We speak with Swedish sports shooter Joel Marklund about his incredible array of gold medalwinning shots
Only 10 years ago, Joel Marklund covered his first Olympics, aged just 23. He’s had a meteoric career rise since and tells Keith Wilson what he’s learnt from shooting World Cups, winning awards and destroying cameras…
Joel Marklund and I are talking after an especially crowded summer that included the emotional roller coaster of a World Cup and European Championships in athletics and swimming. All of which was on top of his usual schedule of Champions League football, major golf tournaments and F1 racing. “It’s been a crazy year,” says the 33-year-old chief photographer of Swedish sports photo agency Bildbyrån. Although he’s anticipating a quieter week in his New York office, preparations for major events are never far away: “I’m here for 10 days and then there’s a world press briefing ahead of the Olympics in two years.” But before thoughts turn to 2020, let’s take some time to reflect on the summer just past…
What have been some of your recent highlights?
I would definitely say the World Cup. I’m Swedish and having the Swedish team go so far in the tournament – I was supposed to be at Wimbledon from day one, but none of us really expected the Swedish team to go so far, so I only covered the second week of Wimbledon! It’s a very special thing covering your nation in a tournament like that, and I don’t know if I’m going to see it again in my lifetime. That’s the nature of the championships, you don’t know, and coming from a small country like Sweden, it’s very special. Yes, and who would have thought that Germany would finish bottom of their group? No one could have ever called that!
True. It was nice to be there. I wasn’t covering that many matches, but I covered all of Sweden’s matches, which was five in total.
We shouldn’t talk about Sweden’s loss to England in the quarter final, but what was the best match you covered during the World Cup? Oh, I think the round 16 match against Switzerland. We played very well in that match.
Photographically, did you find it a good match as well?
That I can’t say. For me, in the World Cup there weren’t that many good backgrounds, so photographically the championship wasn’t as interesting on a journalistic level. That’s the nature of the work. Sometimes you’re there for the journalistic stuff and the beautiful images aren’t really what you get. Sometimes, it’s the other way around. When I was in Glasgow, shooting the European Championships in swimming, that was really good in terms of photographic content.
Did you end up covering the US Open this year?
No, I took a week off, it’s been such an incredibly tense year, so I took some time off, to do some other stuff and get ready for the rest of the year.
You’ve worked as a photographer since you were 20. Was shooting sport what you always dreamed of doing from the start?
Actually, no. I started out on a small newspaper in the north of Sweden – where I come from. On a small newspaper you get to shoot everything – news, entertainment, sports. From there I moved to the biggest newspaper in Sweden, Aftonbladet, which is based in Stockholm and I got to shoot a lot of news. I did a lot of sports when I was a young kid so I am quite good at understanding what’s happening on the field – I can predict what’s going to happen and I found out I was good at it.
Also, sport is really honest, it’s not staged like when you’re shooting a lot of news. In sport, the moments are true, it’s about winning and losing, dejection and celebration, and capturing those very special moments and everything in between.
By its nature, sports photography seems more competitive than news photography. Is that the case?
I’m very competitive, because of my sporting background I guess, so as equally as it’s a competition on the field, it’s a competition amongst us photographers too. That’s what I like about it, but I didn’t plan it that way, it just happened. After Aftonbladet,
I joined Bildbyrån, which is a specialist sports photo agency. I didn’t think shooting this amount of sport was going to be fun. I thought I’d probably be there for a half year and then do something else, but I guess I just ended up falling in love with it.
You must have done, and you’ve become very good at it too…
I guess so and I have an artsy style with a lot of my work. On my mother’s side I had a relative who was a painter, so I’m thinking that’s where I get my artistic heritage from. That’s the good thing about this type of photography,
Sport is really honest. The moments are true, it’s about winning and losing, dejection and celebration
you can get the important news moment and also create graphically interesting photographs.
Do you think the training on a local newspaper provided you with the perfect grounding to get where you are in your career today?
I definitely think so. I was one of the last in my generation to be able to do it. Small newspapers in Scandinavian countries don’t have staff any more. I have never been to a school for photography. Ever since I started working I’ve been a hard worker. I needed a lot of determination and effort to be where I am today.
