In this photo taken by Kevin Light, Team Canada snowboarder Brooke D'Hondt competes in the women's halfpipe final during the Beijing Olympics.Kevin Light/The Canadian Press/HO/COC
Kevin Light is back in Beijing for the first time since he won gold as a rower at the 2008 Summer Olympics. This time though, the Canadian is on the other side of the camera.
Light was part of the Canadian men’s eight rowing team that was favoured for the gold medal at the 2008 Games, and they delivered. He remembers competing in the hot summer temperatures, celebrating with teammates and then soaking in Beijing – shopping at its markets with friends and family, meeting its people, enjoying its restaurants and visiting the Great Wall.
Light’s first trip back to Beijing 14 years later is very different. Working as a professional photographer at these Winter Olympics, he’s capturing the action and emotion of other athletes – many in the frigid cold of the mountains.
While it’s common to see retired athletes involved in Olympic coverage as broadcasters, Light is a rare former competitor working as a photographer at a Games.
Light, bottom left, won gold as part of the Canadian men’s eight rowing team at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
“I enjoy being around Olympic athletes,” said Light, 42, who is a freelance photographer based in Victoria, taking photos for the Canadian Olympic Committee at these Games.
“I can relate to their experience in a way that I think is very personal, and I think that can come across in the photos.”
Light had experienced Olympic joys and disappointments. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, the Canadian eights placed fifth after falling in a dramatic preliminary race. They won a 2007 world championship and came to the 2008 Games highly touted, then earned their moment in Beijing to celebrate and sing O Canada.
“The peak action moment really in Olympic sport is the celebration; that’s the peak emotional moment,” said Light. “The photos of us celebrating in Beijing are the most special ones, more so than the ones of us actually rowing.”
Light was just starting to get into photography in 2008. He asked questions of the many photographers who shot pictures of him and his teammates. He wanted to learn about the equipment, the skills and the business. He even bought some camera lenses during that trip that he keeps among his gear today.
In the years since, Light studied at the Victoria-based Western Academy of Photography and began shooting sports. He admits he really got going with it at the age of 32, while many of the photographers he meets started out keenly in their teenage years. He had lots of catching up to do, and he put in the work.
As a photographer for the Canadian Olympic Committee, Light says he can relate to the athlete's experience in a 'personal' way.kevin light/The Canadian Press
He worked as a photographer for CBC at the Olympics at Rio in 2016 and Pyeongchang in 2018. At these Winter Games in China, he has captured everything from blazing speedskaters inside Beijing’s Ice Ribbon to cross-country skiers and snowboarders in Zhangjiakou, the mountainous hub some 180 kilometres from Beijing.
The strict venue-to-hotel routine of the Beijing Olympics in a tightly restricted “closed loop” feels kind of familiar to him. It’s not so different from the laser-focused regimen of many competitions he experienced in his career, when he saw nothing of a host city but its water and his hotel room.
His experiences as an outdoor athlete competing in extreme weather have come in handy. He likes working in a team with other COC photographers, strategizing together to get the best shots and keeping each other upbeat when days are long and cold. He draws on things his rowing coach would tell them about keeping a positive mindset.
“When we were here in 2008, it was really hot – like 35 degrees – and the coach would say, don’t reinforce negative experiences,” Light said. “So I don’t make the comments here like, ‘It’s so cold, we’re tired or hungry,’ because they’re not helpful in a team situation. We’re doing a good job of that.”
There’s a lot of strategy to getting the best photos, just as there was in rowing. He has to be prepared in the outdoors with the ideal gloves, clothes and footwear, knowing where to keep his batteries warm, which way an athlete will turn or who they will celebrate with.
While it’s a long way from the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park where Light and his teammates struck gold at the 2008 Games, he sees something especially familiar as he photographs the cross-country skiers at these Winter Olympics.
Light is a rare former competitor working as a photographer at an Olympic Games.kevin light/The Canadian Press
“I’ve really enjoyed it, because it’s the most similar to rowing aerobically,” Light said. “When the athletes were all coming across the line and falling down and breathing hard and spit was going all over their faces, that was totally relatable.”
Beyond a couple of bus rides past some of the recognizable 2008 venues – like the Bird’s Nest or the Water Cube – Light hasn’t seen many of the places he remembers from his Summer Olympic experience in Beijing. He recalls the experience of having his family and friends along to support him – something the athletes here don’t have. He remembers everyone getting some new Oakley sunglasses in Beijing, and having a sushi restaurant open up specially for the rowing gold medalists.
Light relishes the opportunity to learn from great sports photographers at the Games. He’s never shy to ask questions.
Asked if he’s met any photographers who were also Olympians, he shares a fun anecdote.
“There was this Swedish speed skater that won two gold medals so far,” Light said. “After the men’s 5k, he crossed the line and grabbed a camera from one of the photographers and skated around with it taking pictures of his coaches. I thought, hey, that’s the first other gold medalist that I’ve seen that must be a photographer, too.”
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