Where has the artistry of sport photography gone?

humberklog

Years ago I really loved collecting sporting images from mags and prints etc. and still love looking through old books I have on the matter. Sports photography was where it was in capturing a national zeitgeist or delving deep into the soul of a personal journey, sports gave us some really iconic images: Ali standing over Liston, Bobby Moore being carried on shoulders...I could go on. But I really can't recall an iconic sporting image from the last hmmmmmm....loadsa years.

Sure, sure in the papers on a Sunday you can see far superior photographic quality action shots now than ever before...but yet I haven't been moved or brought into the feelings of either the contestant or the context of its surrounds...they're not doing anything for me other than giving exact visual detail in super-split seconds.

Am I alone in thinking that the joie de vivre, the guts, the glory...the emotion, the artistry is lacking from sports photography worldwide?

DaireQuinlan

Maybe you were ascribing an emotional punch back then to images that were as visually bland then as they are now ?
In short, maybe it's YOU thats changed, HK

humberklog

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Maybe you were ascribing an emotional punch back then to images that were as visually bland then as they are now ?
In short, maybe it's YOU thats changed, HK

Without a doubt a big dollop of that is true...but so too has sports photography (changed).It has become clinical, an exact science. I was browsing the books there and then the web and I'm just not seeing the emotion...either captured in the athletes (and they do still have the same push and emotion now as then) or devined through the photographer's gut.

njburke

The kids have it cornered....

sineadw

Funnily enough I was looking through some images today on the the PPY website. I wouldn't consider myself a fan of sports photography *at all* but I thought there were some stunning images in there. Maybe its just because I'm just not into sports though? Unless its rugby

dazftw

njburke wrote: »

The kids have it cornered....

The kids in the background are like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO :eek::eek::eek::eek:

ThOnda

Women beach volleyball, there is art in sports photography!

If you are searching for art, don't look into the sport supplement of your newspaper. Newspapers HAVE TO publish pictures, on daily basis. And a lot of them, because sport readers like colour images. The are attractive to their eyes and they don't have to look at the funny letters. Oh yes, they don't have to read, that is the expression.

The art is not lost, but it is getting lost in the amount of the visual garbage you are being served on daily basis. And as quite few posters here can prove, there is still art in sport photography.

humberklog

Well I think that sports has in the past given the world some of its most important images. But it was the depth of feeling that the photographer has, he draws in the well, digs for his artistry and ocassionally out bobbled an iconic image. I just haven't got one single shot in my mind that yelps Iconic from the last ages.
Maybe it's digital's ability to take loads of the perceived correct shot that will indeed please the editor who too is conditioned only to appreciate a picture that ticks all the boxes.

I'm gonna brave the conditions and do a bit...see what it's all about. Investigate further...see what's happened to it. It's really enjoyable too...beach volleyball here I come.

*eadaoin

njbourke i love those shots, i had a good old laugh at them there! it looks like the kid in the second shot is almost doing the splits, no wonder he looks like he's in tears

soccerc

Hmmmmm

Far from iconic but full of emotion and passion

Covey

I was thinking exactly the same thing earlier in the year. So much so that I decided to do my SoFoBoMo project on it. Got enough photos but never got around to doing the book due to lets say "technical difficulties". It's big on my list for 2010 though, so maybe we can join forces HK. Two Olymus Trips in Croker would go down well

One of the images I took for SoFoBoMo.

humberklog

Yeah soccerc...far from iconic. But yeah good...y'know...grand. Sure it's photos of stuff going on, can't be that hard. But what does appear to be hard is...a bit of personal style, flare, artistry. The less of these elements it seams to me...the less iconic images the general public have been viewing.

Now don't get me wrong...I really like your stuff and the other sports dudes on here and always look forward to the threads and pics...trojan work. But maybe that's it just there...work. i's dotted t's crossed and a happy editor and in turn bank manager. Nothing wrong with that but maybe a bit of love gone astray?

