I photographed NBA and Final Four (among other sports for Reuters, and occasionally Sports Illustrated) in the late 1990s and don’t recall their ever being 60 p

I photographed NBA and Final Four (among other sports for Reuters, and occasionally Sports Illustrated) in the late 1990s and don’t recall their ever being 60 photographers on the court, but back in those days, we’d have film runners that would get our film from courtside and run it up to a makeshift processing room then scan the negatives on their suitcase-sized scanners and terminals that communicated over a modem. It could take 20 minutes to transmit a single photo. I started at 18 as an assistant to the Reuters staffer, but quickly got promoted to shooting rather than running. Crazy to be 18 and right there for key moments of some of the biggest American sports of that era. Also, some of us would be allowed to set up photo strobes in the rafters which would provide a flash that would let us shoot on 100 ISO film. The majors would each have four strobes in the rafters and we’d also set up remote triggered cameras behind the backboard and sometimes aiming down from the rafters. Interestingly, despite far better technology, the quality of the “moments” photographers have captured hasn’t really improved much. Most of us didn’t trust the autofocus and did everything manually. For Reuters, even something that was slightly soft focused would never make the cut. It was either perfect, or it didn’t ship. I remember when the AP started testing these gargantuan Kodak digital cameras that were essentially these modified Nikons. They were novel but the quality wasn’t good enough for the magazines. Fun times. If anyone is interested my photo of the San Antonio Spurs’s Sean Elliot was one of Sports Illustrated’s All Time Clutch Shots. Sports photography (at Reuters at least,) was all about the reaction shot rather than peak action, but somehow that Sean Elliot shot still lives on even though photographically it wasn’t that interesting. But I was the only photographer to get the shot that night because all the other agencies got blocked. Unfortunately given those were the film days, I have no idea where all of my negatives are anymore. https://www.si.com/nba/2010/05/28/28all-time-clutch-playoff-shots https://www.si.com/nba/2010/05/28/28all-time-clutch-playoff-...