Australia may never have fully understood how devastated Sam Kerr was about crashing out of this World Cup if not for Hannah Peters.
As the Matildas captain sat forlornly on the pitch after missing her penalty in an ill-fated shootout against Norway, Peters was there with her camera.
The Getty Images photographer had exclusive access, via the content agency’s partnership with FIFA, to capture Kerr in her quiet moment of reflection.
Australia saw a side of the football superstar far removed from the backflipping, free-scoring megastar who netted four goals against Jamaica the previous game.
We saw the pain of defeat in the face of enormous expectation, tinged further by the Matildas coaching scandal that preceded the tournament.
We saw Kerr, one of the world’s best players, made mortal on her sport’s biggest stage.
And we witnessed all that, via a specially-placed camera lens, because we have demanded to see it.
Kerr is not just a superstar of Australian women’s sport. She’s a superstar of sport, period.
On the same weekend that the Matildas fell at France 2019, Ashleigh Barty became world No.1 in tennis, Sally Fitzgibbons became surfing world No.1 and Hannah Green won the LPGA Championship. Regardless of gender, Aussies could not get enough.
“There are heroes in women’s sport. I even want to stop saying ‘women’s sport’; there’s some heroes in sport that happen to be women,” Cassie Trotter, Getty’s director of editorial photography for Asia-Pacific, told Wide World of Sports.
“And they’re doing brilliant things without any drama. There are a few sports like tennis, and cricket domestically is coming out of a bit of a scandal and there’s a lot of negative coverage.
“I think it’s kind of a breath of fresh air that you’ve got these other fantastic athletes doing their thing and doing it well; being role models. Sam Kerr is a role model for football globally; men, women, it doesn’t matter.”
Getty poured resources into its World Cup coverage comparable to last year’s men’s tournament. A Melbourne football specialist, Rob Cianflone, was among a team of 11 photographers on the ground; six of them under FIFA’s exclusive access wing.
Well after the Aussies were gone, captivating images of a dominant USA side continued to saturate global media markets.
Photographs of Megan Rapinoe will mark a point in history where the transcendent American captain coupled a campaign for improved women’s and LGBTIQ rights with footballing greatness; which netted her the World Cup, the Golden Ball and the Golden Boot on one stunning night.
Start to finish, the World Cup had five-star media exposure. Getty took a portrait image of every single player at the tournament, as it did for the men at Russia 2018. And it kept an extra special eye on superstars like Kerr and Rapinoe. They earned such treatment.
“Everything with Getty comes down to access. How do we cover them? We cover superstars the way we cover superstars,” Trotter said.
“But I think now we’re getting more access, like at the World Cup, to cover superstars in their natural environment, like with these portraits.”
Getty’s anecdotal evidence from this World Cup reveals a vast increase in interest for women’s sport; something that has built gradually and become irrefutable. Prior analytics also bear that out.
Between 2017 and 2018, Getty Images saw increased demand for:
- ‘women’ and ‘sport’, up 74 per cent;
- ‘women’ and ‘football’, up 86 per cent;
- ‘girls’ and ‘soccer’, up 77 per cent.
And in 2018, eight of Getty Images’ creative top-10 selling sports images had women in them. Sports media outlets regularly enquire about Getty’s coverage in advance, making plans for women’s sport that they certainly would not have a decade ago.
Just think about how incredibly different the landscape is in little over a generation. Twenty years ago, the Matildas posed for a nude calendar to raise money and awareness for the team. Now, Kerr action shots grace the front pages of newspapers and she’s being offered a $1 million contract by English Premier League giant Chelsea.
“A total change in 20 years,” Trotter said of the infamous Matildas calendar compared to now.
“There’s a little bit less desperation, as well. Now it’s like, ‘This is who we are. We’re out doing the same thing’. Obviously, brands and media are getting behind it. Fans are getting behind it.
“I couldn’t imagine anything like that happening again. I couldn’t imagine that type of content being produced. It just wouldn’t be accepted.”
THE TAYLA HARRIS PHOTO
A single picture sparked a debate about “women’s sport” this year like none Australia has ever seen before.
That was, of course, this superb shot from Michael Willson of AFL Photos, of Carlton superstar Tayla Harris in full flight while kicking a goal.
7AFL posted the image to its social media accounts, then pulled it down when it was inundated with ugly comments from trolls. Harris described some of those comments as “sexual abuse”.
Ultimately, the image will be remembered for its wonderful athleticism, for marking the rise of a new breed of superstar in Australia’s biggest football code; a game long reserved at the elite level for men.