But where are the iconic images from the last...lets say 10years. Now loads of stuff has happened in the sporting field with many good colourful characters...but no image that remains in the brain. Sure the info of the sporting moment is recorded well but the sense of achievement that oozes from the many iconic images is gone.

Count me in Covey...it can't be that hard, sure everything's happening already for you.

Gambler

Not my pics but I think they certainly pack a punch:









And there's lots more out there!

humberklog

Ok what with all the random photo images popping up (guilty here too) what's the chances of someone popping up a pic from the last 10 years that we'll all recognise it?

soccerc

humberklog wrote: »

Yeah soccerc...far from iconic. But yeah good...y'know...grand. Sure it's photos of stuff going on, can't be that hard. But what does appear to be hard is...a bit of personal style, flare, artistry. .

Perhaps it's the digital age. Take the first two examples you gave, the Ali and Moore images.

These were taken when TV was less prevalent (almost non existant in Ireland) and the printed media was at it's zenith.

I;m sure there were plenty of photos of Ali and Morre taken but the one's we see most often were most likely the images chosen by the picture editor of a News Agency e.g. PA, Reuters or AFP and thus were disseminated world wide.

Today we can have images taken, processed, uploaded and available in a matter of moments. I know the pressure I was under last August to get pics back to Ireland live or almost live so they could be the ones sent first to the media.

Covey

The only one I can recall offhand is the wideangle (ish) shot of the lineout in Croke Park in the first Ireland-England match there, with the scoreboard in the background.

I think there is far too much emphasis on 300-500mm lenses, which give similar type shots.

nilhg

Have to say I don't really agree with the OP's premise, without really thinking about it 2 images popped straight into my head, the first Peter Stringer diving over the line to score a vital try in the Heineken Cup with Serge Betson looking on helpless, with the pain of certain defeat all over his face, the other is of an Irish player going high in the line out near the end of the first Croker match versus England, in the background is the scoreboard with Ireland something like 30 points ahead. I did a quick search but couldn't find either but I'm sure somebody will link them.


Both iconic images in my head and great examples of the skill and craft of the photographers concerned.

wersal gummage

humberklog,

the one that springs to my mind is the photo of darren clarke drinking the pint of guiness after winning the ryder cup when he wasn't even going to play because his wife had just died.

humberklog

Sure Soccerc I picked two juicies...coulda went with Black Panters, Jesse Owens, wonderful photos of the Jackie Stewart era...my own personal favourite. The most recent one I can think of is Gazza crying and that's flipping ages ago...See I could be having selective amnesia...but I just can't think for the life of me one single Iconic shot that in some sense unified the viewers to associate that one pic with that particular moment. Now a great photo will do that. A magical photo, a snap that is perfectly timed from a considered brain through a loving hand...where the image soaks in the great unwasheds' grey matter.

Gambler

I think the problem is more to do with the fact that we all have more access to watch things live and there are so many different versions of the same pictures.

For example if you do a quick search for any pictures of trys from BOD there are so many different versions of the same thing that it's hard to get an "iconic" version of the picture.

For example here is a pic that any irish rugby fan can instantly identify what's going on but there are 20 other versions of the same thing.. (and most of them are probably better, I just did a quick search..)



I think iconic moments are no longer conveyed primarily through a photographic moment that you see for the first time in a paper.. For example you can have a great photo of BOD hoisting the 6 nations trophy from the grand slam but if I was to think of an "image" of that moment it would be what I saw on TV not what I saw in the paper the next day..

humberklog

wersal gummage wrote: »

humberklog,

the one that springs to my mind is the photo of darren clarke drinking the pint of guiness after winning the ryder cup when he wasn't even going to play because his wife had just died.

Yeah....that's good.


nilhg...hmmm they're not jumping out. Now it must be said that although I half like rugby but for when I am watching it it always reminds me of attending a the catholic's mass...I sit up, kneel, stand all at the wrong time...and then a bell rings and nothing happens...except for me doing a half stand, quick kneel and back to the seat.

But are these images iconic to you because you've an interest in rugby or an interest in photography?

