Adam Pretty on Shooting the Olympic Games
JULY 13, 2012
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© COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES/ADAM PRETTY/GETTY IMAGES
From Adam Pretty's POYi prize-winning sports portfolio, Australia's winning goal of the Boys Gold Medal Hockey match against Pakistan at the 2010 Youth Olympics. To see more of Pretty's images, click on the Photo Gallery link below.
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Getty Images staff photographer Adam Pretty has won numerous international awards, including Sports Portfolio first place awards at Pictures of the Year International in 1999, 2000 and 2010, and the Sports Story first place award at the 2011 World Press Photo competition. Pretty will be in London in July to cover his sixth Olympic Games since starting his career in the late 1990s at The Sydney Morning Herald.
PDN: After five Olympic Games, how do you keep your images fresh?
Adam Pretty: I’m not shooting as much sports as I used to, so when I come back to the Olympics, it’s easier to be motivated [again]. But it is getting harder and harder for photographers at every Olympics, because TV takes up positions photographers used to have. So it becomes more of a battle, but that motivates you to keep pushing yourself to make better pictures.
PDN: What do you anticipate will be different about shooting at the 2012 Olympic Games?
AP: Previously we roamed around covering 20 different events. This time Getty will have photographers dedicated to certain venues because security will be tighter and the events are quite spread out. I’ll be on swimming and aquatics, then I’ll cover track and field.
PDN: How do you feel about that change?
AP: To be brutally honest, I do like the variety. But I’m getting a little older. If I were running around trying to do everything, I might crash and burn. You’ve got to realize the limitations. The Olympics is the toughest test you can have as a sports photographer.
PDN: Why?
AP: You’re working 16-, 18-hour days, competing against the best photographers in the world. You’ve got to get your pictures out quickly. You’re wired up and fired up.
PDN: How did you start shooting sports?
AP: I was at a boy’s school, and I just started shooting sports. There were quite a few egos running around, so it was pretty easy to sell pictures of the boys playing sports. Then I saw an exhibition of sports photography by the two Sydney Morning Herald photographers, Craig Golding and Tim Clayton. I got their book [Images of Sport, HarperCollins, 1993], and a couple other books, and taught myself to print from looking at pictures.
PDN: So you’re mostly self-taught?
AP: Yeah, but then I went to the Herald. Craig and Tim really took me under their wing. Then when I went to Allsport, Al Bello, Mike Powell and others helped me out. [Editor’s note: Getty acquired Allsport in 1998.]
PDN: What are the most important things you learned from them?
AP: Eye for detail, and really working on something until you get it. Also I started doing Australian Open tennis with Clive [Brunskill, another Getty Images staff photographer]. Looking at his edits, everything was great. That was the benchmark I had to get to.
PDN: What does it take to get there?
AP: You’ve got to love what you do, but I think it comes down to practice and patience. You’ve got to put the hours in. People say, “You’re so lucky to have this happen in front of you.” But it’s a percentage game: [Luck] happens to people who are there the longest. It comes down to having the patience and the drive to sit there and wait until you get that picture.
PDN: Can you describe what you look for when you shoot Olympic Games events?
AP: When I go to a venue, I have a quick look at the lighting, then look about to check out the background. I’ll seat myself [opposite the best background], and hope something happens in that little area, rather than try to cover the whole thing and just get something mediocre.
Sometimes you have to shoot the finish line, but if you have flexibility [in positioning yourself], you want pictures that push people. You want them to say, “Wow, how did he do that?” or “What’s happening here?” Whether it’s with the light, the composition or some sort of graphic edge you’ve put on the pictures.
PDN: I notice you shoot quite a bit from overhead, so your background is the playing field.
AP: If you start with a nice graphic canvas, and add to that the action and the emotion, then that’s when you get a good picture. A lot of guys I work with are good photographers, but they’ll sit where there’s a really bad background. And they’ll be like, “Look, I got the picture.” And yeah, it’s good action. But the more you look, you start to notice the messy background. As a photographer, you have to look at the composition, the lighting, the background and go through the steps to ask, Does it make a good picture? Are you building a good picture, rather than just taking a picture?
PDN: Isn’t good sports photography also about knowing the sport you’re covering really well, so you’re able to anticipate action?
AP: It’s good to know the sports. In swimming, I know where I can get pictures from. Definitely experience helps, but I don’t think it matters that much for some things.
PDN: What’s in your kit?
AP: For the Olympics, I’ll have a 14mm f/2.8, a 16-35mm zoom, a 24-70mm, a 70-200mm, then a 400mm. I’m also going to get a 200mm f/2 to replace another one that died. For the underwater [remote], I’ll use a 24mm f/1.4 just because the quality of the prime lens is better than the zooms, and you can’t change the zooms anyway in the underwater housing. For camera bodies, I have three Canon 5Ds. I don’t like to carry too much gear.
PDN: Do you carry any lights?
AP: At Olympic sports events, there’s no flash, although they don’t care if you use flash for some outdoor stuff.
PDN: Does that no-flash rule make it difficult?
