Simone Biles of Team United States celebrating on the podium during the medal ceremony for the Artistic Gymnastics Women’s Vault Final is projected as part of Parisienne Projections on August 03, 2024 in Paris, France. Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
What a year in sport was 2024. In addition to the major sporting events we’re glued to every year like The Super Bowl, March Madness, Wimbledon, The Masters, The World Series, The Stanley Cup, and more… this was a summer Olympic Year. The 45 sports of Paris 2024 were like a year’s worth of competition crammed into 16 days. You also had the UEFA European Football Championship that for soccer fans is as big as the World Cup.
Getty Images and their seasoned roster of sport photographers were there to capture it all – every second of every sporting event, all year long. We spoke with Michael Heiman, VP of Global Sport who shared picture by picture what it takes to document all these unforgettable moments – not just the action, but the emotions too – and get them out into the world seconds after they happen. Every picture tells a story.
Caitlin Clark #22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes celebrates after breaking Pete Maravich’s all-time NCAA scoring record during the first half against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on March 3, 2024 in Iowa City, Iowa. Photo by Matthew Holst/Getty Images
CAITLIN CLARK & THE WNBA
On March 3rd, Caitlin Clark broke Pete Maravich’s 3667 point, all-time NCAA scoring record. TV’s had been tuned to Iowa games in anticipation, and when she scored point 3668, it changed women’s sports. Not surprisingly, she was the first pick by the Indiana Fever in the WNBA draft, which was watched by 2.45 million viewers. The WNBA attracted an all-time record of more than 54 million viewers in 2024 across multiple networks ABC, CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, ION and NBA TV – not to mention record-setting game attendance.
“When we’re able to take a picture to show the emotion and the story. That’s where it becomes a really memorable moment. That’s where it becomes a really memorable photo…
When we cover any sport, we really try to think about angles that are going to make the picture. Obviously we knew she was getting close to breaking this record. You want to make sure you’re on the right angle or right side of the action. You don’t want her back, you want her coming towards you, so you’re probably picking a position near her bench because you know she’s going to celebrate towards her team when she does it. Then you just hope for the moment. This picture that Matthew got was a testament to that.
Simone Biles of Team United States competing on the uneven bars during the Artistic Gymnastics Women’s Qualification, is projected as part of Parisienne Projections in Montmartre on July 28, 2024 in Paris, France. Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
SIMONE BILES & THE PARIS OLYMPICS 2024
Simone Biles returned to the majestic Olympic stage that was Paris 2024, adding 3 gold and 1 silver Olympic medal to her collection. In what she called her “redemption tour”, after being forced to drop out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to the “twisties,” a dangerous condition that causes gymnasts to lose their orientation mid-air, Biles became the most decorated U.S. gymnast in history at age 27 and proved she really is the GOAT.
“The Olympics is the biggest, most complicated event that we cover. Paris is an amazing city that put on amazing games. We worked really hard to illustrate those games and remind people why we cover sport. It’s for the fans. We tried to do some projects to bring the games to the people of Paris. The Parisienne Projections was one of those…
We spent months scouting locations in Paris leading up to the games and then we looked at the schedule every night anticipating what picture we would project. We tried to pick the pictures that illustrated that day’s competition. We had a mobile team on the streets of Paris and posted those pictures right after they happened. As the picture was coming over the wire, the team was taking it from their phone and broadcasting it from a projector onto a building. Sometimes we’d do 2 or 3 pictures in a night at one location.”
