Photographers Blog

Editing thousands of cricket pictures a day

Altaf Bhat

Apr 4, 2011 11:57 EDT

Sports and Action photography is all about timing. It’s about reacting. It’s about being in the right place at the right time and it’s about execution.

These are all qualities of the athlete and those of the photographer covering them as well. Each sport has predictable and unpredictable moments. For instance, in cricket, photographers will have opportunities to capture jump shots, players diving to make the crease, diving to take a catch, diving to field the ball, a bowler leaping in the air as he bowls, a batsman screaming in joy on reaching his century, etc. Understanding the timing of these predictable actions allows a photographer to capture the peak moment; when the action is most dramatic.

Before I start editing I always have a brief chat with the photographers about what could be the day’s great picture. The staff never fail to deliver and meet expectations. I briefed two photographers covering matches from the quarter-finals onwards not to forget to look for emotion in the players and the fans. A good number of the best shots come from the crowd. I received a bunch of nice pictures of the crowd from the final.

While editing pictures from the semi-final match between arch rivals India and Pakistan, I thought I should leave the confines of our New Delhi desk and photograph the match in Mohali. The Mohali semi-final match had a few news angles attached to it. Firstly, India and Pakistan were playing each other after a long time; secondly the Indian Prime Minister and his Pakistan counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani were watching the match in the stands after the latter accepted an invite from Manmohan Singh to watch the match. It was a historic moment where one could see the prime ministers of two nuclear-armed countries sitting side-by-side enjoying the game. But in the end, I am glad I edited their pictures.

The 2004 tsunami: A Singapore perspective

“Where were you when the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hit?”

For me, it is a day I will always remember. I had barely been working as a picture sub-editor on the Asia Desk for a month. I remember being asked to come in early to work that Sunday morning because “an earthquake had hit and it seems quite bad”.

Reaching the office, I watched my television colleagues collect their gear, make phonecalls and fly off on the next flight to Aceh, one of the places reported as being badly hit. The newsgathering process was still very new to me, so I watched with fascination as photographers were alerted, flights were arranged and notes were made to keep track of where each shooter was.

A man reacts next to a building that was destroyed when a tsunami hit in Cuddalore, 180 km (112 miles) south of the southern Indian city of Madras December 27, 2004.  REUTERS/Arko Datta

Would Bazuki Muhammad drive from his base in Kuala Lumpur all the way to Khao Lak in Thailand? How was Luis Ascui going to get to Phi Phi island from Phuket? How much longer would Altaf Hussain in New Delhi have to wait to secure a ride to the Andaman and Nicobar islands?

All this while the aftermath of the tsunami continued to unfold. I remember sitting, waiting for the first photos as updates of locations where the tsunami had hit and the resulting death toll kept rolling in.