For Trotter, the message of that image was simple: it was a great athlete doing their thing. Harris being female was somewhat irrelevant. It was an image to be celebrated; as 7AFL initially did and as many thousands of people did afterward, drowning out the trolls.
“Even though that coverage took an interesting turn and a lot of questions were asked, I still think that’s really good coverage. I think it’s really good not just for women’s sport, but for sport and photography. It’s putting that emphasis on content,” Trotter said.
“I think it’s an interesting time in the media for women, and women in sport. This idea that taking it down was a drama, or the bullying was a drama. I think Tayla kind of handled it herself. She made everyone go, ‘Wait, wait. Don’t worry about it, that’s not the issue’.
“Social media is a devil and it’s a brilliant thing. Social media is part of the reason why Sam or Tayla, or a lot of other athletes, have a great platform and a lot of followers. And it’s increasing, because they’re out there and they’re able to have a voice; but then, it’s also a place for weirdos. People who we envision as like this person at a computer in a dark room. I don’t know if that’s what it is, but people that are just using a platform to be heard.
“I think the biggest challenge is for us, in the media, whether or not you take that and make it go viral and give it the platform it needs.”
THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME
Any male AFL superstar would have happily taken that Harris photo. It was a moment of athleticism that erased gender lines.
And one of Getty’s most downloaded athletes, unsurprisingly, is tennis icon Serena Williams. Her legendary abilities and constant bursts of emotion make her photographic gold.
She has also led the conversation about unnecessary distinctions between men’s and women’s sport; which with 23 singles Grand Slams, is her absolute right.
“Serena Williams: she’s just a powerhouse in motion,” Trotter said.
“I think that’s what it comes down to with sports photography; it’s not just the action, right? It’s the emotion. There’s some great photos that we have of Serena.
“She made it clear, didn’t she: she’s one of the greatest athletes of all time. Full stop.
“And it’s so true. I feel that switch, I feel that conversation changing. I look at the coverage of the Women’s World Cup. I play football, I enjoy it, so I’m obviously biased; but there’s a [men’s] Cricket World Cup going on as well and it just doesn’t feel like it’s dominating the coverage, and that is amazing.”
GETTING THE SHOT
World Cups, Grand Slams. Such major sporting events mean dozens, if not hundreds, of photographers all shooting the same moments, trying to get the picture.
Sometimes it comes via exclusive access. Sometimes you just take a punt and nail it.
Getty’s Cameron Spencer got a shot of Usain Bolt in his Rio 2016 100m semi-final that instantly went viral. It was Getty’s most downloaded shot of the Games and became an instant classic of sports photography.
In that case, Spencer was shooting the high jump, realised Bolt was about to run and ran to the 70m mark of the sprint track. With several other Getty photographers shooting the race, he set up for a slow pan to create some artistic blur, waited for his moment … and Bolt turned around to flash a smile when he realised the race was won. Perfect.
“That’s a fantastic frame, and we get excited about it,” said Trotter, who is married to Spencer.
“We joke now because it’s still talked about, and we bug Cameron because it’s still talked about. He does an interview and we’re saying, ‘Oh, here we go, he’s talking about that picture again! God forbid you put it on your Instagram again!’
“But it was an awesome moment. The most exciting thing about that picture, in my opinion, was it went viral for everyone. It went viral for people who didn’t even know about photography. They don’t know who Cameron Spencer is, they don’t know that he’s one of the best in the business.
“Even now when I meet people, if they don’t understand who Getty is (and I don’t find that a lot), I can say, ‘That [Usain Bolt] photo’. And that’s really cool.
“Cameron, all of our staff, they’ve had some amazing photos; but you know about them, I know about them, because we’re in the world; the sport world, the photo world. I literally used that photo the other day in a conversation with a taxi driver.”
A Getty photographer selected to shoot a big event is just like an athlete: at the top of their craft. If you pay attention to bylines, you’ll see brilliant work by Ryan Pierse during the men’s Ashes, and Michael Dodge when Barty tries to win the Australian Open next year. They’re specialists, as are the people who edit their shots.
Yet when big events roll around, the worst can happen to even the best photographers: a key shot is missed. That’s where teamwork is so important.
“Moments are missed. Coming back to teamwork, one of the good things about us being at everything is that you might have missed it, but maybe your colleague caught it,” Trotter said.
“When a photographer misses it – and it comes down to passion, again – it truly affects them. We look at it kind of differently behind the desk. We get it. We get that people will miss things.
“The biggest punishment for a photographer is when they miss something. We get it, we move on. They don’t need a spray; they’re going to spray themselves for a long time! And of course, they’ll bag each other out as well!”