What does it take to photograph football at the highest level?

David Ramos

Multi-award-winning photographer David Ramos has covered major news and sport across the world, including Brazil (2014), Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022), as part of the Getty Images team producing imagery for world football’s governing body.

“Photographing football’s greatest global event is one of the most unique experiences you can have as a sports photographer,” he says. “It is the moment where everything around the sport comes together in one place. For a photographer, that makes it incredibly demanding but also incredibly special. You are not only covering the action, but you are trying to capture the atmosphere, the emotion, the tension and the meaning of the tournament.

“The story behind this particular image is quite special because, by that point, almost one hour after the official trophy ceremony had happened, the celebration was still completely alive. Messi was surrounded by his teammates, friends and family in the centre of the pitch and all of a sudden he was lifted by Kun Agüero and carried close to the crowd, holding the trophy, with pieces of the goal net around him. It was chaotic and emotional, but it feels very intimate and historic at the same time. It is not only Messi with the trophy. It is Messi inside the emotion of the moment. You can feel the happiness, the noise, the people pushing around him, the smiles. It has that sense of being right in the middle of history.

“Photographically, I like it because it is not perfect in a clean or classical way, but it has energy. The frame is crowded, but that is what makes it work. The wide angle brings the viewer into the celebration, almost as if they are part of the group. Messi is central, the trophy is clear, and everything around him explains the scale and emotion of the moment. For a situation like this you need to react quickly, use a wide lens, stay close and work with a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the movement. These moments are very unpredictable and you have very little control over the composition. The key is to keep photographing, keep moving and to stay calm inside the chaos.”

“This image from Qatar 2022 is one of my favourites because it is very clean and graphic,” says David. “The overhead perspective turns the pitch into a simple green background, almost like a canvas, and Giroud’s body shape gives the picture its strength. There are no distractions, no other players, no advertising boards, no crowd. Just the player, the celebration and the space around him. That simplicity makes the image powerful.

“I took it from the catwalk in the roof of the stadium, a very special position that gave us a completely different angle from the normal pitch-side view. I chose to work from a corner because I wanted to maximise the chances of getting a strong celebration if a goal happened at that end of the pitch. From that high position, the 180-400mm was ideal because it allowed me to react quickly and adjust the framing as the action developed below me. The fast shutter speed froze the movement of the celebration, and f/4 gave enough depth while still keeping the image clean.

“You can plan the position, understand the probabilities and prepare technically, but you can never fully predict a moment like this. Giroud’s celebration was much more spectacular than I could have expected.”

“This is, without doubt, my favourite picture from all the global finals I have covered,” concludes David. “There are many obvious pictures, the teams, stadium, fans, ceremonies, match action. But sometimes the strongest image is hidden in a quiet room away from the pitch. This image is not about the football itself, but about the ritual, security and almost theatrical importance of the trophy before the biggest match in the sport. This photograph is about curiosity.

“What I love is that the trophy, one of the most recognisable objects in the world, appears to be looking out, almost shy, inside the case, while the escorts look completely serious next to it. There is something a little surreal about the scene. The composition is simple and slightly humorous.

“In these situations, you do not have much time to control the scene. You have to read the room, frame quickly and respect the environment. I kept the composition wide enough to include the context: the case, the trophy, the sofa, the two escorts and the plain room. The simplicity of the space helps the picture. Nothing distracts from the strangeness of the moment. But it is a great example of when a simple, strange or unexpected scene can explain the atmosphere around a major event in one photo.”

David’s top tips:

1. Don’t leave too early after the ‘main’ moment. Sometimes the best picture comes after the official celebration, when people relax and the emotion becomes more real. Stay alert, stay close and be ready for the unexpected. In moments like this, access and preparation matter, but instinct matters just as much.
2. Think about probability, not only aesthetics. A unique position is only useful if you understand what can realistically happen from there. Choose your angle with a clear intention.
3. Stay curious, especially before and after the main event. Do not only look where everyone else is looking. Walk slowly, observe the details and trust your instinct when something feels visually interesting. Big events are made of small scenes, and sometimes those small scenes tell the story better than the obvious picture.

Ina Fassbender

With a career documenting Germany’s top-flight league and many of football’s biggest international tournaments, German sports photographer Ina Fassbender has covered Italy (1990), Germany (2006), South Africa (2010), Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022).

“In football photography, so much depends on your seating position,” explains Ina. “At a major event with a news agency, everything is extremely well organised, everyone has a clearly defined role and the entire process is highly structured. That is incredibly important because you are assigned a position and are expected to stick to it. For the Germany versus South Korea group stage match in 2018, I had a position high up in the stands, which turned out to be incredibly fortunate. In that stadium, sunlight created dramatic areas of light and shadow at that time of day. As I realised quite early that Germany was playing poorly, I deliberately began photographing goalkeeper Manuel Neuer in striking light situations that visually reflected the team’s impending elimination. The image later became highly awarded and won me several prizes.

“At the time, I was using the AF-S NIKKOR 180-400mm f/4 TC1.4 FL ED lens with a built-in teleconverter, which was ideal when working from an elevated position, and the camera handled the difficult light-and-shadow conditions exceptionally well, helping me achieve the right exposure. That experience taught me that it is sometimes worth looking for a different position whenever possible, especially one with interesting light. Elevated positions in particular can create beautiful contrasts between light and shadow.”

