Photographing the world’s greatest athletes at the Olympic Games is nothing more than a photographer’s dream. For Bruce Bennet of Getty Images, Olympic photography is just another day at the office. I talked to Bruce about his experience participating in hockey at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.
Like many long-established sports and events photographers, Bruce started out sneaking cameras to locations in the ’70s. He photographed Islanders games from cheap chairs in Madison. Square Garden in New York City and began sending photos to Hockey News in Montreal. Eventually, they regularly bought photos from him, and his journey to becoming a professional photographer began.
Fast-forward to 2022 and Bruce has over 45 years of hockey photography experience and is the Director of Hockey Photography and Photography at Getty Images. For the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Bruce was part of a team of more than 60 Getty representatives, including 27 sports photographers. These photographers took a total of 1.5 million images. On a typical day, Getty editors will post 3,000 images. Bruce photographed 42 matches in 18 days, even though he was in Beijing for a total of 26 days.
Bruce’s core job is to photograph the match taking place in the arena, and Bruce focuses on the emotions of the game. He looks for both celebration and rejection as the competition progresses. Interaction between players can create amazing visuals. Bruce tries to have both teams represented in one frame whenever possible. Bruce’s experience photographing more than 6,000 hockey games is key. Knowing about the players and how they play the game also helps. One player might be more inclined to go straight through the defense, while another would be more likely to run around the sideboard and go around the defense. “You bring the experience, and that helps you anticipate the action,” says Bruce.
For regular seasonal hockey, strong bumps between players are part of the coverage. This friction can lead to some very emotional visuals, as conflict can either motivate or frustrate players or teams. During the Olympic Games, fighting is not allowed, so these images are rarely taken. Pre-match warmups can create interesting images that show a different side of athletes as it is common to see players playing around and having fun. Bruce also takes as many shots of the player’s head as possible. These images are in demand if the player is writing about a mainstream article. Although Bruce’s eyes are trained to look for even the smallest interactions between players: “sometimes, the remote cameras make interesting shots during shooting,” he speak.
As you might expect, the schedule that includes a lot of games is exhausting. Because of the 12-hour difference between NYC and Beijing, Bruce arrived 5 days early to acclimate himself. During this phase, Bruce acquaints himself with the location, connects with the site managers and learns how he will get from one location to another. Traveling abroad can be complicated, and trying to minimize any potential confusion in the coming days is the right time.
For match day, Bruce wakes up at 7 a.m. for breakfast of overcooked eggs and undercooked bacon, followed by an irritating throat swab for COVID. The bus to the press center arrives around 9 a.m., and most days Bruce stops by the office to swap gear or just touch the facility with the editors and curators. From there, Bruce took another bus to the arena.
Bruce arrived at the arena around 10am. He checks all the cameras remotely, making sure the card is formatted and the battery is charged. The Canon EOS R3 with 70-200mm is the most commonly used remote camera but EOS 1D X Mark III also used remotely. Standard procedure is to place six remote cameras around the arena. Bruce can activate these robotic cameras with the Pocket Wizard, but the cameras can be activated and Getty editors can adjust exposure settings from anywhere in the world. A remote camera was placed in the scoring grid and Bruce took special care to adjust this camera as it was able to capture the most important scene of the evening.
All cameras are connected with an ethernet cable. The images are passed directly to 30 editors around the world, who annotate the images as they are received. “We can get the image from the camera to the customer in 30 seconds. In Tokyo, 2 years ago, that time was 60 seconds,” he said. Footnotes are often written in advance to ensure quick delivery.
The R3 can shoot 20fps and the number of images adds up quickly. Bruce is fortunate to have editors who do the captioning and post-processing of the 1,500 to 2,000 images produced per game. Everything is captured in JPEG mode. “Nobody shoots RAW. We can’t deal with memory or speed,” he said.
Using a fast and reliable Ethernet connection, Bruce sends 150-200 images to editors during gameplay. He uses the back spinner to scroll and the center button to select and send. “My thumb has no fingerprints,” he said. Ethernet is faster and more reliable than wireless connections. The first game ends around 2:30 p.m. and there’s a two-hour break before the next game begins. This time is spent loading the cards from the camera onto the hard drive and also replacing the batteries in the camera and Pocket Wizards.
After capturing the second game around 4:30pm, shooting will end around 7pm. Dinner is usually nothing more than Chinese food baked in a microwave. “Not great,” he said. On some days, the final match starts around 9pm and Bruce leaves the arena around 11:30pm. There is no bus to take Bruce back to the hotel at this time. Getty phoned several drivers to assist photographers and editors in getting back to the hotel, but Bruce also relies on an app-based local taxi service. “We call it the bad Uber. Sometimes the app works and sometimes it doesn’t,” he said. It is difficult to communicate with drivers and translation applications from Google and Microsoft are invaluable.
Back at the hotel, Bruce loads the images and charges the batteries before bed, only to repeat the whole process the next day. Even though he’s not at home in his bed, “Sleeping isn’t an issue,” he says.
Bruce’s primary camera for games is the Canon R5, but the R3 is also part of his kit. The 8-15mm zoom lens is useful for taking close-up shots of players crashing into the board. Both the 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses are useful for off-site shooting scenes, but neither is used in matches because of their relatively limited focal range. The Lens 28-300mm is the lens of choice for Bruce to cover the game. “That lens wasn’t popular with anyone but me,” he said. The lens allows Bruce to shoot without having to switch bodies during the action.
Bruce has photographed numerous Olympics during his long career, and he will be 70 years old in just four years. He’s not sure if he’ll play the next series of the Olympic Games. The allure of the next Olympic Games is that it will be in the beautiful city of Milan, Italy, but Bruce was quick to point out that he couldn’t see much of the city when he was competing. It’s not the first time he’s considered taking a break from the Olympics, but somehow he always finds himself back in the pit. “Maybe not every image is in focus, but we were like a golfer out and about and he was hoping for that great shot. That’s how we feel. You always hope that the next match will bring you that great shot. ”
Lead image of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Beijing, China. Photo by Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