AP: No. They have all these venues lit to certain standards for TV. The consistency makes it a little easier. You have to think less about lighting.
PDN: What parting advice would you give to photographers working on their sports action skills?
PDN: After five Olympic Games, how do you keep your images fresh?
Adam Pretty: I’m not shooting as much sports as I used to, so when I come back to the Olympics, it’s easier to be motivated [again]. But it is getting harder and harder for photographers at every Olympics, because TV takes up positions photographers used to have. So it becomes more of a battle, but that motivates you to keep pushing yourself to make better pictures.
PDN: What do you anticipate will be different about shooting at the 2012 Olympic Games?
AP: Previously we roamed around covering 20 different events. This time Getty will have photographers dedicated to certain venues because security will be tighter and the events are quite spread out. I’ll be on swimming and aquatics, then I’ll cover track and field.
PDN: How do you feel about that change?
AP: To be brutally honest, I do like the variety. But I’m getting a little older. If I were running around trying to do everything, I might crash and burn. You’ve got to realize the limitations. The Olympics is the toughest test you can have as a sports photographer.
PDN: Why?
AP: You’re working 16-, 18-hour days, competing against the best photographers in the world. You’ve got to get your pictures out quickly. You’re wired up and fired up.
PDN: How did you start shooting sports?
AP: I was at a boy’s school, and I just started shooting sports. There were quite a few egos running around, so it was pretty easy to sell pictures of the boys playing sports. Then I saw an exhibition of sports photography by the two Sydney Morning Herald photographers, Craig Golding and Tim Clayton. I got their book [Images of Sport, HarperCollins, 1993], and a couple other books, and taught myself to print from looking at pictures.
PDN: So you’re mostly self-taught?
AP: Yeah, but then I went to the Herald. Craig and Tim really took me under their wing. Then when I went to Allsport, Al Bello, Mike Powell and others helped me out. [Editor’s note: Getty acquired Allsport in 1998.]
PDN: What are the most important things you learned from them?
AP: Eye for detail, and really working on something until you get it. Also I started doing Australian Open tennis with Clive [Brunskill, another Getty Images staff photographer]. Looking at his edits, everything was great. That was the benchmark I had to get to.
PDN: What does it take to get there?
AP: You’ve got to love what you do, but I think it comes down to practice and patience. You’ve got to put the hours in. People say, “You’re so lucky to have this happen in front of you.” But it’s a percentage game: [Luck] happens to people who are there the longest. It comes down to having the patience and the drive to sit there and wait until you get that picture.
PDN: Can you describe what you look for when you shoot Olympic Games events?
AP: When I go to a venue, I have a quick look at the lighting, then look about to check out the background. I’ll seat myself [opposite the best background], and hope something happens in that little area, rather than try to cover the whole thing and just get something mediocre.
Sometimes you have to shoot the finish line, but if you have flexibility [in positioning yourself], you want pictures that push people. You want them to say, “Wow, how did he do that?” or “What’s happening here?” Whether it’s with the light, the composition or some sort of graphic edge you’ve put on the pictures.
PDN: I notice you shoot quite a bit from overhead, so your background is the playing field.
AP: If you start with a nice graphic canvas, and add to that the action and the emotion, then that’s when you get a good picture. A lot of guys I work with are good photographers, but they’ll sit where there’s a really bad background. And they’ll be like, “Look, I got the picture.” And yeah, it’s good action. But the more you look, you start to notice the messy background. As a photographer, you have to look at the composition, the lighting, the background and go through the steps to ask, Does it make a good picture? Are you building a good picture, rather than just taking a picture?
PDN: Isn’t good sports photography also about knowing the sport you’re covering really well, so you’re able to anticipate action?
AP: It’s good to know the sports. In swimming, I know where I can get pictures from. Definitely experience helps, but I don’t think it matters that much for some things.
PDN: What’s in your kit?
AP: For the Olympics, I’ll have a 14mm f/2.8, a 16-35mm zoom, a 24-70mm, a 70-200mm, then a 400mm. I’m also going to get a 200mm f/2 to replace another one that died. For the underwater [remote], I’ll use a 24mm f/1.4 just because the quality of the prime lens is better than the zooms, and you can’t change the zooms anyway in the underwater housing. For camera bodies, I have three Canon 5Ds. I don’t like to carry too much gear.
PDN: Do you carry any lights?
AP: At Olympic sports events, there’s no flash, although they don’t care if you use flash for some outdoor stuff.
PDN: Does that no-flash rule make it difficult?
AP: No. They have all these venues lit to certain standards for TV. The consistency makes it a little easier. You have to think less about lighting.
PDN: What parting advice would you give to photographers working on their sports action skills?
AP: Don’t spend too much time on the computer. I think that’s the trap now. You can make your pictures look great in Photoshop. But get off the computer, get out there and start shooting. You want to get your good pictures in the camera, not try to bring them to life after. You get that only by shooting, not by thinking about it. I mean, you need to think about it. But you need something spontaneous because that will surprise [viewers]. I think when you’re out of control slightly, that’s when you get the special stuff or the surprising stuff. So basically you get that by shooting a lot.
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