by Stijn Van Hulle

A ride to Heaven

People love challenges… so why not a ride to heaven?
First time I saw the “Vlooybergtoren” I felt my blood running through my veins. The next weeks, this crazy idea of a huge stairs floating in the air was printed in my mind and I wanted to do something with it. The seed of my next personal photo project was planted in my mind and I didn’t wanted to make just a picture, … please a little bit more challenge!
Over a year later I contacted trial athlete Iciar Van den Bergh and simply asked him if he would dare to ride this stairs, it took me only one second to convince him for this insane ride!

in cycling / outdoor
 by Stijn Van Hulle

Portraits of Heroes

While I was photographing some cyclists at ‘De Muur’ in Geraardsbergen (Belgium) a bystander told me a race would start here in a couple of days. Why should I come, there are so many races. What time would that be I asked the guy. He told met around 10 PM. Huh, where would they go to in the dark, I asked? Last year they drove to Turkey he answered. I could not believe it and at home I found out about it on the internet, the Transcontinental race would start from Geraardsbergen to Meteora in Greece. 4000 km to pedal and 4 checkpoints to visit. All 300 international cyclists have to complete the self supported race solo or in pairs and within a time frame so this means they go as fast and light as possible.

So there I was at the #TCRno5 race photographing the start and making portraits of all those heroes.

The next day the dot watching started at home, each racer had a tracker so we could follow their track across Europe. I could not believe this, those people were cycling 20+ hours at a speed of 26 km/h each day for 10 days and more. Congratulations to all the racers of the fifth transcontinental race, scratched or winner, you are all unbelievable!

RIP Frank Simons who’s race ended tragically to soon.
More info and stories at: www.transcontinental.cc

in cycling / outdoor
 by Stijn Van Hulle

Layer Man

Let me introduce the layer man!

He was born with a dream and needed to be prepared for his adventure.
Watch the Layer Man getting ready in a few new different ways to make his dreams a reality.

Layer Man



in apparel / climbing / gear / outdoor
 by Stijn Van Hulle

Sport Eyewear Photoshoot

July 2016 I gave a conference at the OutDoor show in Friedrichshafen.
With company Tronog, also member of IDEAS, we talked about ‘visualize your product’ for the Outdoor industry.
I had a collaboration with Adidas Eyewear and Pentax-Ricoh Belgium for the creation of the visual content.
Since a long time I had ideas spinning in my head to make an attractive video about rock climbing. Capturing the true sensation of climbing steep wall’s in nature. It’s always a challenge to capture rockclimbing but this time I had the chance to rely on a motivated team to make this video: Fernando Pauwels and Johan Vandebuerie of Motion in Sync, Sébastien Berthe, Wouter De Meyer.
Here are some images that I made for the lecture and some Spec Ad’s I created for the Adidas Tycane pro outdoor.




in climbing / gear / outdoor / Rock climbing
 by Stijn Van Hulle

Arctic Photography

Isn’t it too cold to ice climb in northern Norway?
It’s surprising that people can live so far up north. A local told me it has something to do with the unique mild climate in northern Norway, and unique it is.
The Fjords rising out of the water covered with white snow in combination with the arctic light makes the surroundings mind blowing. You almost enter a world of surreal light, atmosphere and nature.
I was even lucky to admire the aurora Borealis who put up an astonishing show right in front of me for about 15 minutes. This is one of the facts why this place is so attractive for photography.
Steven De Decker, a fellow photographer made it possible for me to travel to the Arctic and I made a series of images for several manufacturers.
This was the place to be for their products in action!

 

in climbing / gear / outdoor
 by Stijn Van Hulle

Industrial photo shoot

Have you ever been high above the ground in between some high voltage lines?
Well, that’s where we did our photoshoot of Kilian, our professional model and security instructor for rope access.
Security is done by means of a double absorber fixed to anchor points, so no ropes this time.
Safety and permissions are all approved and taken care of by Elia, the owner of the installation.
The result of our organizing skills and expertise at height ensured us to make some stunning and unique images of high voltage craftsman in action.
Ow, yes we did switched of the power before the shoot 😉 … hmm not sure if we switched it on afterwards…

Photoshoot of industrial climber on height
in climbing / emergency & rescue / industry
 by Stijn Van Hulle

Get a grip!

This summer I met Richard Hyde from Rock Technologies at the Outdoor Fair in Friedrichshafen. Recently he asked me to make some product shots for him. A few days later a box with chalk, bottles, tape and balls was delivered at my doorstep. I felt like a little boy getting a box filled with candy’s… I was pretty excited to shoot them in my home studio.

 

in climbing / gear / Rock climbing
 by Stijn Van Hulle

climbing stars at the IFSC worldcup Belgium 2015

Last weekend we had some great climbers from all over the world in Puurs (BE). A lot of talented climbers leaded their routes with great effort in this competition. Only few of them topped out all of the routes. Domen Skofic (SLO) and Jain Kim (KOR) topped all the routes, both winners for this round of the world cup. A golden medaille and some Belgium golden ‘Duvel’ Beer for their victory.
Anak Verhoeven from Belgium topped in the semi finals and finally took a third place, way to go Anak!

in climbing / Rock climbing
 by Stijn Van Hulle

Outdoor gear shoot in Val Bregaglia

Well, the ‘Outdoor Show’ in Friedrichshafen was a good opportunity to meet a lot of people from the outdoor industry. After a few days indoor it was time to head to Switzerland and use the famous granite for my images… here is a glimpse of the gear shoot I did in Switzerland.

 

 

in climbing / gear / outdoor / Rock climbing