you did a great job of retouching those! i wouldn't have wanted to take on all of that water.

I can see you wanted a underexposed background and a well let contrasty foreground. I love that style of image as well.

as a thought. if you are on location you might want to try this;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP6a47BQA70

you could have someone on the boat and another boat alongside for sidelight.

you do great work!

wow!!
Thats amazing i do some wakeboard photography myself and i have had an awesome idea now!

Thanks!

i liked the photographers when i first saw them(i go to fstoppers daily)
Please post more stuff in the future!

patrickhall said:
JorPet, it's actually much harder than you would think to get the perfect shot. Not only do you not have time to make subtle changes in the light but you also have to get the prefect moment for the splashes. It actually takes a lot more energy to hold these poses than it does to do the trick behind a boat because you might be suspended for 4-5 mins each turn. It would be fun to do this again outside and over power the sun in a real environment but when I did this it was already getting cold outside.

Totally understand how hard it is, especially for the athletes. You can see them shaking in some of those poses trying to keep it. I've taught skiing for over 30 years, so understand very well that dynamic movements are easier to do than to hold a static position for any length of time.

My son's comment was that you should do this whole thing over an infinity pool, that would actually look pretty cool. It would also look like the "real" environment to a degree.

I was going to ask the temp of the water you were using, Patrick. After about the 20th splash I think I'd be asking for a space heater.

JorPet, it's actually much harder than you would think to get the perfect shot. Not only do you not have time to make subtle changes in the light but you also have to get the prefect moment for the splashes. It actually takes a lot more energy to hold these poses than it does to do the trick behind a boat because you might be suspended for 4-5 mins each turn. It would be fun to do this again outside and over power the sun in a real environment but when I did this it was already getting cold outside.

Simply amazing. Those photos are spectacular.

Whether used for product shots or athlete bio type pics, there is most definitely a place for this type of photo. Would love to be able to just sit and watch a group like this set up the shots and work through the entire shoot.

Patrick:
Its your art. Dont worry about it. If we all listened to all the bad advise we get then no one would get anywhere. Great shot by the way.
~Cheers

Hi Patrick,

Very nice pictures!

As to the criticism I saw that was negative, well, it was from anonymous sources - the same as you find on graffiti on rest room walls and ransom notes; how can you put much stock in it?

My best to you,

Mike

Great work as usual, Patrick. They're just jealous, probably.

I don't see what the problem is here, honestly. First of all, nobody can fault the technical quality of the images, which are very well done. Second, as you point out, these kinds of shots are done for other sports all the time; it's not as though you're wandering into unknown territory. Third, and perhaps most importantly, you're not representing this as anything other than a studio shoot.

I remember a recent discussion on this forum about shooting "canned" wildlife versus photographing it on the hoof (nature preserve or zoo versus forest, for instance), and the general consensus seemed to be that it wasn't a sin to get shots of, say, captive wombats, as long as you didn't pass those shots off as something you'd traveled to Kenya to get. Had you used a green screen with the same shots to make it look as though you'd shot them on the water, then yes, I could see people being up in arms, but as it stands, you've nothing to be ashamed of. It's your critics who could stand to have their horizons broadened.

Awesome! Very well produced! Amazing images!

Last week I released a new Fstoppers video featuring my own photography. The goal was to show everyone what typical wakeboard photographs look like and how to shoot them but also to challenge myself with a new studio concept. I've gotten a pretty good response from our readers but there is a lot of controversy within the wakeboard community because some of them don't view the images as being legit because it was a studio shoot. I understand their point of view but I just don't think commercial style shoots like this have become part of the wakeboard industry the same way they have to basketball, football, soccer, and other bigger name sports.

Anyways, I'd love to get some opinions from the NR crowd. Here is the video and the second link has the full article with images and technical aspects of the photoshoot.

http://vimeo.com/19633416
http://fstoppers.com/fstoppers-original-the-wakeboard-studio-shoot/