Getty photographer Gregory Shamus on shooting basketball at the Olympics

Getty photographer Gregory Shamus talked with FanSided about the challenges, highs, lows and most iconic sports photos from this year’s Olympic basketball events.

The Olympics always create a slew of iconic sports photos and this year, Getty Images helped us round up the best. We’re also talking with specific Getty photographers about the challenges of the sports they covered and some of their favorite moments and photos. Here, Gregory Shamus talked about shooting Olympic basketball.

What makes photographing basketball different, challenging or exciting at the Olympics?

This was my first time photographing at the Olympic Games, which was a real honor for me. I really enjoyed photographing the entire basketball tournament, both men’s and women’s. The international game is so different from how basketball is played in the States — I love the speed of the game, there are no TV timeouts and it’s much more difficult to get a whistle. There is constantly stoppage for TV and fouls for college and professional basketball, so without that the games just flowed so much better, which worked to my advantage especially when shooting back-to-back games.

Getting to see the athletes playing for their countries was also really amazing and special to witness. You can just see it when they’re playing, and especially playing meaningful games. The men’s semifinal game between Slovenia and France got so heated. Luka Doncic of Team Slovenia got his elbow cut open, hurt his wrist on another and played with so much emotion that game, just laying it all on the line.

With the Olympics, the enormity of the event, despite there being COVID impacts, was still so incredible. It’s a monumental task to put something like this on and it’s a lot bigger than anything I’ve ever been a part of. Finals and Championship games in the U.S. feel big but are so small compared to the scale of the Olympics. From Getty Images’ perspective, we are sending images in from games, matches and routines and then routing images to remote editors in Abu Dhabi, Texas and so many other places around the world. I shook my head in amazement about this because everything was getting to them in real-time to then get to our website and our customers in as little as 30 seconds.

What’s the story behind some of your favorite images?

There were many highlights throughout the Games, but a few that stuck out to me were the Japan women’s team. They were the Cinderella of the tournament, making it all the way to the final against Team USA. I captured this image of their Captain Maki Takada and Head Coach Tom Hovasse following the quarterfinals game against Belgium. The emotion between them was so special and maybe the truest and purest emotion that I saw between a coach and players.

When Slovenia lost the Bronze medal game against Australia, Luka Doncic of Team Slovenia was in disbelief. He went over to the bench, flipped some chairs over and slumped down against the wall on the Olympics rings. For me, this moment shows how hard these players want that medal. If gold or silver isn’t in the cards, the race for bronze is real. The athletes don’t want to leave empty-handed after so much work. The sheer disappointment is evident in these photos once Doncic realized he was not going to medal. His teammate Jaka Blazic leaned over trying to console him, which really shows the emotion of the moment.

One of my favorite moments from the Games was when the USA men’s team won gold and broke out American flags. I just wanted one image that really told that story and Kevin Durant made it way better. His hands were sticking out the bottom of the flag with a clamped grip, which says a lot about the emotion of the image and despite having a rocky start, Team USA was so grateful for this moment. I also tried to get images of them interacting with flags together and got several where the flags completely took over the image. To me, it represented the team finally being able to let the weight of all the expectations lifted off of them and really let them relish and soak in the moment.

What’s your favorite part of photographing athletes and the Olympics?

From the very first game, when Team USA took the floor wearing the USA jerseys, there was a sense of pride that I haven’t seen before. And for myself, there was nothing like being from the U.S. and seeing the team take the floor. This felt so different, even though I’ve been covering basketball for a number of years now. I tried not to be a fan during the games, but when they walked onto the floor, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with pride — it was a real “pinch me” moment. And even for the other photographers from other countries, I could feel it for them too when their countries stepped out on the floor. I had a photographer from France next to me during one of the games and heard him groan several times when Team France missed a shot. That’s not something you hear often during college or professional basketball, so it’s something that really stuck with me.

Also, the intensity of the women’s game is on a whole different level. The women bring another level of physicality compared to the men and go in completely blind and don’t hold back from diving for a loose ball or going into a scuffle on the floor. Team USA was the most complete team in the women’s tournament. It was unbelievable to watch them play because they really know when to turn it on. At one minute they’d be down by eight points and then in the next few minutes, they’d be up by 24 points.

Also, the respect that other players had for them was undeniable. A moment I’ll never forget during the medal ceremony was when all of a sudden, the teams mixed together with their gold and silver medals and Sue Bird was surrounded by all the Japanese players. This typically never happens, but to see the respect and admiration they had for Bird, well as Diana Taurasi — both legends to the sport — at that moment after winning five straight gold medals, it was so fun to watch and really memorable and historic to photograph.