The story behind Lorenz Holder's architectural action photograph

"I'm not a typical action sport photographer – I'd say I'm a fine art action sport photographer," says Canon Ambassador Lorenz Holder. "Somebody once asked me what the perfect action sport photo is. For me, it's an image that people would put on their wall even if the athlete was not in it. If you create a great surrounding and manage to get an athlete in there as well, then in my opinion this is the perfect action shot."

Lorenz is well-known for taking the crisp lines and poetic scenes of architecture and landscape, and adding the drama of action sport. His portfolio is bursting with spectacle – shots of skateboarders landing tricks in the middle of picturesque lakes, BMX riders balancing precariously on sculptural buildings, snowboarders leaping above crisp white mountain peaks and more. His fresh style has impressed commercial clients including sportswear brands and car manufacturers and led to interesting projects around the world.

When he stumbled across an image of a viaduct online – complete with concentric shapes that appear like an optical illusion – his interest was immediately piqued. "It just blew my mind because it was so surreal and seemed almost manipulated. When you look at it for a couple of seconds, then you understand what's going on. It got stuck in my head and I knew I had to shoot something there."

The bridge supports of the Balcombe Viaduct in West Sussex, England, are shaped like small halfpipes – it seemed like the perfect spot for a skateboarder to ride. With the sun lower in the sky, Lorenz anticipated that the sun would illuminate one side of the arches, creating a striking pattern. "I looked for angles and made layouts of the way I imagined the shots," says Lorenz. "Most of the time I already have the shot that I want to create in my head. The cameras and lenses are the tools with which to put all the puzzle pieces together."

With the help of leading German street skateboarder and Red Bull Athlete Vladik Scholz, a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and a a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens (now succeeded by the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM), Lorenz set about realising the picture he had in his head.

"The 70-200mm is always in my bag and it's a great go-to lens for every action sport photographer. I've had this lens for 10 years and it still works perfectly – it's a masterpiece," the German photographer says. "The 200-400mm was in case I got a shot through all the arches, 400m away, and needed a really long lens with an aperture of f/4 to get enough light in there. Then I had the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV because of its great ISO performance and big dynamic range."

As the pair got to work, the slopes proved to be harder to skate on than expected, even for Germany's best street skateboarder. With just a narrow space to play with, the pair weren't sure that Vladik could skate the transition, but getting to grips with the unusual location he started to gain confidence and to add in tricks, too. Meanwhile Lorenz, who prefers not to shoot in burst mode, had to time his reactions precisely to capture movement in a single click.

Lorenz wanted natural light to illuminate the left curves of the viaduct's lower arches, highlighting its symmetry, which meant waiting for the sun to fall and capturing 'the shot' within the small window before it fell too far. When the light initially proved to be too harsh, he experimented with positioning his subject skating at the far end of the viaduct, shooting with his Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x lens. "With a tele lens, you crush down the depth of field, compressing the arches, which gives a surreal feeling to the image," he says, explaining his choice of telephoto lenses.

As the light softened, Lorenz's vision for the image started to crystallise. With Vladik now wearing a red sweatshirt to 'pop' against the background, Lorenz changed to the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens.

"My goal is always to use my camera to create the picture that I have in mind, but it's still a game of luck in a way. I'm more than happy with how everything came together and that we finally got the picture that I had in my mind for such a long time."

Technical advances make capturing images like this possible, says Lorenz. "Even a couple of years ago, you couldn't take an image like this. If you pushed up the ISO, you got so much grain in the picture that it didn't look good. You cannot light a viaduct, so you'd probably need to sacrifice on the depth of field.

"What I really like about the the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is the incredible dynamic range that it offers. We had really hard sunlight on the left side of the image, but also pretty black shadows at the darker ridges, and I was able to recover pretty much all of the details from the bricks. We had to push up the ISO and the results are mind-blowing – there's almost no grain on it."

And with cameras like the Canon EOS R6 and EOS R5 also available to him, even more is becoming possible. "When I look through a camera with a mirror, I see the real world, but when I look through an EOS R System viewfinder it can be brighter than the real world," Lorenz says. "That means you can see more in the dark. You see the composition better and focusing is easier. That is a major step-up, being able to see in the dark without lighting everything up.

"I never normally use autofocus when shooting action sport because I know where the athlete is going to be, so I always pre-focus at that point. It's tricky when I don't know where the athlete is going to be, but with the EOS R6 or EOS R5's autofocus system, I can select my framing and be 100% sure that the athlete is sharp. I totally trust it."

While Lorenz realised his vision with this image, his mission to push photographic boundaries continues. "I'm always in search of the perfect picture. Sometimes I can't sleep at night when I'm thinking of pictures. It's what drives me – I guess it's a never-ending story."