Poker News / Short-Stacked Shamus / 16 July 2010 / Leave a Comment

The 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event has reached that criticial, exciting stage. Just two more days of play and we'll know which players have survived the field of 7,319 to be this year's version of the November Nine.

I've been at the Rio all summer helping cover the WSOP for PokerNews, and quite often I've found myself working alongside B.J. Nemeth. Nemeth has been reporting on poker for several years, and this year has returned to the WSOP to help cover the goings-on as a photographer.

I thought it would be interesting to talk to Nemeth about his experiences photographing the WSOP, and so during a break this week he and I found some time to sit down and talk.

Short-Stacked Shamus: Here we are again working at another WSOP. What exactly is your title this year?

B.J. Nemeth:: I am a "WSOP Official Photographer" working for GreasieWheels, which has the contract. But I've been calling myself the "official photojournalist," because while there is a team of photographers, I am the only one taking photos and also captioning them and trying to tell the story through them. And I like the name "photojournalist" because it sounds more impressive [laughs].

SSS: How many WSOPs have you covered?

BJN: My first was 2004, so this is my seventh.

SSS: So was last year -- when you were taking photos for PokerRoad -- the first WSOP in which your emphasis was on photography rather than on other kinds of reporting?

BJN: Yes. Before last year I focused primarily on the words and the stories and the updates.

SSS: So where did you get the idea to do a photo blog?

BJN: I think it was in 2008 when The Boston Globe started something which a lot of people have seen now called "The Big Picture" blog. My boss at the World Poker Tour and I both thought when we saw it that something like that would be perfect for poker. So he ended up pitching the idea to Joe Sebok as part of the whole "PokerRoad Nation" package with the Twitter feeds and all that.

Sebok loved it, but at the end of the day there wasn't going to be any room for salary. I could have easily picked up another job taking photos for other people, but I knew if I worked for some other site, they would have specific requirements. You know, they would say they would need me to go take photos of the chip leader, or the final tablists, or this, that, and the other.

With PokerRoad, however, they said "Whatever you want to do, it's your blank slate -- do it." It ended up being a lot of work. It was the hardest I've ever worked at the World Series. It was the most hours I've ever worked, too -- including this year. But it was by far the most satisfying.

SSS: Well, both what you did last year and the 2010 WSOP photo blog you've been creating this year are excellent. I especially like the variety, including the many less-than-standard type photos you include.

BJN: Yes, that's fun. I enjoy showing stuff that most people don't show. I've had conversations with photographers at events saying how they wished a reporter would move so he could get a shot. Or that they wished a player wasn't eating, or whatever. And if you're going for a close-up, then yes, it's horrible if a player is eating. But if you're doing a wide shot, I feel like you're showing people what really happens at final tables if you include the player eating like that. That's what it is! And if a reporter is standing there, that's part of the atmosphere, too. I feel like that's part of the process. I don't want to edit that out.

SSS: And you're not always just shooting the poker. There's a variety of subjects.

BJN: That's true. In fact, the blog entry from last year I got the most positive comments on was one called "Late Night at the WSOP." I just shot the carpet sweeper in the middle of the night in the empty hallway, the crew bagging and tagging the chips after the players leave, the picking up of trash -- all of those kinds of things. And people were like, "Wow, that's cool. I never thought about that." It was showing them something different. They've seen all the hand updates and chip counts and "Here's Daniel Negreanu at the table" and the like, so they really responded to seeing the things that they don't normally see.

SSS: Do you have a particular photo or two that you've taken at the WSOP that really stands out and that you are really proud of?

BJN: There were two photos from last summer that stick out the most in my mind. One is a photo that I've always wanted to do, but it only works if you show the photo large. It was in either the first $1,500 no-limit hold'em event or it might have been the "Stimulus Special" (the $1,000 buy-in NLHE event). Maria Ho was in an end seat, and I'm good friends with her and told her what I wanted to do and she was cool with it.