Covey

I'm only a half rugby fan and picked the same line out pic. Big soccer fan and can't think of one though, well except... nah we're not goin' there !!:(

humberklog

Great post Gambler...it's bringing me closer.

Another image is again of Gazza having his nads squeezed by Vinny...you see it doesn't have to be politcal or wider ranging or more important a sporting acheivement...it can simply be someone having their goolies creamed.

Gambler

I think this might be the lineout picture you are talking about?

http://www.ppai.ie/photographer/Cyril-Byrne/914/

Gambler

Actually that site I linked too had a copy of one of my fav rugby pictures:

http://www.ppai.ie/winners/2007/Sports%20Action/11/

humberklog

Well....that's not great is it? Sure the sporting moment is but it's hardly working in unison with the photographer's art...like he hasn't stretched himself or worked his angle or plonked a big bit of heart into it...sure he's miles away from the action.

You see...that's what I mean...good clear capture of that moment...no artistry there though. Sure that's just pointing the Hubble telescope down the pitch.

Covey

I disagree a bit there. Very few sports photographers look for a wider angle and miss a lot of very effective shots by doing so. I think iy's a cracking shot.

humberklog

Covey wrote: »

I disagree a bit there. Very few sports photographers look for a wider angle and miss a lot of very effective shots by doing so. I think iy's a cracking shot.

But iconic? Would it have the camp elders on the banks of the Amozon cooing over it?

Covey

Firstly it looks much better in reality than that thing on the web.

Iconic, well I'd say it'll be remembered as long as the Ali one or Bobby Moore, which makes it iconic in my book

humberklog

Covey wrote: »

Firstly it looks much better in reality than that thing on the web.

Iconic, well I'd say it'll be remembered as long as the Ali one or Bobby Moore, which makes it iconic in my book

That's good enough for me.

Yeah...maybe I'm just being grumpy. I'll have to investigate further, some interesting points...quite a few bland pics (not that one though, yeah that is good one).

Anyway something for me to grumble about and scratch the nog...can't be that hard to get a bit of love across....hmmmm.

ThOnda

How many matches, tournaments, cups and leagues you have? In how many sports? How would you describe iconic shot? Blood? - Too common. Win? - too many of events now. Racism? - So five minutes old. Adultery? - Not anymore.
The question is more abut pushing the limits of individual sports. The iconic shots are more likely to be from new and emerging sports, mostly extreme sports. Most of us will remember shots (videos) from first backflip and front flip on MTB (BMX), backflip on motorbike, kite jump over a pier in UK,...
Isn't icon just a substitute to be pointed for something special, new, extraordinary, memorable?
If you have picture of Jesus on the wall, he is an icon for a faith and brand mark for a multinational globalist organisation. But when you put poster of St. Peter next to it, it will look a little milder.
Having so many iconic shots from so well covered sports, you must feel a little lack of surprising shots. At least I do. The novelty wears down with every click of a shutter...

humberklog

Well boxing was around a while before Ali put Liston down. No blood, no action, no race issue...just Ali looking over Liston as he lies on the canvas.

Football was around a while before Maradonna popped the ball in with his hand and there's a gorgeous pic of it from the rear of the goal and this pic is in competition with pretty good television footage of the same event.

PCPhoto

Covey wrote: »

I disagree a bit there. Very few sports photographers look for a wider angle and miss a lot of very effective shots by doing so. I think iy's a cracking shot.

the reason for this is most likely that most sports photographers are limited in scope - the papers want a straight forward image of the action - seconds/minutes after it has happened.

if/when a photographer tries to get a "different" style of the standard image he/she risks that the image is not used at all - I know I have done non-standard images - capturing the wider picture (missing the actual action)..... but due to various sports agencies having contracts and picture editors opting to save money by using a staff/agency image (thats my guess) the pictures never got printed.... dont ask me to find them 'cos that could take weeks/months to find.

humberklog

ThOnda wrote: »

The novelty wears down with every click of a shutter...