For the World Cup and European Swimming Championships, what was the basic kit that you packed? For the World Cup, it was very different because we were just on so many flights. My main focus was covering the Swedish team, so that also meant press conferences and practice sessions. I had 17 flights in four weeks, so there was a real need to travel as light as possible. I tried to only take one camera body and lens out (at a time), so I went for the new Nikon 180400mm f/4e lens with the built-in 1.4x converter because it was very flexible.
I always had that with me, shot all the matches with it, practices and press conferences. I still had four camera bodies, but normally I would have five. We always had two remotes behind each goal.
What did you end up using to cover the swimming? For Glasgow, I was using my underwater camera kit and I brought along a 600mm f/4g lens and the 180400mm. I had much more luggage with me at Glasgow but you’re at one point, one city, one building, so it’s easier to bring a lot of gear. When I go to cover the Olympics or those sorts of events, I bring five camera bodies, five or six lenses, the 400mm f/2.8g, the 600mm f/4 as well. A lot of gear.
Do you use the same camera bodies, or a variety?
I have three D5 bodies which are my main cameras and some D4S bodies, which I use as the remotes.
Nikon has announced the release of the AF-S Nikon 500mm f/5.6e PF ED Vr. Will you be adding that lens
to your extensive arsenal?
Yeah. I tried it out during the World Cup one day! I think that lens would be really good for covering sailing, for example, somewhere that requires you to handhold a long lens. It’s not going to be replacing either the 400mm f/2.8 or the 600mm f/4 for me. Mainly because I also need to go for the best possible look in the background because at sports venues there’s so much advertising, so we need to get that away (shooting at the widest possible aperture). I think it’s going to complement what I already have. It’s so light and it’s fast as well. I was surprised at how good it was when I got to try it out.
What was your first Nikon camera? It was the D3. I’d been shooting with
another brand before! It was after the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. That was the first time I’d used Nikon and it was so much better than what I was using at the time, so our company made the switch a year after when they saw the difference. A lot of shooters switched over to Nikon at that time.
they did indeed. the D3 was a real game changer. Back to lenses, What’s your desert island lens?
I would say the 400mm f/2.8. It’s so flexible, you have a very nice look from the f/2.8 aperture and you can put a converter on it. If I could only chose one, it would definitely be that one. recently, you have taken portraits of the Sami people of Sweden. Can you tell me more about it as this work is very different to what you’re known for?
Where I am from in the north of Sweden there are a lot of Sami and I happened to see a video for a Swedish website about the Sami people speaking up about former injustices against their rights and culture – that made a real impression on me. At the time, Nikon was telling me, “We want you to do a special project.” They thought I’d do something with sports, but when I saw this I thought, “I want to do something that’s important to me.” I thought I knew a lot about the Sami, but I found out I knew almost nothing.
It’s been so interesting; they are musicians; they are artists; they are reindeer herders; they’re normal people. But still they are not Swedish; they are not Norwegian; they are not Finnish; they are Sami and they have their own way of life. how did you want to portray them? I wanted to show that these are a proud people with their own heritage, so I shot portraits in their traditional outfits, but also in different environments; in forests, in midstockholm. Then I showed reportage pictures of what they do (for a living). For example, there was this girl who is a dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet Academy, but I met her when they were up in the mountains herding reindeer and branding them. This was a real contrast that I found fascinating and wanted to explore further.
I need to tell people this story; it’s an important one and the Swedish government still has a lot to do; Sweden hasn’t given the Sami the rights that they are entitled to. Are there other specific photographers whom you look up to for some inspiration?
I think it was more like that when I first started. In the first years, I was looking up to a lot of sports photographers, like Heinz Kluetmeier who worked for Sports Illustrated. I looked up to Al Bello at Getty Images. Today, we are sitting next to each other at the Olympics, but I also look for inspiration from other kinds of photography.
