These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public

These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public

The Olympic Committee’s Media Summit in Dallas, Texas was held back in May of this year. A number of photographers were invited to shoot the event. Joe Klamar was one of the the photographers who captured portraits of the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team. Once the images became public, people were not pleased with the outcome and it went viral. We’d like to hear your thoughts and let us know what you think of the coverage and if you agree with the current public opinion.

berg 144490275 540x405 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Lindsey Berg of the US Olympic Volleyball team

bross 144490285 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Rebecca Bross of the US Olympic Gymnastics team

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Shot putter Jillian Camarena-Williams of the US Track and Field Olympic team

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Debbie Capozzi of the US Women’s Olympic Sailing team

demus 144372426 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Lashinda Demus of the US Track and Field Olympic team

douglas 144490785 540x405 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Gaby Douglas of the US Olympic Gymnastics team

gunawan 144485828 540x405 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Tony Gunawan of the US Badminton Olympic team

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Brendan Hansen of the US Swimming Olympic team

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Kayla Harrison of the US Judo Olympic team

hornton 144492539 540x405 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Jonathan Horton of the US Olympic Gymnastics team

krug 144486019 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Cassidy Krug of the US Diving Olympic team

liukin 144490789 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Nastia Liukin of the US Olympic Gymnastics team

lopez 144371926 540x405 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Siblings Diana Lopez and Steven Lopez of the US Taekwondo Olympic team

merritt 144487945 540x405 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Leshawn Merritt of the US Track and Field Olympic team

phelps 144369538 540x405 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Michael Phelps of the US Olympic Swimming team

robles 144314289 These Photos Of The 2012 United States Olympic Team Have Hit A Nerve With The Public
Sarah Robles of the US Olympic Weightlifting

You can find more in at the gallery here.

[Via Solstice via CBS News]

