Back o’ the net
The shot that made Joel Marklund’s name
Born in 1985, Joel Marklund is the chief photographer of Bildbyrån, Sweden’s leading sports photo agency. Based in New York and Stockholm, he has covered numerous international sports events, including five Olympic Games and the recent IAAF World Athletics Championships in London. Visit www.joelmarklund.com 23 February, 2014 • Sochi, Russ ia • Nikon D4
The men’s ice hockey final is one of the highlights of the Winter Olympics, and Joel Marklund was determined not to miss a shot. “I had five remote cameras during this particular game, at different angles of course, to cover everything that can happen,” he recalls.
One of those cameras was positioned in the ceiling above the ice rink, covering the goal mouth at one end. Choosing to place a camera in the ceiling was a decision Joel had to make before the tournament started, as photographers were not allowed access again until after the final. “A lot of photographers do this every Olympics and at big championships, but in order to put that camera there for the final, you need to have done it for the rest of the tournament. I had been climbing up and down to the roof for two weeks at least to get that access.” Ice hockey is dear to Joel’s heart. Born and raised in northern Sweden, he played competitively while growing up; and now he was photographing his country’s national team against Canada in the Olympic final. Sweden were a goal down when Canada launched another attack and their captain Sidney Crosby beat the Swedish goalkeeper Henrik Lundqvist to put them ahead 2-0. It was the pivotal moment of the match, and Joel captured it perfectly. “What’s special here is the timing,” he says. “There were some other photographers that had the same sequence, but none of them had the image where he scores. They had the puck before he shot it or before it goes in, but here you can actually see it’s a goal.”
A wider reach
Although Joel had been shooting sports professionally since 2007 and already winning awards, he regards this picture as the one that represented his international breakthrough. “I was looking through all my old images, but then I found this one. That specific year was followed by a lot of awards, not just Swedish but also internationally. That image wasn’t that much different to what I have done before, but it had a far wider reach.”
Joel cites the great American sports photographer Neil Leifer as an inspiration for his style: “He was really early using remote cameras and has two classic pictures of Muhammad Ali, one of which is taken from the rafters, straight down, and Ali is celebrating after his win. That shot is so clean, it’s perfect.
“My style of photography is a bit like that – I’m always looking for the perfect symmetry, not only having the key moment, but also making the image look beautiful.”