Olympics Photographers on What It Takes to Shoot the Paris Games — and That Viral Snoop Dogg Pic

There seems to be something for everyone at this summer’s Olympic Games — there’s Simone Biles and Snoop Dogg , a pommel horse king and a rugby queen. Even Olympic veterans are saying this year feels different.

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“I’m so happy the fans are back,” Maddie Meyer, a Getty Images chief sports photographer in Paris for her fifth olympics, tells The Hollywood Reporter . Meyer was at the Tokyo games, where fans and families stayed home amid pandemic restrictions. This summer is a whole world removed from those memories. “There is this huge atmosphere, all these fans in town, it’s all over the city,” she says.

Plus, for a photographer, Paris has always been easy on the eyes. “Sense of place is something we think about with photography all the time,” Meyer says, and points to the images of beach volleyball players beneath the Eiffel Tower. “Paris is such an iconic city with such beautiful architecture and landscapes.”

Photographers on the ground for the games are tasked with capturing all the action. For first timers like Arturo Holmes, the job first felt a bit overwhelming at first. Holmes is a Getty red carpet photographer whose skills have taken him to the Super Bowl, the Met Gala, the Oscars and beyond — but he says these games are “on a whole different level.”

“You have to go within yourself to find the drive and the motivation to keep finding a key moment, navigating through all the tourists, [bouncing around] from different venues,” Holmes says of the initial overwhelm. He landed on his feet fairly quickly, though, after snapping a photo of Snoop Dogg that went viral.

“That kind of put the battery back,” he says. In a major win, France President Emmanuel Macron shared the shot on social media, and Holmes found himself validated: “I see that I didn’t make the wrong decision choosing a profession, dropping out of school, I was meant for this. I was ready.”

Holmes is on assignment in Paris to capture celebrities in the stands. “You’re here for the reactions,” he says. The moment with Snoop “was a split second,” a near-miss glance that, when you think about it, is similar exhilaration to the sports themselves.

Meyer finds similar reward in her sports photography. “There’s a lot of intensity to it, a lot of emotion,” she says.

Meyer is covering aquatics this summer, shooting swimming, artistic swimming, diving and water polo. “The water is kind of another subject or character in all these images,” she says. “Incorporating the water, showing the environment they’re in, and the movement of water around the athletes, can be really beautiful [and] also a really powerful tool to illustrate the athleticism of these athletes.”

Meyer captures athletes underwater with robotic cameras, which they control remotely from the pool deck. Ahead of competition, she’ll research her assignment to know the sport’s key players and races to watch for, as well as any safety concerns.

“From there, I like to leave a little bit to my imagination,” she says. “I do think some of the magic of really special and creative photography comes from seeing something new.”

After that, Meyer uses ethernet cables placed at either side of the pool to send photos from her camera to an editing team in London, where they are touched up and then uploaded to the Getty Images database where subscribing news outlets – THR included — can use the shots in their reporting.

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“It’s high profile, it’s high pressure,” she says. “Your deadline was always five minutes ago.”

Getty’s photographers are salaried employees, so they are not paid per photo. “It’s a stock agency, it’s important to have volume,” Meyer says, “but nobody’s over my shoulder counting… there’s a lot of trust in photographers.” If anything, pressure can seep in from surrounding press.

“The energy can feel a little bit frantic if you’re in a media room filled with 100 photographers,” she says. “But the good news is that once the event starts, it’s so loud and chaotic that it’s almost kind of quiet. Once you get used to it, it’s just white noise.”

But surrounded by those other cameras, what do you focus on? Meyer says she thinks of her mom. “She’s not a big sports person, but she loves me, and cares what I’m up to,” she says. “So I read things like, ‘OK, what is special about this to somebody who isn’t here and might not care that much?'”

On red carpets and in the stands, Holmes watches for details. “I’m an emotional shooter,” he says. “I’m looking for emotion, I’m looking for smiling, I’m looking for intense stares, I’m looking for hugs.”

Flanked by oceans of smartphones at these events, it’s this fine-tuned attention that sets Meyer and Holmes apart. “Everybody’s a photographer in some sense,” Meyer says. “And I love that. It’s great to see images that everybody takes.” The challenge — and, she says, the fun — comes from being different. “It’s pretty easy to be a good photographer, but it’s hard to be an excellent one,” she says. “That is a really cool and exciting challenge of this job, when everybody has a camera. How do I make something that stands out?”

Both photographers say part of their ability to rise to that challenge comes from their colleagues.

“I definitely try to build a rapport with the photographers that are to the left and right of me, behind me,” Holmes says. “When you have a good relationship, your job can be a lot easier.”

“I feel really inspired by the people I’m working with,” Meyer says — both the photographers and the subjects. “My motivation is not about ‘I’m here,’ but, ‘They are here.’ These athletes are here and I take that responsibility seriously. Let me show you what they’ve worked for.”

This, to Meyer, is the heart of why she keeps returning to the Olympics. “I’m going to photograph divers tomorrow. Most people don’t know their names, but I’m positive they’ve been working most of their entire life to get to this moment,” she says. “I have some pictures of swimmers smiling underwater because they’re just so happy to be here. Some are able to come to multiple Olympics, but for a lot of them, it’s a one-shot deal.”

Her pun on that last line may or may not be intended. Either way, she’ll be there, camera poised for capture.

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