If you are interested in sports photography and want to develop in this sphere, looking up to the best sports photographers is a great idea.
By scrutinizing their images, you can discern how to convey the atmosphere of the sports event, where to stand to capture athletes in the most interesting way, and how to highlight unique details that make the story complete.
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Maria is fond of documenting indoor water sports. However, she doesn’t focus on competitions and awards but perceives a regular pool as a spectacular arena for her fine art photography.
Being a pro sports photographer, Maria has a honed sense of styling. She uses lines of the pool, tiles, and other geometric shapes as an elaborate scene where athletes interact. She likes it when swimmers have bright costumes so that they can stick out from a regular background.
Her compositions can be characterized as bold. The mixtures of juicy colors add a captivating vibe to any swimming pool. In general, Maria Svarbova is a gifted artist, who has found genuine love in sports photography.
Location: Los Angeles, USA
Cameron Look represents a cohort of young action photographers, who have off-kilter approaches to shooting. He is mainly focused on basketball photography, trying to take side-view images that feature the core moments of the game.
Cameron steers clear of capturing slam dunks and three-pointers. Actually, he goes the extra mile to get dynamic photos that help viewers “feel” this sport. He has photographed high-profile players and hopes to take even more spectacular shots.
With a camera in his hands, he manages to capture fast-paced and notable moments that will eventually define the outcome of the competition. His pictures immediately spur interest and entice people to delve deeper into this sport.
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Lucas Murnaghan is another famous sports photographer, who is all about photographing swimmers. He adheres to the rules of fine art, transforming a standard swimming pool into an atmospheric place.
Lucas has also made strides in underwater photography showing another facet of life transpiring there. While taking images underwater may be challenging, he does his best to create eye-pleasing compositions.
He typically photographs male models but the main subject of his shooting is water itself. He leverages it to manipulate light and textures with great dexterity.
Location: Paris, France
Vanessa is unrivaled when it comes to documenting skiing and snowboarding competitions. She is among the top French action photographers due to her technical knowledge and prowess in controlling lights.
You can see her works in reputable newspapers and magazines printed in the US, Japan, and Europe. In addition to her interest in winter sports, Vanessa has also mastered running, cycling, hiking, and yoga photography.
Vanessa has dedicated more than 20 years to photography and claims this is her natural calling. From time to time, she cooperates with trend-setting brands, including Vans, Billabong, Mini Cooper, and more.
Location: Milan, Italia
Claudio Villa is a soccer photographer, who partners with the Series A team Inter Milan. Besides, he was an official photographer for the Italian national side, so he traveled with the team and documented their most impressive games during the Euro 2020.
While Claudio agrees that every game abounds with stunning moments, he still says that the personalities behind every moment matter more. The essence of his soccer photography approach is to study players through a lens and show their genuine emotions with the help of images.
Thus, people looking at his pictures can better understand athletes, and their ups and downs.
Location: Manchester, Great Britain
Lynne Cameron has made a name as one of the best sports photographers in GB. To date, she is working as an official photographer for the England Lionesses, the national women’s football team.
Besides football photography, Lynne documents rugby games and is absolutely fascinated by these sports. Before she started to work with Lionesses, she spent 9 years with Rangers FC and 4 years with Scottish Rugby Union.
She is used to being a part of the team and treats her models like real friends. She travels with them to different places and takes images of football players during training, games, and other events.
Location: Margaret River, Australia
Russel Ord has chosen seascape photography as his main specialization because the marine world always evoked unfeigned interest in him. You can easily trace his inner admiration of water element in his images.
In addition to photographing the sea, Russel Ord also captures surfers, who show their strength and stamina when penetrating waves. The best part of his works is that they display a harmonious unity of people and water.
Besides, this professional sports photographer skillfully shows how the sea transforms from a raging state to absolute tranquility. While looking through his portfolio, you will see many moody images with mesmerizing blues and whites.
