athletes

Portraits of Athletes Before and After They Get Sweaty

For the last several years, photographer B.A. Van Sise has been working on a project titled Sweat. It's a series of diptychs of athletes: one portrait is shot as they're arriving at a stadium, and the second is captured immediately as they come off the field.

Photos of Parkour Athletes in New York City Wearing Formal Wear

My name is Ben Franke, and I'm a photographer and director based in New York. For my new project Black Tie Parkour, I photographed two parkour athletes running around Downtown Manhattan while doing Parkour in formal wear.

Photos of Volleyball Stars Spiking the Sun

Back in 2015, photographer Dustin Snipes shot a viral series of photos for Red Bull showing NBA star Anthony Davis dunking the Sun. He recently revisited the concept by shooting USA volleyball stars using the Sun as a ball on the beach.

Photos of the Only Quidditch Team in Africa

The sport of Quidditch from the Harry Potter universe has been exploding in popularity in recent years in the real world. While there are now countless western teams, there's only one that represents the continent of Africa: Team Uganda. Photographer Marijo Silva shot a photo series to share the team's journey.

Capturing Portraits of Olympians with an 8×10 Wood View Camera

LA Times photographer Jay L. Clendenin is one of our favorite photographers. Incredibly creative, he frequently manages to surprise and delight us with his unusual portrait assignments. His recent 8x10 portraits of US Olympic athletes are a perfect example.

A Sports Shooter Shoots Shooters Shooting Sports

Last week, freelance photographer Manuel Lopez of Thun, Switzerland, attended the annual Athletissima athletics meet in Lausanne, Switzerland. In addition to photographing the athletes and events, as all the photographers were doing, Lopez decided to turn his camera on the other sports photographers.

‘Racing Age’ Photo Series Smashes Frailty Stereotypes Surrounding Old Age

Documentary and portrait photographer Angela Jimenez' series "Racing Age" is not your typical 'photos of old people' photo series. There is no frailty, no struggling with day-to-day tasks or close-ups of wrinkles. The subjects in Racing Age are competitive athletes that could probably out-run, out-jump and out-throw most people half their age.

Beautiful Light Painting Photos Created With Dancers and Athletes

Combining light painting with sports that involve long fluid motion is a match made in photography heaven that companies like Red Bull have already taken advantage of to create some pretty spectacular shots.

Photographers Joanna Jaskólska and Zach Ancell both had similar ideas, and their resulting photo series -- Breakdance Baby! and Trajectory -- are both unique examples of the awesome photography you can create when you mix dance, athletics and light painting.

Famous Album Cover Photos Recreated with Famous Athletes

For a recent Music Issue of ESPN Magazine, photographer Mattias Clamer created portraits of 14 famous athletes in the style of iconic album cover photos. Clamer paid a huge amount of attention to detail, which resulted in many of the photos looking nearly identical to the covers they were meant to recreate.

Portraits of Athletes Who Competed at the 1948 Olympic Games

New York Times photographer Damon Winter shot a neat portrait project earlier this year during the London Olympics. Titled Their Golden Years, the Times tracked down former athletes who represented the United States of America during the 1948 Olympic games, which were also held in London. The project provides a neat little biographical glimpse into each athletes life, using before-and-after photos, a brief description of what they did, and short audio interviews in which they share some memories.

Portraits of High School Football Players in the Style of Political Campaign Photos

Four years ago, Kai-Huei Yau had an idea. During a presidential election year, why not create a series of high school football preview photographs that tie into the political atmosphere? This year, the Tri-City Herald photographer finally put the idea into motion. His "Football Campaign 2012" series features portraits of local high school football players that make them look like they're running for office rather than preparing for a season of war on the gridiron.

Olympic-Sized Meals on Oversized Place Settings

Photographer Michael Bodiam and set designer Sarah Parker were recently commissioned by NOWNESS to shoot a project called "A Day on My Plate: Athletes' Meals". The goal was to document Olympic athlete meals, but with a twist: instead of standard perspectives, the massive amounts of food were placed onto oversized place settings created with laser-cut MDF, cardboard and paper. Parker says,

I wanted people to be able to draw direct comparison between the diets, and to produce something quite playful that subtly hinted at the sport each athlete participated in.

See if you can pick up on the "subtle hints" and guess the sports behind the meals (answers at the end).

London Olympic Photographs from Over 100 Years Ago

The Olympic games in London this year makes London the first city to have hosted the modern Olympic Games three times. The previous times were in 1908 and 1948. Here are some photographs captured at the 1908 Olympics 104 years ago, during a time when megaphones were used to announce events, top hats were all the rage, and dresses were worn by female competitors (this was the third games in which women were allowed to compete).

Olympic Athletes Photographed Using a Field Camera and 100-Year-Old Lens

Los Angeles Times Jay L. Clendenin spent four weeks leading up to the Olympics traveling around Souther California, making portraits of athletes on the US Olympic Team. While he certainly wasn't the only one shooting the athletes, Clendenin chose an interesting way of capturing them: in addition to using Canon 5D Mark IIs for digital photos, he also used a 4x5-inch field camera and a 100+-year-old Petzval lens. When displayed side-by-side, the photos show an interesting contrast between "old" and "new".

Portraits of Olympic Athletes with Their Daily Meal Intakes

World class athletes eat huge meals to provide their bodies with fuel during training (you might have heard that swimmer Michael Phelps gobbles down 12,000 calories every day while training). Reuters photographer Umit Bektas recently decided to do a photo project exploring this fact by shooting studio portraits of Turkish Olympic athletes posing next to tables laden with their daily meal intakes.