Tennis Photography and the U.S. Open, 2018

Today, we discuss tennis photography from two distinct points of view. Our first guest is an independent photographer with twenty years of tennis photography experience to his credit, and later, we're joined by representatives from Drawbridge Digital, the company that is present for all three weeks of the 2018 U.S. Open, creating and managing the still photography used on U.S. Open.org. and archived by the U.S.T.A.

On the first half of the show, we welcome Chris Nicholson, a veteran of our podcast, and a multi-faceted photographer whose tennis work has been published in Wired, Men's Health, Golf Digest, Tennis Magazine and the New York Times. We speak with Nicholson about the opportunities available for freelancers and even amateurs to shoot tennis matches and high-profile players. We discuss techniques, settings, and gear that will make your job easier and your photos better.

After a break, we are joined by photographer Jen Pottheiser, and Reid Kelley of Drawbridge Digital, and we explore their massive undertaking to photograph the U.S. Open for the host organization. They work with all facets of the U.S.T.A. to provide photography to the editors at usopen.org, to their social media outlets, their marketing partners, as well as provide image storage solutions so that the thousands of photos taken at the Open can be made available for future needs. We speak with Pottheiser and Kelley about managing the workflow of over twenty photographers and editors on staff during the Open, about the on- and off-court images they look for, the systems they use to edit and organize the photos, and how to maintain your creativity while shooting nothing but tennis for three weeks.

Join us for this timely and interesting look behind the scenes at the 2018 U.S. Open Grand Slam Tournament.

For more info on the products mentioned in this episode:

Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Lens

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR Lens

Manfrotto 290 Carbon Fiber Monopod

Guests: Chris Nicholson, Jen Pottheiser, Reid Kelley

Photograph © Chris Nicholson