I got behind her and perched the camera on her shoulder with a wide angle lens, and as she was peeling up her cards I had it to where you could see her cards (in focus), her face (slightly blurry but you could clearly tell it was Maria Ho), and most of the rest of the table (in soft focus). And it was cool because they were all looking at her as it was her turn to act, and she's looking at her cards. So you can see them and you can see the cards. But if you don't run it large, you can't see the cards and the effect is lost. [Click the image to see a full-sized version in a new window.]

I think we did like 20 hands, and I said I would try for cool cards, but I also needed for other people to be looking at her in an interesting way. She had nothing in terms of interesting cards -- the best hand she had was K9-suited. And fortunately that was one when the people in the background looked kind of cool so I used that picture.

I loved that one, but that one meant more to me because I'd been wanting to take that picture for so long. Now the picture that I've gotten the most comments on was the one at Phil Ivey's bracelet ceremony. I believe it was his second bracelet ceremony...

SSS: The one with the big crowd?

BJN: Yes. I was perched on top of the stage. I think it was the second ceremony, because I showed up at the first one and got the same pictures everybody else did. We had all lined up at the front, Jeffrey Pollack presented him with the bracelet, he held it up high, they played the national anthem, and so forth. But for the second bracelet ceremony, I wasn't actually thinking creatively at all. I was just running late, as I often do. I overslept a little bit and rushed to get there, and arrived moments before the ceremony began.

It was the biggest crowd we'd had at the Rio yet, because, you know -- oh my God, it's his second bracelet, Ivey's superhuman, et cetera. And there was nowhere for me to stand! I was looking and thinking, God, if I miss this shot, how embarrassing would it be that the so-called "cool photo blogger" doesn't even get the shot of Ivey getting his second bracelet!

Then I looked up and saw the perch nearby from which PokerNews covers the secondary feature table, and I thought "I wonder if can reach over?" So I climbed up the side -- I couldn't even go around to the steps, because it was too crowded; I had to climb up like on a Jungle Jim and get up there -- and it was about the limit of where I could stand holding my arms out at full reach. So I did it, snapped off a quick few sample shots, and thought "Wow, this looks kind of cool."

I waited for Ivey to show up, and when he did I braced myself. It wasn't a sturdy structure, so I couldn't lean on it at all. And if a security guard saw me, he would've gotten me down so fast. But I knew once I saw the first sample shot that this could be something special.

So I just pointed it down and took a bunch of shots -- I probably took about 30 shots while he was getting his bracelet and holding it up high. The one I ended up choosing was because in it you can see somebody's flash go off, and it had a little bit of the sun flare effect, and it gives you a really interesting photo. [Again, click the image to see a full-sized version in a new window.]

All of the other reporters who saw it were going through picking themselves out. Mean Gene Bromberg was the first to say "I can see myself in B.J.'s photo taking a photo in which you can see B.J." (because I was in the background of his shot). Which I was also conscious of. I was a little nervous when I was taking it, because I didn't want to screw up everybody else's shot.

SSS: Well, it is interesting because with that photo we kind of get to identify with Ivey's perspective a little bit -- being up on the stage with everyone taking pictures and looking at him. And in fact both of these photos that you're describing are presenting the player's perspective, in a way.

BJN: Yes -- Maria Ho looking at her cards and Phil Ivey looking out on the crowd.

SSS: Which is unique, because so many of the so-called "basic" or standard photos like we've been talking about are ones in which the photographer is pointing the camera at the player. In other words, they aren't showing the player's perspective at all, but rather the journalist's perspective or a spectator's perspective.

BJN: I never made that connection, but yes, you're right. That's part of the reason that photos like that had not been seen, because everybody was presenting the reporter's perspective and not the player's perspective.

Much thanks to B.J. Nemeth for taking the time. If you want to see what photos he's taken at this summer's WSOP, head over to the WSOP site and check out his photo blog.

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