AT A GLANCE
- Known for
- Olympic and Wimbledon photography, Sports Illustrated, World Press Photo first prize 2005
- Works in
- Color
- Camera
- Sony α9 (earlier Nikon)
- Also
- Photo Chief of the London 2012 Olympics, leads the Wimbledon photo team
- Start with
- 1/1000th: The Sports Photography of Bob Martin (Vision Sports Publishing, 2015)
- Links
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. He is a three-time British Sports Photographer of the Year.
The story
Bob Martin had photographed the Masters golf tournament for Sports Illustrated. Many of his pictures ran in the magazine, and he felt he had hit the big time. Then he showed his work to Heinz Kluetmeier, the magazine's director of photography. “Well, you didn't get the main one did you? You didn't get the best picture.” The words stayed with him. From then on, the goal was clear. “It's about getting the best picture,” he said later.
The road to that moment was not straight. At school he was “mad about photography,” and his first published picture, a motocross rider in mid-air, ran in The Surrey Comet while he was still a pupil. For a while he thought about becoming a vet. He took a gap year instead. His father hoped it would “get the photography out of me.” It did not. He worked for a commercial photographer and then as a photographic technician at Imperial College London.
In the early 1980s a job came up in the darkroom at Allsport, a young London sports agency. He “jumped at it.” At weekends he went out shooting, and the sport bug bit. Every Monday the team looked at the week's slides and put red dots on the best ones. Working next to photographers like Simon Bruty, he wanted more red dots. In 1982 he shot his first Wimbledon.
After the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer he joined Sports Illustrated. He became its only staff photographer based outside the United States. In 2005 his picture of the Spanish Paralympic swimmer Xavi Torres won first prize for sports at World Press Photo. Later he led the photo work for the London 2012 Olympics and the official team at Wimbledon.
The lesson from the Masters never left. He still looks for the one frame that sums up an event, not just a good set of pictures. “I go hell for leather for the great picture and that's what I'm about.”
The work
- 1982Shoots his first Wimbledon, early in his years at Allsport
- 1992His diver above the Barcelona skyline becomes a defining image of the Olympics
- 1994Joins Sports Illustrated after the Lillehammer Winter Olympics
- 2003Starts working for the All England Club at Wimbledon
- 2005First prize for sports at World Press Photo
- 2012Photo Chief of the London Olympics
- 2015Publishes 1/1000th
- 2017NPPA Sports Photojournalist of the Year
- 2024Publishes Wimbledon: The Pinnacle of Sport
Lessons
Aim for the main picture. Many good frames are not enough. After the Masters he learned to chase the single image that tells the story of the day.
Find a clean background. He picks positions where the background is simple. He shot divers from beside the boards, looking up, so they stand against blue sky.
Go where the action is hard. He often skips the finish line. In canoe slalom he waits by rough water that is likely to unsettle the paddlers.
Try this: at your next local game, look for one spot with a plain background and stay there. Aim for one picture that tells the whole match.
Gear
Sony α9: his main camera for sports in recent years. He says its silent shutter, Eye AF and live viewfinder were “a game changer.” The silent shooting of the α7R II first made him try Sony.
Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS: his long lens for action, sometimes with a 2x teleconverter. He also uses the FE 100-400mm, 24-70mm f/2.8 GM and 12-24mm f/4 G.
Nikon cameras: he started on Nikon F cameras with manual-focus long lenses. Around 2016 he worked with Nikon D4S bodies and a D810 for features.
He shoots raw. In his words, without raw you are not using the full potential of your camera.
Books
1/1000th: The Sports Photography of Bob Martin (Vision Sports Publishing, 2015). A 240-page hardback retrospective of his career, in full color, with more than 200 of his best sports pictures. The title comes from the shutter speed that, as he says, would stop almost anything on film. It covers Olympic Games, Wimbledon and many other world events. He made it as a book that can sit on a coffee table, for sports fans as much as for photographers. It won the Sportel International Sports Book Award.
Wimbledon: Visions of the Championships (Vision Sports Publishing, 2011). Edited by Ian Hewitt of the All England Club and Bob Martin, who put it together with a team of tennis photographers. They had exclusive access to the 2010 Championships. The large 256-page book shows players such as Nadal, Federer, Murray, the Williams sisters and Sharapova, but also the traditions: white clothes, green grass, flowers and rain delays. It is now out of print.
Wimbledon: The Pinnacle of Sport (Vision Sports Publishing, 2024). A new large-format book by Ian Hewitt and Bob Martin, about 250 pages. It looks at The Championships during a strong era of tennis, from Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray and Serena Williams to younger stars like Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff. A good choice for tennis fans who want to see the tournament from the inside.
