Delly Carr - Running Rings
Delly Carr is one of the greatest sports photographers on earth. It’s not a stretch to call him the greatest.
From humble beginnings in Sydney as the young sports-obsessed son of migrant parents, Delly Carr found his photographic fire on the sidelines of high school rugby matches. That flame was fanned by a bourgeoning entrepreneurial spirit, and the guts of a renegade. He was going to become a sports photographer, but he was going to do it his way.
Since Delly captured his first Olympic Games in Sydney 2000 (and won the overall prize for Best Olympic Photograph) he has been a mainstay at finish lines, medal ceremonies and insider back rooms the world over. Still a freelancer in a sea of agency and corporate photographers, Delly is on the cusp of immortalising moments for his 11th Olympics.
His sheet of awards and accolades is longer than this article, but includes the HACCI Lifetime Excellence Award, AIPP Sports Photographer of the Year, and multiple Photo of The Year honours for multiple sports.
He is a Thule Creative Ambassador, World Photography Academy member, and was Nikon’s very first ambassador.
For this year’s Paris Olympics, Delly’s storied career is being celebrated by the Australian Embassy as part of the Australian Olympique exhibition.
We sat down to talk about the exhibition, his unmatched contribution to Australian and global sports, and how he manages to remain one of the last great sports photography freelancers.
What is your first memory of holding a camera?
It goes back to primary school and a school excursion to Canberra from Sydney. Mum and Dad bought me a little plastic toy-type camera for me to take photographs.
It's now known as the Diana F+ camera. It was this plastic thing from Hong Kong.
Nowadays, it's considered a trendy camera for artistic purposes, because it's not perfect - it's a bit out focus and a bit out of whack, but it gives an artistic effect.
To buy one on eBay, it's quite expensive. I still have my original one with a price tag of 99 cents… from Woolies or somewhere.
Wow.
After the excursion, the film was sent away and I got my photos back a week or so later. I just remember the magic feeling I had when I saw these photographs that appeared from nowhere. I thought it was absolute magic.
Do you remember any of the specific photos you took and do you still have them?
There was a peacock. I don't know whether we went to Canberra Zoo on the excursion, but that's the one that I remember.
When Nikon did a documentary on my craft many years ago, they brought a peacock to the shoot so that I could replicate that memory.
Did your parents recognise you had an interest in photography from that moment?
Yes, because they ended up buying me a camera. An entry-level camera. Minolta, I think. I'm pretty sure they don't exist anymore. But when I thought about actually becoming a sports photographer, I bought a Nikon, as all the pros were using it.
What was the trajectory from your parents buying you that entry-level camera to your first gig, paid or unpaid?
At first, I was always at family functions or picnics and taking photos of uncles, aunties, cousins, all that sort of stuff.
I began transitioning to sport. I was a big sports lover. I grew up in a very heavy rugby league area. Every weekend was about the red and green. The Rabbitohs.
I would buy the league magazines and look at the pictures. I would buy the newspapers (well, mum and dad would). I'd cut out all the great sports photographs and put them in scrapbooks. I'd say “oh, wow that's such a great footy photo”. Those scrapbooks have probably gone to heaven.
In early high school, I wanted to play league as I loved it so much. But I had to straighten my teeth, so I was told to wear braces. In the old days, braces were metal and they wrapped around all of your teeth. They were sharp and jagged. So contact sport was out of the question.
My school Sportsmaster would put me in tennis and other sports that I didn't enjoy. So I convinced them that it would be great if I could shoot all the rugby league matches for the school newsletter.
That's when the sports photography thing really opened up for me. I would take photos of the league grades every Thursday, print all the black-and-whites in the school dark room and they'd use them for the newsletter and weekly school bulletin boards.
The business side of photography started at the same time, as I'd make second prints and sell them to my mates for 15 cents each.
And from there?
My mum and dad were migrants, so after high school they wanted me to study hard and get a great job and not have to work as hard as they did when they came to Australia. I ended up doing an economics degree, majoring in marketing, and worked as a suit-and-tie corporate for eight or nine years.
I didn't enjoy the corporate world. That love of sports photography was always within me and boiling within my tummy. The company I was working for wasn't doing as well as it could and so it handed out retrenchment packages – and I put my hand up and said “I'd like to go now”.
I decided to use that money to become a sports photographer.
How did you go about that?
For two of three years I struggled, being the new kid on the block. It was around '93, when Sydney was awarded the Olympic Games, that work picked up in the country and everyone was talking about — and companies were sponsoring— sport.
