Red Bull Champions the Challenges of Adventure Photography
What does it take to photograph action sports like the Red Bull Rampage from the edge of a cliff? A lot!
Red Bull Rampage is built around some of the most demanding terrain in mountain biking. For 25 years, the event has brought the world’s best freeride mountain bike athletes to the towering cliffs of southwest Utah, where they ride lines that can look almost impossible even from a distance. But another group navigates those same cliffs, often carrying cameras instead of bikes, to document every jump, drop, and near miss.
That side of the event is the focus of the Red Bull Rampage 25th Anniversary Photo Gallery in New York City. The one-day exhibition brings together iconic imagery from Red Bull’s photography team alongside work by legendary adventure photographer Christian Pondella, who has photographed every edition of Rampage since 2001. The result is a look not only at the athletes who have shaped the event, but at the photographers who put themselves in extraordinary positions to show the rest of us what those athletes are doing.
Photographing From the Same Cliffs
For photographers, covering Red Bull Rampage isn’t simply about finding a good vantage point and waiting for the athletes to come through the frame. The terrain that makes the event so challenging for the riders also makes it challenging for the people photographing them.
Photographers have to climb and position themselves on steep, exposed sections of the landscape while carrying camera equipment, often searching for perspectives that communicate just how dramatic the terrain really is. From those positions, they need to anticipate where an athlete will travel through the frame, maintain focus and composition, and be ready for a single opportunity to capture the moment.
The resulting photographs can make the action look effortless. Behind the image, however, is a considerable amount of planning, climbing, positioning, and trust among the athletes, photographers, and event crew.
The People Behind the Pictures
For Christian Pondella, photographing Red Bull Rampage is about more than finding a good vantage point. An accomplished climber, skier, cyclist, and adventure athlete himself, Pondella has the experience to understand the terrain and put himself where he needs to be to capture the action. That can mean navigating the same steep, exposed landscape as the athletes, while carrying significantly more equipment and constantly thinking about where the next photograph will happen.
Pondella has photographed every Red Bull Rampage since the event began in 2001, giving him a unique perspective on both the progression of the sport and the evolution of action photography. Over those 25 years, he has watched the event grow from its raw beginnings in the Utah desert into a highly produced global competition, while camera technology has evolved alongside the athletes and their bikes. His archive now contains more than 50,000 Rampage images, spanning generations of riders and some of the event’s most defining moments.
His work extends well beyond Rampage. Pondella has photographed skiing, climbing, mountain biking, motocross, base jumping, and other adventure sports for publications including National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Outside, and Men’s Journal, as well as commercial campaigns for brands including Red Bull, Patagonia, Oakley, and Yeti. That mix of editorial and commercial experience, along with his background in the sports he photographs, has helped him develop an intimate approach to documenting people pushing the limits of what is possible.
Looking back at 25 years of Rampage, however, Pondella doesn’t point first to the cameras, the technology, or even the increasingly elaborate features. When asked about his favorite part of photographing the event, he returned to the people who make it happen.
“Yes, it’s definitely a team, from the amazing athletes to the crew and then photographers working together to put it all together. Every year that I go back it’s like I’m seeing family again.”
Paris Gore, another photographer featured in the exhibition, also pointed to the team behind the experience when asked what makes photographing Rampage special, particularly as the event reaches its 25th year.
“When I think about Red Bull Rampage it’s definitely the people that bring it all together for me. I look forward to it every year.”
It’s an interesting answer for an event that is so visually defined by enormous jumps, cliffs, and technical riding. For the photographers who return year after year, however, Rampage isn’t just about photographing increasingly impressive athletic feats. It is also about the community that has developed around the event.
That sense of camaraderie is especially apparent when you look at the photographers’ work alongside the athletes’ performances. Every dramatic photograph represents a collaboration, whether that means an athlete trusting a photographer to be positioned close to a line, a crew member helping establish a safe working area, or photographers working together to cover different angles of the same run.
25 Years of Red Bull Rampage Through a Camera
The anniversary exhibition offers a chance to see that history through the eyes of the people who documented it. Rather than simply presenting Rampage as a collection of spectacular mountain bike moments, the photographs show how the event has changed and how photographers have adapted to capture it.
For photographers, that may be the most interesting part of the exhibition. The images show how much goes into creating a photograph that makes an extreme environment understandable to someone who wasn’t there.
A successful Rampage photograph must communicate scale, speed, terrain, and athleticism in a single frame. That often means the photographer needs to get close enough to make the cliffs feel enormous while still finding a composition that gives the rider somewhere to go within the frame. The best images make viewers feel as though they are standing on the mountain with the photographer.
That perspective comes at a cost. The athletes aren’t the only ones putting themselves in difficult positions to create the spectacle.
Red Bull Rampage Returns for Its 25th Anniversary
The Red Bull Rampage 25th anniversary celebration continues when the event returns to southwest Utah this October. The 2026 competition returns to a two-day format, with the women’s competition on Thursday, October 8, followed by the men’s competition on Saturday, October 10.
The women’s broadcast begins at 10 a.m. MT on Thursday, October 8, with the men’s competition following at 10 a.m. MT on Saturday, October 10. Both will be available to watch live on Red Bull TV and the Red Bull Bike YouTube channel.
As you watch action sports like Red Bull Rampage, it’s easy to become completely absorbed in the athletes and the incredible feats unfolding on the mountain. The photographs and video make you feel as though you’re there, watching each line, jump, and drop unfold in real time.
The next time one of those images pulls you into the action, remember there is another story happening behind the camera. The photographer is also out there on the mountain, navigating the terrain, finding a vantage point, and anticipating the moment that will translate the experience for everyone watching from somewhere else.
That is part of what makes photographing action sports so compelling. The athlete creates the moment, and the photographer finds a way to share what it felt like to be there.
Image creditsPhotographs by Christian Pondella, Faith Nguyen, Paris Gore / Red Bull Content Pool, Kate Garibaldi
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