I think you've got something there...stop taking loads of the one pic and just take one good one. No reason you'd need to click more the 8 times at a match.

4 exp. per half should be plenty for anyone.

dakar

The sports togs are gonna go crazy for the Canon 1D Mk VI (Hk edition) with its ground breaking 4 frames per hour!

nilhg

Gambler wrote: »

I think this might be the lineout picture you are talking about?

http://www.ppai.ie/photographer/Cyril-Byrne/914/

That's the one, Stringer here

http://www.scrum.com/scrum/rugby/image/78811.html

Paulw

humberklog wrote: »

Am I alone in thinking that the joie de vivre, the guts, the glory...the emotion, the artistry is lacking from sports photography worldwide?

I'm gonna voice a view here - I don't think it's the sports photographers who are at fault, it's more the sportsmen/women.

I think, to a large degree, that sport has lost something - some of that serious passion.

With mass media - TV, internet, etc, most games can be watched live, or images seen within minutes. In the days you described, people had to wait until the next day, to see those iconic images.

Just my opinion.

KarmaGarda

I think it has less to do with the photograph and more to do with who's in the photograph. If you look at the particular photos being mentioned you have:

Ali
Maradonna
Gazza & Vinnie Jones
Bobby Moore

All renouned sports stars. The only photos out of all of those mentioned that I would consider iconic is the Maradonna photo. If you replaced the people in the other photos with slightly less significant sports people they wouldn't be as "iconic". But you could have replaced Maradonna with any other footballer of the time and it would still have been a monumental capture of a moment in time.

Borderfox

It disappeared when the picture agencies took over

dakar

KarmaGarda wrote: »

But you could have replaced Maradonna with any other footballer of the time and it would still have been a monumental capture of a moment in time.

A great capture of a moment in time, I agree, but I think a lot of the iconic status of that is down to Maradonna's persona and the England-Argentina tensions, and the fact that it was on a huge stage, and the fact that he also scored a mesmerisingly beautiful goal in the same match, and, and, and......

Funny enough, my instant recall of that moment will always be the TV replays and the slight ambiguity from those pictures, the slightly wonky blurry colours from the Mexican TV coverage. A world away from the high definition, ultra sharp, multi-angle views we get now.

Which I suppose proves a point that things move on. From the iconic images HK mentions in the OP, through poor quality 80's TV clips and on to saturation coverage now. There are still superb sports photographers out there, but the signal/noise ratio compared to when the Ali-Liston shot was taken means that we form our perception of sports (and world) events differently.

Hearvee

I'll add my 2c in here, seeing as I've always loved sports photography since I started I won a copy of an Allsport book from a competition in Shoot! magazine when I was a kid.

I think the main problem is oversaturation, both of great photos and memorable events. You'd expect there to be one shot of O'Gara's grand slam winning drop goal, but there isn't. There's one from sportsfile/inpho/allsport/reuters/etc/etc/etc. Different papers have different contracts so there's multiple versions of the same moment. Plus everyone remembers the video footage of the event.

Look back through the really memorable photos and they're probably the only photo you've seen of a particular moment. Bob Beamon's longjump/Ali standing over Liston/Pele and Moore, are all moments that I've only ever seen one photo of (all included in the list below, along with some dubious entries). Along with the fact that most people had to wait a day to see the photo, without being bombarded by Sky News replaying the events ad infinitum.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-1220638/THE-LIST-50-great-sporting-photographs-Nos-10-1.html

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/beijing_2008_its_a_wrap.html#photo31
Plenty of photos similar to this one from the last Olympics, very hard to get a one-in-a-million photo if 100 other cameras are shooting almost exactly the same angle!

Add to that the fact that what papers seem to want (and pay for) is standard photos to fill their pages ("two players with ball facing camera" type soccer shots), and a photographer isn't going to last too long if they take 8 wide-angled artistic shots of a match.

There's the odd exception, Stuart Clarke for example, and even Sportsfile's 'Season of Sundays' annual GAA books have a lot of shots that wouldn't really fit with a newspaper report.

