Recently, I saw some content on the scroll of famed gymnast, Simone Biles, taking photographs on the sidelines of a Sunday Night Football game. I didn’t really care to dig deeper beyond the surface of the post that I saw, but apparently she was quoted saying something along the lines of how it was a fun little side-gig for her.
Over the last few years, I’ve seen stories about how other retired professional athletes have gotten into photography as well; Ken Griffey, Jr. and Randy Johnson come to mind immediately. And presumably because of who they are, they’ve been typically easily able to get onto the sidelines of countless major sporting events, and there have been quite a number of cheeky coincidences and posts about them doing photography at these things.
Like how Ken Griffey, Jr. doing photography at a home run derby, and how many participants and spectators have no idea that one of the greatest derby performers was on the field the whole time. Randy Johnson has parlayed one of his most infamous moments in history into his personal logo, eliciting some chuckles among those, whom IYKYK.
In all fairness, the photography of all of these former athletes aren’t necessarily always bad, but at the same time, when retired professional athletes with basically unlimited money are capable of acquiring the best gear possible, with money not being an obstacle, they absolutely should be capable of producing high-quality photography, since their equipment would be capable of overcoming any of the numerous shortcomings they’d have as relatively novice photographers.
However, the thing is, going back to the title of this post, it must really suck for all the lifetime career photographers out there that don’t get the major gigs out there whenever a retired professional athlete with a side hobby, top-tier gear and connections solely because of their name gets them instead. It’s really not fair when the Super Bowl rolls around, and photographers with decades of experience, who have been hustling their whole careers, and have been kicking and scratching for every connection and networking opportunity, gets pushed aside because Simone Biles or Randy Johnson are available, and it would be a fun story for their own social feeds to have these legends doing the photography for their event instead of people whom might really need the gig, its paycheck, and its potential to boost their own portfolios and perpetuate the cycle in a positive direction.
It’s classic rich getting richer, and those in control being too shortsighted to realize that their desperation for relevance and validation is really fucking people who really need the work and wages more than a bunch of bored rich retired professional athletes who think it’s a fun hobby to take pictures. I smirk and take a modicum of enjoyment of seeing legends having fun in retirement, but it doesn’t take long for me to also realize that their retirement hobbies are also putting the screws to career working professionals out there, that need the work way more than they do, and that, really isn’t that cool.