LeBron James #23 and Bronny James #9 of the Los Angeles Lakers on defense during the second quarter against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena on October 22, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images
Tiger Woods reacts with his son Charlie Woods after making the first hole-in-one of his career on the fourth hole during the second round of the PNC Championship at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club on December 22, 2024 in Orlando, Florida. Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
FATHERS & SONS
James & Bronny LeBron / Tiger & Charlie Woods
Although we had seen Tiger and son Charlie Woods play together in four previous PNC Championships, where 20 Major Champions team up with a family member, Charlie sinking his first hole-in-one in the second round was unprecedented. Because of the angle of the hole, he didn’t even realize what he’d done until Tiger told him why the crowd was cheering. An equally memorable moment was Bronny James taking the court with Laker teammate and father Lebron James, especially remarkable after Bronny had collapsed in July 2023, suffering cardiac arrest during team practice at USC.
“Nepotism exists everywhere in our world and our society, but in sport you have to be able to hold your own. If you’re not scoring or you’re not producing, they’re not going to put you on the court just because you’re someone’s kid. But it’s one of those pictures you have to put a lot of thought into. It’s not just Tiger hitting the ball or Lebron shooting a shot.”
“This is a picture that we would never shoot if it was two random or unrelated players, but because of who they are, it becomes a massive story and a massive photo. It wasn’t easy to get these two in a picture. This is on an inbounds play. But Harry had to tell the story and you need to find ways to line things up so you can get them both in the frame. Mike had it a little easier because Charlie was kind enough to have a hole-in-one.”
Freddie Freeman #5 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates with teammates after hitting a walk-off grand slam during the tenth inning against the New York Yankees during Game One of the 2024 World Series at Dodger Stadium on October 25, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photos by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images (top), Steph Chambers/Getty Images
MVP FREDDIE FREEMAN & THE LOS ANGELES DODGERS 2024 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS
Freddie Freeman, 2024 World Series MVP, gets much credit for Los Angeles Dodgers championship with his historic at-bat performance. He homered in each of the first four games of the Series, and then drove in two runs with a two-out single during the Dodgers World Series clinching Game 5 7-6 win.
“I think that the beauty of sport is that you never know what’s going to happen and when something like this does, it’s too good to be true. Freddie Freeman is the perfect example. Here’s this veteran, hobbled baseball player, years and years in the League, and he goes and does one of the most fantastic things that has ever been done in baseball. And he was going up against teammate Shohei Ohtani, who was one of the biggest stories in sports this year as well. To be able to shine like that when everyone had their eye on Shohei… he just put on a performance.”
“In sports photography now if you’re not moving pictures in real time, people aren’t using your pictures. People want to see the pictures as soon as they see it on TV. So when this happened, Steph and Maddie shot the pictures, the pictures go to our cloud servers, and we have editors who are remote all over the country, sometimes all over the world, literally picking those pictures in real time, captioning them, cropping them a little bit, and then sending them out. If everything’s firing on all cylinders it takes just under 30 seconds.”
Travis Kelce #87 of the Kansas City Chiefs reacts at Head coach Andy Reid in the first half against the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium on February 11, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Travis Kelce #87 of the Kansas City Chiefs kisses Taylor Swift after defeating the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime during Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium on February 11, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
SUPERBOWL LVIII: TRAVIS KELCE & TAYLOR SWIFT
Love ’em or hate ’em, power couple, football star Travis Kelce and pop star Taylor Swift were one of the biggest sport stories of the year and brought a whole new fan base of “Swifties” to the NFL. Superbowl LVIII had the full spectrum of emotions on display.
“The way we do Super bowl is we have 2 photographers on the field, which is a huge undertaking because you have a massive field with hundreds of people on it, and you need to be everywhere at once. The Taylor and Travis story over the last 2 years has been an amazing one, but it’s been complicated for us to cover, because now you also have to worry about this person sitting up in a luxury box a million miles away.
“They’d been spotted by paparazzi here and there but they hadn’t really made any public appearances. Up until the AFC Championship game in Baltimore Taylor hadn’t come down on the field ever. If she comes down, we need to be there. We need to be ready for that moment.”
We came to the Super Bowl, and just like we do with every other big sporting event we had a plan. We had a map of the field and went through end of game scenarios. What happens if it goes into overtime? What happens if it ends in the field goal? What happens if it ends on an interception?