I can go to the Met Museum (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and see something totally different and get very inspired based on what’s there. I think it’s very important to get inspiration from totally different places all the time, because otherwise you’re just going to shoot what’s already been done.
Yes, that’s a very good point.
There is one guy who needs mentioning and that’s Neil Leifer. He’s a legendary photographer and his Muhammad Ali shots are just amazing. Even after all this time, they are still incredible. There was a sports photography exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum one or two years ago and his images there still stand out amongst the absolute best.
You’re still a young man in this game and have won a fair number of awards. how important are they for a professional’s career?
I think awards are very important in that you are showing those images to another audience and they will be memorized in a different way, especially today with how the media works. You see images on Instagram and many types of social media, and
I think it’s very important to get inspiration from totally different places all the time, because otherwise you’re just going to shoot what’s already been done
you don’t really look at them for long. But if you win an award that means the image is going to be seen by many more people and they’re actually going to remember it.
What, would you say, has been your greatest moment as a photographer so far?
It’s always so hard to pick one moment, but the Beijing 2008 Olympics was the moment when I started to love sports photography. Of course, I’d remember it because it was my first Olympics and I was there when Usain Bolt first won the 100 metres and broke the world record. We worked 20 hours a day and without sleep, it was crazy. I slept for two weeks when I got back home, but the memories from it are amazing. There was so much happening.
Okay, what has been the absolute worst moment then?
At Beijing I was sent to cover the sailing in Qingdao and caught a very early flight, meaning I had no time to sleep. When I got off the plane and approached the dock the sky was dark, definitely bad weather approaching, but having no experience of sailing, I thought, “I guess this is normal!” I got a spot on a media boat to follow the race as close as possible and brought two cameras and lenses and rain covers, just in case. We got closer and closer to the sailors and their Finn boats…
After just a few minutes the storm had moved in just above us and I had a hard time even standing up! When I looked through the lens I immediately started to feel sick. Another photographer, who was a former sailor and very experienced, screamed through the wind that this was the worst storm he had ever been photographing in!
The competition was halted and we returned to the dock and I was as wet as if I had taken a swim in the ocean.
that sounds intense! Did you get another chance to get any pictures? While drying up and preparing to go out again I saw that the competition had restarted without any warning. This time they only let out one media boat, so I decided to photograph the sailors with a long lens as they approached land, but none of the cameras were working! I still hadn’t realized that salt water was the problem, I thought that the rain was the issue. After trying to dry the cameras without any positive results, I got a loan camera. But, the boats had already come into shore and finished. The Swedish athlete I had to cover lost his third place and finished fourth – he left as soon as possible, so I didn’t get a picture of him!
It must have been a bad flight back? Eight hours after I had arrived in Qingdao I was again sitting on a plane back to Beijing, absolutely soaked. I had no picture of the Swedish athlete, I’d destroyed two cameras and one lens and, to top it all off, I’d started coming down with an awful cold.
The only good thing that came out of that day was one picture of British sailor Ben Ainslie sitting in his Finn boat in the middle of high waves, waiting to get a signal to start. The picture got an award in NPPA’S Best of Photojournalism. Until this day this is by far the most expensive shot I have taken and got an award for!
After that hard lesson, what’s the best piece of advice you would give to a 20-year-old wanting to become a sports photographer?
Be prepared to work hard. Have a goal and don’t be afraid to reach out to a lot of photographers for help or advice. If there is a photographer who inspires you, reach out to them and see if it’s possible to tag along for a day or two and see what their workflow is like.
Not all the best sports pictures are taken at the biggest events. It’s worth shooting at small events, that’s where you can get closer to the action, the backgrounds are cleaner because they’re not obstructed by a lot of massive advertisements – build up your portfolio that way. There are so many photographers out there so you need to try your best to find your own style. Shooting sports like everyone else is not to going to work in the long run, there’s simply too much competition out there. After a few years, you need to find something that sets you apart from the other photographers; something that shows them you are the photographer behind the picture – to create images where people think straight away, “This is a special photographer.” Be that special photographer.
Be prepared to work hard. Have a goal and don’t be afraid to reach out to a lot of photographers for help or advice