My work increased with the country's enthusiasm for sport. It helped me start my career.
The Olympic bid changing the climate in the country is one thing, but actually getting to shoot the Sydney games is another. How did that happen?
Going back a couple of steps… I was in Europe on my honeymoon during the Barcelona Olympics in '92. My wife and I we drove into Spain and bought tickets to watch it as a spectator. After seeing what they were all about, I said "one day I want to photograph the Olympic Games."
I applied for accreditation and got it for the next games, which was Atlanta in '96. But my first daughter was to be born in the middle of it, and I wasn't going to miss that. I forfeited my spot. It hurt, but it was the birth of my daughter, so it wasn't a bad decision.
So, Sydney ended up being my first games.
Were you happy with how you photographed your first games?
At the time, yes. But recently when getting my collection together for this exhibition overseas, I realised that I wasn't that good at the time. I definitely missed many opportunities and didn't photograph certain things.
I guess your craft develops, which brings me to my next question. Paris will be your 7th summer games (11th if counting winter). Are you able to articulate what's changed in your approach since 2000?
Well, 2000 was still back in the days of film. If someone won a race, I would only have one or two frames of the celebration. And I feel that's a wasted opportunity.
Think about it, we only had 36 frames in our cameras at the time. Then we'd have to flip over and put in a new roll of film. Nowadays with the digital world and the capacity of the cards, I could shoot up to 100 photos of celebration.
But I guess that was the limitation we had at the time. I still feel I look at my stuff from back then, that I really did try hard to get the best picture that was available to me.
And every other photographer was in the same position as you, right?
Correct. You might have newspaper photographers who can, when an athlete is coming down to finish line, pop in a new roll of film. Because their budgets were unlimited. Whereas for us freelancers, every roll of film was costed a lot of money. So, you say to yourself, "maybe I can get by with half a roll".
But yes, pretty much everyone was in the same boat. We'd all have to sit in the same spots. We were all corralled in the photographer's area. You really can't do anything much more creative than someone else. The only difference is being a couple of feet away from each other.
I feel like I tried my hardest. But you know, the stars were in my eyes. It was our home Olympics and it just felt like a big fairy take to me.
So the biggest gamechanger that affected your approach is the technology?
Oh, absolutely. And now we're now stepping into an era where these cameras…the amount of stuff that can shoot is just off the charts.
After Sydney, I entered one photo of fencing into a photography award and won best action photo of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
Was it one of those photos that you look back at now and aren't happy with?
No, it is a good photo. I just caught a very unique moment.
I'll try to make it quick.
I was coming home from a day of maybe taekwondo or action sports, passing a gold medal fencing match. I could hear a lot of cheering and I thought it was close to the end and must be a big match.
By the time I sit down in my spot, there was only one or two points left to determine who won the gold. I popped in my roll of film - a roll of 24. That's all I had left. I thought maybe I'd get a picture of a great celebration or a dejection picture, but just as I sat down, they both lunged for each other and it looked like they'd hit each other at exactly the same time.
So, I had two fencers, jumping, celebrating, thinking they'd won the gold medal. What made that photo unique was that they both looked at the judge while jumping for joy. That was the very first frame I took and the one that won the award.
I'm just looking at it now on your website. Amazing.
That was the first frame of fencing I'd ever taken. I got 23 other photos of celebration and they were all wonderful. When I walked away, I'd spent a maximum of five minutes shooting.
It was such a rare moment because you usually get one person celebrating and one looking sad. I was sitting behind the main judge and so both fencers look like they are looking at me.
That really helped my career early on. I was being introduced by people as Delly, the guy who won the best photo of the 2000 games. Usually, the photos that won the top award were of the 100m sprint. I'd beaten all of those. I finally thought that I could make a living from this. I'm not that bad. I really do have a future.
And I made sure everyone knew about that award.
It's interesting. You've said that technology was the main thing that changed your approach, but over all those games do you feel as if you have developed new strategies, or parts of your personality, that have helped?
With maturity and experience comes... your brain thinking ahead all the time. You end up knowing some sports very well, and you try and anticipate moments. Let's say that at the end of the 100m sprint - you've done a little bit of research, who's likely to win or whatever.
And then where do you place yourself, you don't go right on that finish line. Because by the time they cross that line, and they keep running the bend, it's a second or two before they start to celebrate.
