly tweaked.

You must disagree with that point. But instead of choosing to discuss the actual photo, you've chosen to insult people.

When a photo is entered in a photo competition, it is fine to critique that photo. WTF is the competition for if not to evaluate the quality of photos?
  • 12 10
 So we're supposed to vote on this photo why? Because we're mountain bikers? I'm sorry but I am not a lemming or a sheep. Is that really the mentality we're at now? Sad. If I'm not mistaken, the point behind this photo contest is to select a great image, not see which sport has the most fans.

This is a great image of a great rider taken by a photographer with amazing skills. But to vote for an image based on our alliance with the subject matter is shallow & arrogant to say the least. And for what end result? To make mountain biking that much more mainstream? Count me out. My hat is off to Markus for creating a fantastic image, but don't expect me to vote for it simply because I also ride a bike.
  • 2 2
 Yeah it's pretty shitty that we're brigading the contest like this... especially considering how few people here are actually photographers or industry pros, which is what the comp is meant for. I personally think the swimming pic is a winner (actually I'd rank the mtb pic 4th out of the 5). Now the mtb pic is blowing the others away.
  • 1 0
 Really? I had the same idea, but then when I clicked on the link I saw that the other pictures all kinda suck. I wouldn't vote for it just because its mtb, but the other pictures aren't any good.
  • 1 1
 Only pic I didn't like better than this one was the guy in the chair. The swimming one was my personal favorite. This pic just looks super odd/unnatural to me; the sharpening makes the edges of everything in the foreground look like paper cutouts, and the lighting on the towers looks really strange. Plus the the 'FIAT' on the ramp draws the eye almost as much as the rider.

On the other hand the swimming photo looks pretty natural, and the way it captures the wakes, bubbles, and refraction of light through the water is amazing. If it was a "photo of the coolest trick" contest the mtb pic would win, but it's a sports photography contest and I think most of the other pics are better photos (in my unqualified amateur opinion).
  • 13 12
 The shot is impressive but over-edited for me. I would be interested in seeing the original version. I had to go with the swimming shot. It's so beautiful and unique and really impressive how he was able to capture the shadow and texture in the water. Sorry bike world, I had vote based on my photographer lens in a photo contest.
  • 5 6
 I completely agree, you can't have the far tower in focus and the near tower in focus at the same time... heck, practically everything is in focus, which is pretty much impossible. Leads me to believe he pieced it together from multiple shots.
  • 9 0
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field
  • 2 1
 I was gonna say. Couldn't he have shot it on a really high aperture so that the DoF would be really wide? That's how most landscape and sports photos have everything in focus.
  • 13 0
 @gordon2456 it's very easy to have the jump and the towers all in focus. This was shot on a Canon 1Ds at 1/400 f/6.3 with a 70-200mm lens set at 75mm. The only important parts of all that are the f stop, the lens, and the camera. A 75mm lens at f/6.3 focused 60 feet in front of you will give you about 83 feet of focus, everything from 40' to 123' will be in focus. The camera is important because sensor size effects DOF.

@LTmtb Personally taking a close look at this image I think the only editing is probably a bit of sharpening. But I applaud your decision to vote for the photo that you liked best instead of just voting for this because it's an mtb shot.
  • 4 4
 Drives me crazy when people make decisions about things when they know nothing about the subject.
  • 2 2
 It's mostly the sharpening that throws me.
  • 7 1
 This is hilarious
  • 1 1
 Thanks for clarifying that Ian, much appreciated. I do still believe it looks over edited/sharpened though, and theres no denying the flags.
  • 2 0
 I can't help but join in on this... do you guys REALLY think Giant flags were photoshopped into the photo?
  • 6 0
 I only did PS for the black and white conversion.

www.pinkbike.com/photo/10505454
  • 1 1
 No, I did not mean over-edited in the sense of adding objects/it being made up of of multiple images. I simply do not agree with how much the sharpness has been increased. I think Gordon was unaware that the flags are not made of fabric.
  • 1 0
 Stupid castles are an eyesore if they f*cked off the photo might be even better. What can you do? A company paid for that event so they get to put them right in the way. Gotta work with what ya got i guess Smile
  • 3 2
 It's unfortunate for us all (except obviously for the companies involved) that the sponsor's ads are so in-your-face. So many great shots are ruined (IMHO) by overt corporate logos.

We, as a culture, are marching towards Idiocracy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs
  • 3 1
 facts: awesome shot
opinion: too much sponsors
  • 1 0
 Isn't nine knights the comp where its all about capturing photos and video, why is everyone so surprised that somebody used a remote flash on the jump for a backlit shot?

And what the hell is the dungeons and dragons climbing shot about, even his chair is made in Photoshop..
My vote goes to the surfer, every other photographer probably had a tripod, this guy is in a barrel!
  • 1 0
 This particular picture does nothing for me, but I voted for it anyway as I am generally a fan of Marcus' work. MTB Represent etc
  • 1 0
 ^this and it's a great shot too
  • 1 0
 a HDR+++ shot
  • 1 0
 hahaha holy shit, you guys gotta click and check out one of the other photos that is up to win...it's the one of the guy in a chair.
  • 1 0
 Where can I find more of this at the ISPO? I'm in Munich right now to work at the ISPO aswell, and I'd love to check this out on my break Smile
  • 2 0
 This photo is total insanity and has received my vote Smile Good luck!!
  • 2 0
 It's so close...2245 to 2268. Vote for this, it's an amazing shot!
  • 2 0
 Dafuq that was never a POD?
  • 1 0
 Give us a 1920x1080 so we can use it as a wallpaper
  • 2 1
 The power of Pinkbike....lets win this one!
  • 1 1
 If that's Not edited I'll cut my knackers of with a rusty butter knife. Looks cool though.
  • 5 4
 I voted for the skating shot. I just preferred it. Sorry.
  • 2 2
 did you really wrote this ... on PB.... are you mad?!!
  • 4 3
 Yep, I've never been one to avoid controversy!! This image is over sharpened and he looks like he has a foot growing out of his head. I'm not going to blindly vote for a photo just because it has a bike in it.
  • 1 0
 i just ignored. i will not vote in other sports and i dont want to vote for this picture, i like to see real light, colors, textures in pictures of action sports and nature.
  • 1 0
 Don't make fun of his disease, how would you like it if you'd had a foot growing out of your head and hear everyone joke about it every day?
  • 1 0
 sorry but this photo is not best so i will vote for...
  • 1 0
 the surfing pic was better imo but i still voted for this one
  • 1 0
 I did vote as well, great shot!
  • 1 0
 Markus won!!!
bit.ly/1hqLV6V
  • 1 0
 congrats to Markus, and Andreu of course!
  • 1 0
 for ever italy
  • 1 0
 4 ever italy and livigno
  • 1 0
 He's in first now...
  • 1 0
 Gnarliest flip can ever
  • 1 0
 So many haters
  • 2 5
 If this picture doesn't win, my faith in all humanity will be lost...
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