Sports Photography: History, Photographers and Techniques

Apr 18

What is sports photography?

Sports photography shows athletes and games: the decisive moment of a race, the emotion after a goal, the crowd and the atmosphere around an event. Most sports photographers work for news agencies, magazines, clubs and leagues, and their pictures must often be sent to editors within minutes.

Main approaches

Peak action. The ball leaving the bat, the boxer’s punch, the jump at its highest point. This is the classic sports picture, made with long lenses and fast shutter speeds.
Reaction and emotion. Joy, anger or disappointment before and after the action. Such pictures often tell the story of a game better than the action itself.
Feature and portrait. Planned portraits of athletes, training scenes and pictures of fans. Walter Iooss, who worked for Sports Illustrated from the age of 17, is known for both action and portraits of stars such as Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali.
Creative and remote cameras. Cameras placed behind the goal, above the pool or on the finish line and fired by radio. Bob Martin and Simon Bruty have photographed many Olympic Games. Martin was photo chief of the London 2012 Olympics, and Bruty works for Sports Illustrated.

History

In 1878 Eadweard Muybridge photographed a running horse with a row of cameras for Leland Stanford in California. The pictures showed for the first time that all four hooves leave the ground during a gallop. The series became known as The Horse in Motion and is seen as an early step toward both sports photography and film.

Early action pictures were hard to make with slow plates and large cameras. In 1910 Charles M. Conlon photographed Ty Cobb sliding into third base at Hilltop Park in New York with a large Graflex camera. It became one of the best-known baseball photographs.

Smaller cameras, faster film and long lenses changed the genre in the middle of the 20th century. Sports Illustrated was launched in August 1954 and became the main showcase for American sports photography for decades. On May 25, 1965, Neil Leifer photographed Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston in Lewiston, Maine. Many people consider it the greatest sports photograph ever made.

Autofocus in the 1980s and digital cameras around 2000 brought the next changes. Today photographers at big events send pictures straight from the camera to editors, and leagues and teams employ their own photographers.

Techniques

Shutter speed. To freeze fast action, sports photographers often use 1/1000 second or faster. A slower speed with panning, moving the camera with the subject, keeps the athlete sharp and blurs the background to show speed.
Autofocus. Continuous autofocus follows a moving player. Many photographers use back-button focus to separate focusing from the shutter button.
Anticipation. Knowing the sport matters more than equipment. Photographers watch where the play is likely to go and pre-focus on the spot, for example the finish line or the goal mouth.
Position. Accredited photographers work from fixed places along the field. The choice of position, light and background is made before the game begins.

How to start

Start with local games: school sports, amateur football, a running race. Access is easy, and you can move around and learn the rhythm of a sport. A camera with fast autofocus and a telephoto zoom such as 70-200mm covers most situations. Indoors, the light is weak, so a lens with a wide aperture helps. Many leagues do not allow commercial use of pictures without accreditation, so check the rules before you sell or publish.

Books to start with

Peter Read Miller on Sports Photography. Practical advice from a longtime Sports Illustrated photographer.
Walter Iooss, Shooting for the Gold. Iooss’s pictures of athletes training for the Olympic Games.

Legacy

Sports photographs have become part of shared memory. Leifer’s Ali and Liston, Conlon’s Ty Cobb and many Olympic pictures are known far beyond sports fans. The genre also pushed camera technology, from fast motor drives to long telephoto lenses and modern autofocus.

Discover other sports photographers · Sports photography in the Photopedia Dictionary

Last updated: November 2026

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John McDermott

John McDermott is an American photographer. He has photographed ten Olympic Games and now leads street photography workshops in Italy.

Pete Doherty

Pete Doherty is a photographer born in Ottawa, Canada, in 1964. His book World's Greatest (Stephen Bulger Gallery, 2013) shows boxing in Ontario and New York State.

Simon Bruty

Simon Bruty is a sports photographer who has worked for Sports Illustrated for many years. He grew up in London and Cape Town, started at the sports agency Allsport and moved to New York in 1994.

Peter Read Miller

Peter Read Miller (c. 1947–2026) was an American sports photographer. He worked for Sports Illustrated for more than 35 years, and his pictures ran on more than 100 of its covers.

Bob Martin

Bob Martin is a British sports photographer based in London. He has covered more than a dozen Olympic Games, worked as a staff photographer for Sports Illustrated and leads the photo team at Wimbledon.

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