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http://www.facebook.com/hiroschneider Jaron Schneider
Hmmm… I’m not buying that… there are ways to do such a thing without it looking downright terrible.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Richard-Wang/1072659749 Richard Wang
You want bad. Check out the German canoe team’s photos.
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/tv1n5uYCwO_/Canoe+Sprint+Open+House/DPaTlVfYo6c
http://www.facebook.com/rachel.ewald Rachel Ewald
if you cant shoot it dont put it in public and gettys images better take them off or no one is going to respect you
http://twitter.com/michelobx ★✰★P.S. 32★✰★
this has to be a joke!
Becky G
Oh. my. word. Is this some kind of joke? I mean, the shadows, the compositions… ugh.
http://www.facebook.com/columbusboudoir Heather At Columbus Boudoir
These are some of the worst photos I have ever seen by a “PRO” What the heck? Did he win a contest for this chance?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=754554855 Edd Carlile
Absolutely appalling. (photographer should be flogged within an inch of his life)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=511431060 Filipa Domingues
shame how does this poor photographer feel? getting so much attention for how crap the photos are is quite crap!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1029645740 Mark Mason
…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=744120567 Rosalie Marrs
Terrible. I find it very hard to believe that these are the official photographs of the US Olympic team. The lighting is too dark, the backdrop is ripped, the images haven’t been edited at all…Wonder how much the photographer was paid for these??
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1029645740 Mark Mason
They’re fun, they give a personality of each person. They have a sort of at home lighting style and it reminds me of the genuine joy of the old ideal of Olympic amateurism.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001237710002 Casey Braunger
By how (obviously) bad the poses are (not to mention every thing else), something tells me this is a joke. And media outlets are the butt.
patrick McCormack
they suck and should have their camera taken away forever
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001237710002 Casey Braunger
Okay…quick google search shows Joe Klamar is a fantastic photog…really fantastic. These are clearly intentionally bad…or he was REALLLLLLLYYYYYYY drunk.
Interesting blog post…http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2012/07/a-few-words-about-joe-klamars-viral-and-obviously-terrible-olympic-portraits/
Andie Borden
There’s a world of difference between the ones you linked and these. There’s a number of cheesy ones in the linked set as well, but at least the photos still look good!
AC72
Maybe they can be “fixed” with Instagram.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1464534615 Eric DiFebbo
As far as I am concerned the pic’s suck. But… Maybe he was going for just that… To create a buzz. This guy hasn’t gotten nearly the attention he had before. His personal site is probably getting 10,000 hits a minute or second! Kudo’s to him if you ask me.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1101091992 Kenny Goldberg
Not much to say but they are awful, just plain awful in so many ways. Not just from a photographers eye, but totally unflattering to the athletes. NOTHING GOOD TO SAY!
http://about.me/manishparekh Manish
Is it April fool’s day?
Andie Borden
Oh, wow, most of that set is just awful.
http://www.robmiracle.com Rob Miracle
Wow! (and not in a good way)
http://www.facebook.com/travis.dewitz Travis Dewitz
This is one of how many photographers that shot?
Travis Dewitz
http://www.dewitzphotography.com
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=505239243 Shawn Stockman Malone
laughed at everyone. Great parody although hard to look at
Guy Lessard
They look like crappy snapshots taken with a point and shoot camera by a kid with no training. Other than that, whoever took the pictures, their mother is probably proud and put them on her fridge.
http://www.danaseilhan.com Dana Seilhan
The exposure seems correct except where they were going for a particularly dramatic effect. I can see what’s in the shadows and the highlights are not blown out. And they are made to look human, not godlike, and no one has Photoshopped the hell out of them. You know what? I actually like them. I’m tired of everyone aiming for perfection. It’s gotten to the point that if you don’t photoshop your stuff you are seen as unprofessional and somehow lacking. They’re people, not gods. If this is the beginning of a trend where we allow human beings to be real again then I’m all for it. Basically? Get over yourselves.
http://profile.yahoo.com/EYMQ2RKS3OG5F5LMKXMQ5AGOKU yahoo-EYMQ2RKS3OG5F5LMKXMQ5AGOKU
Wow, is this what it’s come down to? Yeah, lets all blame the photographers for this photo shoot. Because I’m sure that we are all better photographers than they are, right?
Do you really think that you could do a better job than this? It was a one day event where I’m sure the athletes were shuttled in like cattle onto the sets, one after another. You know that the media does not care about photographers. I’m sure they had each make a few poses, and then moved on to the next one. How many athletes do you think we have? Hundreds at least.
So if the gymnasts are in there posting on a paper backdrop then of course it’s going to get torn. I don’t see what all the uproar is all about. I don’t care for the Olympics anyway.
Why doesn’t everyone put on their big boy shorts, and get over themselves.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=635703465 Doug James
Let me see if I understand this right, most people are posting negative comments either about the images or the photographer . . .
Who are these people to judge someone’s art?
Shame on anyone who would pass judgement on someone’s art, what if the photographer in question took a look at your photos and told you how much you “SUCK.”
Wow is right, photography is art, and art is subjective. Climb down from your high horse and be happy for the photographer and the opportunities he has to make art.
Alistair Nicol
This is really amazing. The guy shoots some really awful portraits before an extremely prominent event either intentionally or not and somehow they get selected and displayed on CBS and elsewhere. Now they have gone viral and he is getting a whole ton of publicity. While any publicity may be good for a lot of professions. Bad publicity in the photog business is not good. Looking through the set at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/picturegalleries/9270482/London-2012-Olympics-portraits-of-Team-USA-athletes.html?frame=2221383 which has both Joe Klamar and Lucas Jackson shots, a few are pretty good but the majority are very poor. Especially bad lighting in some, shadow on the bottom half of the face etc. Due to the overall nature of the set I would venture to guess that someone else was directing the shoot and has no eye whatsoever.