“Before every football match, it is essential to be well informed,” Ina says. “I always think about whether there might be a particular story developing during the game that I want to follow visually. This image was taken before the group stage game against Japan in 2022. What makes it special is that it is technically a team photo, something that would normally not carry much significance, but in this case it had a very strong message. The discussion at the time centred on the captain’s rainbow armband, and there was intense speculation over whether goalkeeper Manuel Neuer would wear it. Instead, the German team posed for the group photo with their hands covering their mouths, essentially saying: ‘We have nothing more to say about this.’

“I had received information beforehand that the German team was planning to do something unusual during the group photo. Even so, it was still a surprise, and the image ended up being used all over the world. Once again, it shows how important it is to be well informed before an assignment.”

“Moments like that happen in a split second, and your autofocus must already be locked onto the right area,” says Ina. “Thanks to that image, I ended up on front pages across England. In those situations, autofocus technology helps enormously, but it is also important to think ahead and understand the flow of the game, asking yourself how a goal might realistically happen and what the player might attempt next.”

Ina’s top tips:

1. Carry three cameras, if possible, with a 400mm f/2.8 for main action, a 70-200mm f/2.8 for the penalty area and a short lens for close celebrations. A camera with a wide-angle lens behind the goal is also invaluable.
2. During victory laps and celebrations, it is much more practical to move around with minimal equipment, ideally just a wide-angle zoom and a longer telephoto zoom, because carrying too much gear quickly becomes a disadvantage.
3. Trophy ceremonies can be especially demanding. You have to leave your position, push towards the centre and then react quickly when the celebrations move in front of the fans. I used to end up covered in bruises, but now I try to anticipate where the players might go next, and that definitely helps.

Matthias Hangst

Today Matthias Hangst oversees more than 40 staff photographers as Director of Content, Sport for Getty Images across EMEA and APAC, but he has more than earned his stripes pitch-side, having covered Korea and Japan (2002), Germany (2006), Brazil (2014), Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022).

“As a photographer at football’s biggest international tournament, it’s all about delivering on the highest level, on the highest stage, just like the players in the moment,” says Matthias. “You can’t miss moments; you have to get it right.

“Steve Powell’s image of Maradona surrounded by Belgium players in 1982 is one of the most famous football images in the Getty Images archive, and I had that in my head when I went up into the stands for Argentina against Switzerland in 2014. You can never replicate something like that, but I wanted to show Messi in the centre, surrounded by as many players as possible, with no other Argentinian player in the frame, so it felt like it was all about him. I’m not saying it was planned, but there was an intention before the match.”

“From time to time, in certain countries, we are allowed to work from the so-called catwalk, 80 or 100 metres up in the stadium, attached to a rail with a harness, pointing the camera straight down onto the field,” explains Matthias. “It is a unique position, and only a small group of people are allowed up there. It comes with a long process of approval, training courses, safety belts, helmets, sometimes even medical certificates, because you need to be able to work at height. Even within our team only a few people go up, because you need to feel comfortable doing it. The pressure is massive. You are standing above people’s heads, so if you drop even a single small thing, the reality is you could seriously hurt somebody. Everything you take up there has to have a double connection. Every camera, every lens, even your phone, has to be attached. You empty your pockets. You can’t take spare pieces, because everything could fall.

“But it is a mega opportunity. This was Belgium versus England, and a header with six players involved, which does not happen often and is hard to predict from above. I like it because it is a different football image, an angle you do not see every day. I am a big fan of the green grass and the clean background, but it is also about what goes into getting there. You are lucky if six players jump for one header and you can still see the faces, the action, body language, the white line and the colours. In the end, it all just came together.”

“This image was also taken from the catwalk, during the 2022 final,” says Matthias. “Somewhere in this frame you can see Lionel Messi carrying the trophy, and you can also see three of our photographers in the dark blue bibs, including David Ramos. They were allowed on the grass and could walk with him, which is why they are in front of all the regular photographers in green. I had been trusted to go into the catwalk for one of the biggest football matches on the planet, with Messi lifting the trophy for Argentina. It was extremely challenging, very high and hot. The match went to extra time and penalties, so I was up there for more than four hours in total with heavy lenses, not much to drink and no real break. I carried a 600mm and a 400mm so, if you are already worried about dropping something, this was another level.

“At first, I thought the image was not as great as I had hoped, because Messi never really looked up. But the more time moves on, the more I love it. It shows my industry, my business and the nature of what we do. It is maybe the biggest fight for an image I have ever seen in my career.

“I still find little things in it, someone falling from a chair, someone running, another photographer in the crowd. It has everything: spectators, players, families, photographers and emotion. I was 100 metres up, almost like I was sitting on the moon and looking down, but it was a huge moment in football history. What an opportunity.”

Matthias’s top tips:

1. Rethink how you photograph something familiar. You might think football has to be taken at ground level, but going higher can give you a cleaner background, stronger shadows and more graphic shapes. With fewer photographers around you, your chance of creating something different is much higher.
2. Think about things like kit colours, backgrounds, light and contrast. Choose a position that takes such elements into account. Even the greatest and most dynamic football photo won’t be very impressive if these elements don’t come together.
3. Work the position you have. Just because you are not in the obvious prime spot, it does not mean there is no image. There is always something, but it is up to your creativity, focus and planning to find it and to get it right in the moment.