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We caught up with multi-award winning sports photographer Mark Pain for this month’s News, Sports and Entertainment Spotlight.

Mark has over 25 years experience in the field of sports photography, working for both editorial and corperate clients alike, and capturing the action at premier league football matches pretty much weekly.

Mark won British Airways Olympic Photographer Of The Year 2012 at the prestigious UK Guild Of Picture Editors Awards, and set up the first dedicated Sports Photography School in the UK in 2011.

LG: Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into sports photography.

MP: I became a professional sports photographer when I was 22, which is over 30 years ago now!

I got given my fist SLR camera when I was 13, a Fujica STX-1, and I first started taking pictures of sport at my school sportsdays at about 15. I remember going on a week-long school cricket tour of the West Country around about that time, and a family friend lent me an old M42 screw 400mm telephoto lens which I just loved. It was dark and difficult to focus, but I loved using it.

Autofocus didn’t even exist back then, and the true test of a sports photographer was whether he or she could follow-focus fast moving action manually. Kingston were the top basketball side in the UK at the time, and I cut my teeth manually focussing-wise sitting on the court with just two lenses to start with, an 85mm f1.4 and a 35mm f1.4. I’d moved onto using Nikon cameras by then and had a Nikon FA body.

Both lenses had huge manual focussing rings which really helped and that’s where honed my focussing skills. I’ve since realised that if you could successfully manually focus on fast close up basketball players,  then you could pretty much focus on anything. I was also shooting lots of motorsport for a South American motorsport magazine which started my love of shooting fast cars and ultimately F1. I stayed at Jessops for three or four years, mainly to build up my equipment. As staff we were able to buy items that customers had part-exchanged for really good prices, so it was a really good place to be in that sense as well.

I was a Wimbledon FC fan and they kindly let me into Plough Lane to photograph their football matches every now and then, which was where my first professional football photography ambitions came from. This then led to me getting access to other top football grounds and I started to supply colour slides to the football magazines in the UK, as well as driving photographic prints up to the Picture Desks of all the National Newspapers in London on a Saturday night, and that was that!

LG: What made you want to become a sports photographer over other photography areas?

MP: I got asked to work for several National Newspapers over the next few years, as well as doing some freelance shifts for the top sports photo agency of the time called Allsport,  which then went on to become Getty Images. After a while it became clear that I was going to have to choose between either working for a sports photo agency or a National Newspaper; you couldn’t do both.

I chose the newspaper world and went onto work at the Mail On Sunday for almost twenty years, becoming their Chief Sports Photographer and being lucky enough to be sent all around the world for many years, regularly shooting the biggest events in world sport such as football World Cups and many Olympic Games.

I’ve been lucky enough to win many awards through the years, including being named as the Olympics Photographer Of The Year for my work at the London 2012 Games, as well as becoming a Nikon Sports photography Ambassador.

I’ve been completely freelance for several years now, mainly shooting Premier League and international football. I still get to shoot other big events such as the Olympic Games and Ryder Cups etc, but as it’s now all self-funded I have to be sure that I can make money out of an event, not just go because I want to!

LG: How do you prepare for major events such as the Euros?

�ѱ�:��My preparaton for the Euros is pretty much done. Germany is a great country for football and has some great stadiums. It’s also pretty easy to get around so I’m driving from match to match throughout the tournament, and basing myself around the Dortmund / Dusseldorf / Gelsenkirschen football triangle – it could be fab! Luckily UEFA usually give accredited photographers car park passes for the matches, so I can base myself just of of town and drive in for each match daily, which really helps to keep the accommodation costs at an affordable level.

I’ll be shooting the Euros and the Paris Olympics on the Nikon Z9, which is a completely stunning camera, especially when partnered with Nikon’s new Z400mm f2.8 lens. Lots of photogprahers now have to prioritise sending their pictures back to their offices and editors as quickly as possible, but the quality of the sent image is still my priority. Don’t get me wrong, I still get my images out as quickly as I can, but I still shoot RAW for the ultimate quality, and take time to edit each image myself before I’m happy to send it to the world through �ڹϳ���Live News.

LG: Which event are you most looking forward to photographing this year?

MP: It’s a busy summer of 2024 ahead with the Euros (football) coming up, followed shortly after by the Olympics in Paris. Both could be amazing picture-wise,  and England also have a good chance of going far in the Euros which would be great. But we always say that don’t we!

LG: How do you get your images onto �ڹϳ���so quickly? Do you do it yourself or do you have a team of people that help?

MP: I still do it all myself, still put a card into a card reader on my Macbook to edit the image, whereas most other agency photographers will be sending their images to their offices straight from the camera to be edited at the other end. I can’t always compete with that speed which why I prioritise the quality and try to make sure I miss absolutely nothing during the game. But one photographer can’t be everywhere!

LG: What’s your all-time favourite shot from your collection and why?

MP: I suppose my most well known image is the one of Tiger Woods firing his ball straight at my camera during the Ryder Cup. The image became iconic all around the world and also became in internet sensation (mainly because of “Cigar Guy” standing on the right) as I was able to capture a great moment, of pretty much the biggest sports star in the world during one of the biggest tournaments. I’m just so pleased that I was able to bring my photographic A-game to the fore at that crucial moment, the biggest moment of my career so far, and it just wouldn’t have happened without those years and years of practice and experience behind me.

LG: What advice would you give other photographers who would like to begin their journey in sports photography?

MP: The best advice for young sports photographers is to practice and practice, to shoot as much and as many different sports as you can, and never be afraid to make a mistake. We only ever become better photographers by making mistakes and learning from them. Then when the big pictures happen in front of you during your career, you have all the skills and experience in your back pocket to maximise the chance of you capturing that unique moment of action.

We hope you enjoyed this month’s spotlight with Mark, to find out more you can check out his website , and see his full collection on �ڹϳ���here. Be sure to check back next month when we’ll have another insightful spotlight for you to delve into.