You become a lot 'sports smarter'. You have all your camera gear ready for that - you've got the right lens on, you've got the right exposures all ready to go, you make sure your battery is fresh. It's then a case of becoming one with the moment and the camera and the way you're thinking.
It doesn't work every time but you're using your judgement in the best way you can.
I'm guessing you also handle the failures better now.
Yeah, and if it fails then use a Plan B or whatever the case may be.
I have made mistakes. My classic one was the first time I went to shoot Usain Bolt, because obviously it'd be nice to have his photo in your portfolio. Two Jamaicans were coming down in lane four and five and they're both in the same uniform and were going so fast and you've only got so many seconds.
I picked the wrong guy and missed the finish line crossing. Plan B was wait until Usain celebrated and did his famous thunderbolt pose. I now have that photo in the portfolio.
How is it that with Getty Images and all the big newspapers that you've managed to stay so close to the Australian Olympic presence, as a freelancer? I'd imagine that's rare?
It is nowadays, and I might not have thought it would be rare, but so many people have commented that It is.
In my early days, we had magazines and books, and it was a freelance world where the best shot wins, makes the cover of the book or whatever. That has died with the advent of the Internet and agencies and so forth.
I felt like I had an advantage because clients, particularly sports bodies, wanted to work with someone personal. They preferred the little corner store as opposed to the big Woolworths or Coles, if that makes sense. They wanted specialised attention.
They wanted the same person answering the phone that was taking the photo. If in the middle of a match, there's a handshake between the CEO and the new sponsor, they could call me come up from the field and ask me to capture it.
When it's an agency, they won't. Sports photos are their mainstay. That personal attention got me further than most photographers. Many photographers have come and gone. Photographers that were maybe even better than I am but they never had the business skills.
I came from the marketing world. I understood they needed a shot of that athlete running past that particular sponsor sign. It may not be the greatest photo, but it's the best thing for their marketing purposes. That's one thing.
A lot of my clients would also say I was a good storyteller. So, as well as the standard running shot, I may have captured them running past a beautiful temple. I was telling a time and a place for that image.
And that's something you're conscious of, and not a happy accident?
Absolutely. The last few years, the number of compliments I've received from newspaper photographers... they maybe thought I was a bit of a cowboy at the start because I was a freelancer but now they realise that my work is of quality. I've been able to keep my clients because of my ethics and professionalism and business skills, but it's also good photography.
I get so many compliments, even to the point where some of my heroes say that I'm their hero. I blush when I hear that.
When you're told you're a great storyteller, is that kind of what you're talking about on your website with 'redefining and reimagining professional sports photography'? It's the narrative aspect?
Correct. I feel like every truly great sports photographer does it that way. The guys coming in now, they try to impress by doing too many things. People like myself or those we consider great; they're getting the fundamentals done properly. Guys coming in are trying to hit level 10 when they should be starting at 2 and working their way up.
Were you that way when you were young?
Definitely. I do remember one client saying to me, when I was shooting triathlon: "we're hiring you because you're a storyteller, so please don't shoot the sport according to how it's been done in the past. Just do it your way." That's probably the best thing I heard.
I've now been shooting triathlon for 35 years, that comment from that client made me come back a bit from thinking that I was at a level 10. I wasn't, but I could work my way up.
Has there ever been a time where you knew right away, as soon as you took a photo, that you'd captured something pretty iconic?
Yes. I watched the documentary the other night to about Cathy Freeman. That night was a special moment for everyone that was at the stadium, and the whole country. While Cathy never gave us the reaction all us sports photographers wanted, it was a very genuine reaction. She sat down and didn't celebrate - she just showed that all that pressure was lifted off his shoulders. It was a beautiful, genuine reaction.
We knew that an image of Cathy in that moment would be a historic one. You'd be hard pressed to find one person to say that wasn't the best moment in sport in the country.
Let's talk about your upcoming exhibition in Paris.
So, six or seven months ago I received an email from the Australian Embassy in Paris, France. They were suggesting having an exhibition through or prior to the Paris Olympics. They decided on a photo exhibition.
After they did their research, I guess, they realised I had shot every Olympics since Sydney, which was perfect for their plan, because the exhibition was meant to get from Sydney through to Brisbane 2032 (not sure how they're going to cover Los Angeles and Brisbane).
I thought it was a great, great idea and said that I'd absolutely be interested.
I thought the Australian Olympic Committee might have thrown my name out, but they hadn't. They weren't aware of it. The people running the exhibition must have found my name through the internet.