One other reason I've thought of while typing this. When I was a kid I had to wait four years to see Maradona/Zico/etc play again, so the great moments were truly memorable. Now we can see Ronaldo/Messi/etc play twice every week. Again, oversaturation.

Covey

Some of the best soccer shots I know and a book I constantly go back to, is Hans van der Meers's European Fields, almost all shot with a wide angle lens

http://www.hansvandermeer.nl/

Borderfox

Some great shots on there Tommy.

I have mentioned it before but Leinstermans shot from Croke Park of the Kerry match was outstanding in my opinion and drew together a lot of the good things about sports photography.

I understand that there are financial pressures involved in getting the shots but even when I work on sports events I try to get something different that catches my eye not a picture editors.

A lot of the sportsmen and women are too involved in the science of sports and there is no room for any of the characters from yesteryear

soccerc

Borderfox wrote: »

I understand that there are financial pressures involved in getting the shots but even when I work on sports events I try to get something different that catches my eye not a picture editors.

Agreed. I always try to look for something different and have often reverted to wide angle. This image, while not with a wa lens is taken at the widest of 80-200 lens. It's one I like more so than any picture editor would.

CabanSail

It also has to do with how much the viewer is into the Sport.

Personally nearly all Sports rate zero on the interest scale, so what someone who is passionate about it would think was an iconic photo often leaves me cold.

An example is a Photo that made it to the finals of a competition to portray the Irish Language in Modern Times was an image of a bunch of people with a silver trophy walking with it in the counrtyside. To me it was just a snap shot (which it was) but others thought it was really good it had the Sam something Trophy in it. So that made it special.

A lot of the Sports guys here capture some interesting moments but as I would not have any idea as to what that moment means it is lost on me.

In my eyes, for a Sports Photo to really work as a Photo, you should be able to imagine that the shot is of a team you have never heard of in some annonomous game. If it still holds up then it's a good photograph.

njburke

Can someone post a link to the Iconic Ali v Liston shot.
I've done a search and I come up with two slightly different shots, in colour and B&W, of the four I'm not sure which one is the Icon.
As a former champion pugilist, I take one meaning from the ali hands by his side pose and and a different meaning from the right hand accross the chest pose.

On the emotion with the kids soccers shots I do, I know the boys and their personalities, I'm no more in control of the game than the boys are.
But I get moments, or worse still close to moments, like the hi-5s they do when they score.

CabanSail

Another thing that just occurred to me is that YOU have changed as well. When you first expereinced those "iconic" images you were only young and the world was a different place to you. All these things were new to you & there was no history in your memory.

Now you can look back with the Rose Tinted 77mm Filters Glasses and preceive things differently.

I wonder what a young kid would see as an "iconic image" now & if they would think much of your old photos?

You see .... Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

KarmaGarda

njburke wrote: »

Can someone post a link to the Iconic Ali v Liston shot.
I've done a search and I come up with two slightly different shots, in colour and B&W, of the four I'm not sure which one is the Icon.
As I former champion pugilist, I take one meaning from the ali hands by his side pose and and a different meaning from the right hand accross the chest pose.

On the emotion with the kids soccers shots I do, I know the boys and their personalities, I'm no more in control of the game than the boys are.
But I get moments, or worse still close to moments, like the hi-5s they do when they score.

I believe this one is the iconic one:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/gfx/ali-liston372.jpg

At least that's the one I would have picked out from seeing before.

damiendar

Still some passion from sport stars maybe we just lack the skill to capture it to its fullness or maybe what we see in the media are not the shots with the most passion also you have to remember context and the 3 ws - who where why- to show what i mean a nothing boxing shot but replace the boxers say Ali V Liston then it would be a good shot personally i think there are still great images being created

Borderfox

Passion from sport stars is few and far between, on the contrary we are so much better placed to capture it from video to stills.

damiendar

on the Ali Liston knock down watch how quick it happened Skill or luck of the photographer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16fhhpDuDx0&NR=1