http://twitter.com/heliosfoto Wil R
An inside joke or not these athletes represent what is the United States’ best in terms of performance, discipline, training, physical prowess and conditioning. They should be represented in a fashion representative of those achievements. These images are horrible and if they were a PR stunt then that PR person should be fired. If they were test shots then the person that authorized their release should be fired or at least disciplined.
In response to someone that posted earlier that the amateurship looking studio shots are a new trend and even purposely lit badly or poorly edited; that’s simply because there are so many wannabes calling themselves photographers. It’s not a trend. It’s a symptom of a market overcrowded with people that own cameras and call themselves photographers. The fact that you see it as a trend is because there is so much of it. High end well established photographers are still doing high end work. These shots are a travesty.
walt stricklin
Are you kidding – bad is bad and a joke is a joke, but these are awful. I want a professional photographer showing me something I would not or could not see, something that takes me beyond the ordinary and well beyone the “amateur” image. Besides and inside joke leaves a lot of people out and in this case, gives me a lot less respect for the photographer and the subjects.
http://cinexcellence.com Cinexcellence
Take the last two photos, for example, (Merritt and Phelps) where you can see the background.
The background is not just hinted it; it’s PAINFULLY present in the image.
But yeah, I agree that it could have been done better with the same idea in mind; but it appears that it’s deliberate to me.
Stan Rogers
It’s an interesting concept: playing up the artificiality of the shoot, making the photographic process obvious, emphasizing the “fish out of water” element. The natural habitat of athletes in the wild isn’t the heroic poster. But I have to think that one could include all of the artifacts of photography — an imperfect seamless not spanning the full frame, perhaps the odd light stand creeping into frame, a shadow cast onto an uninteresting part of the floor or background, real flags playing the part of a drop-in background, “I’m not a model, you know” expressions, etc. — while capturing the athlete in a manner that suggests that five minutes in Photoshop (or the next photo in the series, with five minutes in Photoshop) would have made that heroic poster possible. It’s just gone that one step too far, and sometimes knowing when to back up one step is the difference between an astounding success and an abject failure.
http://www.facebook.com/KWDPhoto Ken Williams
Exactly why there is a difference between a professional photographer and a GWC
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000238525443 Vicky Kemp
They are pretty awful, I have a studio in my dining room and do better work…I hope those were volunteered, because it would be a shame if someone actually paid for them.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Igor-InvisibleSounds-Butckhrikidze/723953185 Igor InvisibleSounds Butckhrik
hehe )
http://www.facebook.com/jonmarkphoto Jon-Mark Wiltshire
These are bad.
http://www.facebook.com/mefis Alejandro Alvarez Fotografia
As far as I know those are pictures taken at an event with the media where the athletes posed for several photographers.
This is the real deal.
http://www.uspresswire.com/search/fulltext/jairaj%20summit/page1
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1384527673 Bob Johnson
No Instagram…..???
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1384527673 Bob Johnson
So if I ran the high hurdles and knocked down everyone and came in dead last, would I get an “A” for effort?
http://www.facebook.com/wabatson Glenn Batson
Hmm. If a joke not a very good one. Where is the really blurry one or the selective coloring!
http://www.facebook.com/ConnieA.Williams Connie Williams
Not sure where this photographer learned about lighting… oh, they didn’t obviously!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2ZHD2QMXKKJJHPOKOOA2SU7OI Will
What’s so awful about the pics??? They are Olympic athletes not damn American Eagle models….
justin thomas
Your link didn’t work. FTFY
http://www.uspresswire.com/search/fulltext/summit/page1
but you’re right those are much better than these. Were they taken at the same time?
justin thomas
After reading what he posted I very seriously doubt these are “official”
justin thomas
Who else should we blame for the photo shoot being bad? If you go to a restaurant and the food is bad you blame the chef right? I think most of the people in here that commented could do a better job than what is presented here. There were plenty of other photographers that had the same amount of time with the athletes that did a much better job.
If you are a photographer you have to know how to adapt. Yes the paper will get torn but there are many ways around it. Of course you could photoshop very easily to fix it or maybe not pose where you can see the rip but the biggest and most obvious thing is to just roll the paper down to not show the ripped part.
http://www.facebook.com/keith.r.owen1 Keith R Owen
it’s clever AND deliberate:)
wtiy
oh man, this is bad all around. UNLESS, the photographer is a hipster and didn’t want to go all “mainstream” with his lighting and compositions.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniil-Sosonkin/100000553826482 Daniil Sosonkin
Am I missing something? Those are bad photos. What is the point of making them? Its not a funny joke at all. This is just unprofessional. Or did they decided to not hire a photog but get someone from the staff who spent a week reading strobist.com to take those shots? I’m confused…
Marti Bartolome
I don’t think they’re from the same event, the link you provided is dated may 15, while those photos above were taken on the 14th.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1807774589 Emily Ragsdale Barr
Media attention, whether negative or positive, is still attention and name recognition…perhaps some sort of publicity stunt is my thought. With so much circulating about this, he’s bound to redeem himself and gain popularity?!? Just an opinion…I can’t wrap my mind around any other reason why these turned out as they did.

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