Location: Annecy, France
Tristan Shu gets itchy feet, so he constantly moves from one place to the other in pursuit of fantastic sports scenes. He is most interested in mountain biking, motocross, and paragliding due to the freedom these sports offer.
Tristan is extremely good at working with natural and artificial lighting. In fact, he incorporates different light sources into his compositions very adeptly. He also tried his hand at product photography adding dynamism to otherwise static scenes.
This athletic photographer worked with Honda and Adidas, Emporio Armani, Decathlon, Uber, Red Bull, and other famed brands.
Location: Sydney, Australia
This photographer takes every chance to visit a new location and photograph sports enthusiasts there. She is primarily involved in travel photography but also practices shooting different athletes, including climbers, bikers, etc.
Krystle has been to 55 countries on all 7 continents and dreams of visiting even more picturesque spots for even more jaw-dropping images. She adheres to a semi-nomadic lifestyle and tries to see and document unique moments from competitions, expeditions, and adventures.
You may have seen Krystle’s works in National Geographic. Besides, such brands as Amazon, Garmin, Red Bull, and Patagonia used her photos in their ad campaigns.
Location: North Florida, USA
This athletic photographer decided to concentrate on golf among many other sports. He also runs a blog, where he dwells on his photography experiences, shares lifehacks, as well as encourages other people to try playing golf.
In addition to sports images, you can see landscape photos in his portfolio. In fact, the pictures are a mixture of eye-pleasing landscapes and gold players.
He highly recommends taking photos during the golden hour to depict the beauty of nature as realistically as possible.
Location: Colorado Springs, USA
Atiba Jefferson can’t imagine his life without skateboarding sports. His high-speed photos emit intense power and immediately spike viewers’ interest in skateboarding.
This famous sports photographer skillfully shows both skateboarding lifestyle and people, doing amazing stunts. He always tries to capture the personality of skateboarders and their true interest in this sport. Atiba is proud of photographing the debut of skateboarding as an Olympic sport in Tokyo 2020.
Location: Oahu, Hawaii
Zak Noyle discovered his love for surf photography many years ago and since then has become one of the most talented experts in this genre. He is very good at observing waves and defining the most interesting moments worth capturing.
His sports images amaze viewers with their expressiveness and offbeat swimming photo ideas realized in a professional manner.
While keeping an eye on surfers, who try to adjust to hectic waves, he also treats the sea as an equally important subject. Besides gorgeous combinations of blue and green colors, Zak’s pictures also strike an eye with energy and movement.
Zak Noyle spends much time observing wind and tide patterns, noting changes in weather and inconsistencies to understand the sea and ocean better.
Location: Salt Lake City, USA
Savannah Cummins is a popular adventure and extreme photographer, cinematographer, and director, who has honed her skills by participating in the most incredible photoshoots all around the globe.
This professional sports photographer has a keen eye for detail and always manages to find picture-perfect places no matter what country she is visiting. Her photos of climbers give viewers a sense of height and may even make them feel a bit dizzy due to their stunning naturalness.
Savannah is an avid proponent of a nomadic lifestyle, which perfectly suits her when it comes to relocating all the time to photograph athletes. Being a participant of The North Face, she finds true joy in conquering new heights in all spheres of her life.
Location: New York, USA
Al Bello is very interested in photographing diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo, but his expertise goes far beyond water sports.
He also practices baseball, basketball, and tennis photography, paying attention to games in general and every player in particular. He believes this approach allows him to show the main idea of each game more vividly.
All Bello was named the Chief Sports Photographer in North America for Getty Images. He worked at 11 Olympic games and photographed many high-profile athletes.
Location: Southern Alps, New Zeeland
Still Stoked said that Camilla Rutherford was one of the most promising female action photographers in 2016. Over the years, she has developed her talent even more and now her portfolio is replete with unique surfing, hiking, biking, and cycling photos, taken in the most jaw-dropping locations.
Camilla admits that she loves staying in her motherland and photographing athletes against eye-pleasing landscapes there. She also visits Switzerland to capture the pristine beauty of the country.