Photo Agencies Prepare For Torino

For athletes, the Olympics are a supreme test of speed and skills. For photographers, same story.

As the Winter Olympic Games begin this Friday in Torino, Italy, media outlets from around the world are competing to capture the best photos. Wire services, in particular, will be rushing to transmit pictures as fast as possible.

"It's high stakes every day," says Getty Images chief sports photographer Al Bello, covering his sixth Olympics. "Every best photographer will be there. Every best editor, every best writer, every best everybody."

Photo technology will be much the same as at the Salt Lake City games four years ago, photographers and editors say, but digital cameras and computers have become better and faster. At some events, the lag between a photo being taken and being transmitted to wire service subscribers will be as short as four or five minutes.

For the first time, news services have wired the ski slopes with fiber-optic cabling for photographers to transmit digital photographs down the mountain to their editors, who will review, caption and then send the images from an editing station. In the past, photographers relied on runners to carry memory cards or film down on skis.

"Almost all of our photographers in almost all of our venues will have their cameras hard-wired into our editing centers," says Associate Press director of photography Santiago Lyon.

Though the AP has started using cameras with wireless transmitters in some cases - including the Super Bowl last Sunday - cabling is a better solution for the Olympics, Lyon says. Photographers are usually stationed in one spot during Olympic events, and cable is faster and less prone to interference than wireless.

Photographers still face logistical challenges like operating cameras while wearing gloves and dealing with lenses that fog up if they're carried from a cold outdoor event into a warm hotel room. But the hassle of film has faded away.

"Life got much easier since we got digital," says Tom Szlukovenyi, global pictures news editor for Reuters, who was on his way to Torino this week to supervise the coverage. Szlukovenyi has been to five Winter Olympics and four summer Olympics.

Szlukovenyi says images of alpine skiing tend to do well in Europe, while ice hockey plays well in North America. But worldwide, the most popular images are those of figure skating, he says.

Photographers tend to have their own favorite events. Most don't seem eager to cover curling - too slow. But they say skating and alpine events have great potential, including those famous agony-of-defeat crash pictures.

"I really like the downhill alpine events," says Getty photographer Donald Miralle. He skis the courses first to scope out a good location to set up his camera. "These guys are flying down the hill at 80 miles per hour. Sometimes you get a great photo, sometimes you don't. It's hit and miss?. Everybody wants that crash picture as well."

Miralle also likes the speed of the luge and bobsled races. During some practice runs at the Salt Lake Olympics, he attached a remote camera to a sled to get a picture in motion as it zoomed down the ice.

For Bello, a favorite event is speed skating.

"A lot of it is luck: where you're sitting at the time. It's a big track and you can only hope where a crash might be," he says.

During some ice hockey games, Bello will get to work the "goal cam," a pool camera that photographers take turns operating. Bello will rig one of his cameras with a radio remote and set it in a clear plastic box attached to the goal net. The goal cam produces some interesting shots - when it works.

"Anything can happen. I've had problems when they crash into the net and the goal cam goes crooked.? They could splash ice on it," he says. "You never want to make that your main camera to depend on."

Major photo agencies are sending dozens of staff to Torino. Getty, which has an official partnership with the International Olympic Committee, is sending 42 photographers and support staff to the games. The AP will have 35 photographers and 17 editors. Reuters will have about 40 editors and photographers.

Everyone braces for long hours until the closing ceremony on Feb. 26. Getty Images director of photography Brandon Lopez anticipates working 15- to 18-hour days in Torino.

"The Olympic Games are probably the hardest and most stressful events to cover," he says.