So, it was a case of sending them what I had, over the Olympics, only Australian content - so Australian athletes. When they finally made the decision, I prepared all the images and flicked them over by WeTransfer. They accepted them and have taken full control over putting it together. I'm not sure what it'll look like, but I have faith in them.
I'm staying outside of Paris and working with the Australian swim team for the next couple of weeks. A few of us are planning to go down to the exhibition when we have a day off. That's when I'll get to see it for the first time.
I can't even imagine how that would feel.
I'm not sure if I'll be announced or-
If they'll roll out the red carpet...
[Laughs] They've talked about me attending it when school excursions are visiting, and also about a VIP function, but I am not sure.
I guess take it one hour at a time?
Yeah, exactly right.
Does it feel like a watershed moment in your career, or an end of an era and the beginning of a new one?
It's not the beginning of a new one. I'm closer to the end of my career, I guess. This is a wonderful recognition, an amazing record. The fact that I can say that I've now got an Olympic exhibition at the Paris Olympics, and that the exhibition space is under the Eiffel Tower - there wouldn't be too many photographers that could say that.
A few years back, during COVID, I did win a Lifetime Achievement Award. That was also an amazing recognition.
This is not my finale or final act, but it is one of those things that you would like to have when you know you're at the tail end of your career.
If, by some reason, every photo you've ever taken was going to miraculously disappear and you can only hold onto one - which would it be?
It has to be the fencing one. It was that moment where I actually thought I could make it at this career. Some people say it's the photo that should be on my headstone. I'm still introduced as the guy who won that award for it.
Is there anything at these upcoming games that you really want to capture, or anything still on your overall bucket list?
I know when I get back from Paris, I'll start looking at bucket list items - but Wimbledon is definitely on it. I've always wanted to do it but I still haven't quite worked it out.
Prior to COVID, I was going to travel the world and photograph women's boxing. I had all these boxers lined up and then we couldn't fly. So that one fell apart. I've got a couple of projects like that in mind.
I was going to ask for your advice to sports photographers, but before I do... I saw on your website that you go beyond the actual taking of the photos; that you've created a few collections that ask questions about sports and art and philosophy. Is this a recent development in your career?
It's come with maturity and evolution of my craft. I do now feel like there is some Zen to this.
Photographers nowadays, they buy the camera, the lenses, and some come to me and ask "so what aperture setting did you have. What shutter speed?" And they want me to give them a "well, x times y plus z will give you the perfect photograph".
That's not the sole truth to getting a great picture. I feel like the great photographers in this country work along those lines of calm and thought and being in the moment and listening to what's happening and seeing what's happening.
You look, and one is looking through the viewfinder, but the other eye is also looking around the whole environment. There is a centre to it all, and a flow. So when it does happen and you get a great picture - you're actually part of that dance, if that makes sense.
It does make sense.
I really do believe in that. The good photographers will get to an event early and relax and eat properly and, and be in a very good place. They're not running into the stadium because they couldn't find parking. There is a Zen when you're looking at light, you're looking at the shadows, you're looking at colours - you're looking at the shapes that are behind the athlete or the subject.
And you look and at it all and visualize how you think that image is going to look. And I feel the longer you do it, the more accurate that becomes.
Great answer. It also sounds like you've answered my advice to sports photographers question too.
Yeah, but I guess my advice to sports photographers is just get the fundamentals right at the beginning. Learn light. Light is a big deal. People forget that.
Photography is the recording of light on a particular...well, nowadays sensor. Get the fundamentals and learn, but don't expect formulas.
Then there's also the business skills like learn how to deal with clients. Do your invoicing properly, have a proper website. You'd be amazed by how many young people don't have websites, they only have a Facebook or Instagram page.
You've got to learn the business skills and even if it's buying books on marketing, or how to start a business, or doing a marketing course at university or a tech. Sometimes, you'll get more value out of that than a photography course.
Before the final whistle blows, is there anything else you'd like to tell us?
If I was to finish tomorrow, I pretty much got to 99% of where I dreamed that I'd be.
That's more than a lot of people can say.
To have gone this far is the absolute bonus. I'm proud of what I've done. I'm very proud. I can walk away with so many memories and friends and things I've done and things I've seen. And I love sports. To see what I've seen, to be in the back rooms of some sports, and to see athletes acting like humans and not sports people. It's just, you know, it's I'm very privileged in that respect.
I'm privileged even to do this interview.
You should be very proud and we look forward to seeing what you capture at the Olympics.
Thank you. Take care.
See Delly’s work here. Browse his Instagram here.