If you are a sports fan, you are going to love this interview. Grover over at Photoshelter recently interviewed Sports Illustrated Director of Photography Steve Fine. Steve's job is to pick out the absolute best "super selects" from a handful of sports photographers and publish those photos in record time (sometimes within hours).
I recently met Steve and what I found interesting about his job is not only the insane amount of work that goes into finding the absolute cream of the crop photos but also how important Steve's eye has to be to tell the story of each game in only a handful of frames. With SI, their photo team winds up with dozens if not hundreds of great images but only a very select few can be published to represent the final theme of the game. The following interview is pretty long but definitely worth checking out, especially if you want to know how sports photography or wired images are used to create the magazines we see on newsstands daily. As you watch the playoffs today leading up to the Superbowl, just remember Steve is working hard behind the scenes. Enjoy!
I will need to sit down with this for a good while and listen carefully. I work side-by-side with people from Sports Illustrated at certain events and am friends with a few of their senior photographers, but I can't wait to hear what Steve has to say. I see the photo-taking side of it but not the photo picking side and I'm sure I can take away a bunch from someone with an eye like his. I'm glad that they do these little things to give insight into the inner workings of Sports Illustrated.
I listened to this interview and looked at the work earlier this week then photographed a college basketball game last night with Steve Fine's information in mind:
http://www.gregvojtko.com/2012/01/sports-photography-seeking-something-d...