We also had a plan if Taylor came down onto the field. If the Chiefs won, she’d probably come down again. An NFL field at the end of a game, especially a championship game, is like no other sporting event. The second the clock hits zero, hundreds if not thousands of people make their way onto the field. It’s absolute chaos. It’s like ground warfare. I’ve never seen any like melees break out, but it’s hard to get yourself in a position.
Ezra did a great job. He stuck to Travis like glue. He’s probably done 20 super bowls and got this picture: guy wins a super bowl, guy gets the girl. It’s a Hollywood ending.”
Sha’Carri Richardson of Team United States crosses the finish line to win the gold medals after competing in the Women’s 4x100m Relay Final on day fourteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Stade de France on August 09, 2024 in Paris, France. Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images
SHA’CARRI RICHARDSON: PARIS OLYMPICS 2024
After qualifying for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Sha’Carri Richardson was disqualified when she tested positive for THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis. Qualifying for Paris 2024 was redemption after a stellar lead up to the Games. She won the 100m at the U.S. Track and Field Championships, and then claimed the title of fastest woman in the world with her 100m win at the 2023 World Athletic Championships in Budapest. The look on her face winning the gold medal with a come-from-behind performance as the anchor of the Women’s 4x100m Relay Final says it all.
“Hannah Peters is a photographer of ours based in Auckland, New Zealand, and at the Olympics during the Athletics all she did was shoot head on from the finish line. She was there every morning, every night. That position is so critical and so technical because you have these athletes who run so fast and they’re running towards you. It’s very hard from that angle to see sometimes who’s in front and you really have to know what you’re doing. Hannah’s probably running 8 different remotes there too. She’s sitting on the track and there’s a bar in front of her that has about 100 cameras on it, 4 or 5 of which are hers with different lenses focused on different areas, so we don’t miss any lane or anything.
And then it started to rain. That always adds an element of texture to a photo which is amazing.”
General view as Noah Lyles of Team United States competes the Men’s 100m Final on day nine of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Stade de France on August 04, 2024 in Paris, France. Layers of the Games shows in one image the multiple moments that happen during a game or a day of competition during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games from a fixed camera. Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images
Bronze medalist Noah Lyles of Team United States after competing in the Men’s 200m Final on day thirteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Stade de France on August 08, 2024 in Paris, France. Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
NOAH LYLES: PARIS OLYMPICS 2024
It was a photo finish in the Men’s 100m. Team USA’s Noah Lyles won the gold medal by just five-thousandths of a second ahead of Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, as both sprinters finished with a time of 9.79 seconds. Almost equally incredible was his bronze medal in the 200m, collapsing at the finish. He would reveal he had tested positive for COVID-19 just two days earlier, less than 36 hours after the 100m win.
“There’s a lot of different techniques you can do to illustrate motion through still photography. This was shot by Hector Vivas one of our photographers based in Mexico City, and just like the projections project we came up with this feature we called Layers of the Games.”
“How do you bring a still image to life? We mapped it out every day. Hector was going to shoot one or two different sports and he was going to shoot it in layers of action. He set up his camera in one spot and shot the event from start to finish. The camera is fixed on a clamp. Hector Is sitting behind it shooting with a remote. The 100 meter final was 8 individual frames he layered together in photoshop. The athletes are in their positions on the field. No one was moved up or down. Because of how close this race was, it was an amazing way to show the progression.
General view of the Jumping Individual Final on day eleven of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Chateau de Versailles on August 06, 2024 in Versailles, France. Layers of the Games shows in one image the multiple moments that happen during a game or a day of competition during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games from a fixed camera. Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images
One of my favorites from the Layer of the Games was this picture from the equestrian competitions. It’s like 90 frames. It really shows how fantastic the technology is and illustrates a sport that a lot of people don’t know about. This is what an hour of equestrian looks like in one picture.”
