Canon Professional Network - Kai Pfaffenbach

He’s covered Olympic Games, World Cup finals, wars in the Middle East and papal funerals. Kai Pfaffenbach, Reuters’ senior photographer based in Frankfurt, speaks to John McDermott about how not making it in soccer led to him becoming one of sports great shooters.

Had Kai Pfaffenbach grown another 10cm as a teenager, global news agency Reuters might never have gained the services of one of its most accomplished and versatile photographers. Like most German boys growing up in the Seventies, with his country crowned as World Champions, Kai was crazy about soccer. He was a good enough goalkeeper to be considered a prospect for a professional career.

Playing in his local town of Hanau, he came up against another goalkeeper keen to make it in the professional game. Whereas Kai stopped growing, the other boy didn’t. His name was Oliver Kahn, one of the greatest goalkeepers of his generation, captain of Germany and the first on the team sheet at Bayern Munich. The two are now good friends and Kai has ended up photographing Kahn many times, including at European and World Cup finals.

Friend and German national goalkeeper Oliver Kahn.

Kai accepted his fate and decided to concentrate on his education. He studied journalism, politics and history, first at Darmstadt, then at Frankfurt University. “As a journalism student I was offered the chance to do part-time work for a local radio station as a reporter and presenter and I took it,” recalls Kai. “I also began taking pictures for local newspapers, but shooting really was just a way to make some extra money”.

Perhaps unusually in Germany, Kai has never had any formal education in photography. But as he became more interested and proficient at taking pictures, his work was noticed by one of Germany’s leading newspapers, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and he was given a job as a regular freelance contributor in 1994. “The experienced photographers at the paper, guys like Wolfgang Eilmes, Helmut Fricke and Wonge Bergmann, really helped me to survive and grow. In 1996 I also began to get freelance assignments from Reuters, though most of my work was still for the paper,” Kai says.

In 1998, Reuters offered Kai the opportunity to become a permanent stringer and he didn’t hesitate to accept. Three years later, he was offered a full-time staff job and by 2005 he was a senior photographer at Reuters.

“There was only one reason I left the paper to join a big agency. I wanted, at least once in my life, to cover the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. This dream came partly true for me in the summer of 2000 when I was one of the Reuters team covering, first, the European Football Championship in the Netherlands and Belgium, and then the Sydney Olympics.”

It didn’t take Kai very long to realise that this was not only fun, but also a great challenge to face-off against the world’s best sports photographers. Since then he has covered every Olympics, European Championships and a
World Cup.

Kai (first photographer on the right) follows a Chinese gold medalist at the Athens Olympics.

Although Kai’s first love is sports photography, his commitment to photojournalism transcends the glamour of occasions like the Olympics and the World Cup. Reuters is equally renowned for its coverage of hard news and world events and Kai has been a key part of the agency’s coverage of some of the biggest, and in some cases, most dangerous and challenging, stories of the last decade.

“As an absolute rookie in 1998, I flew to Istanbul a few hours after the deadly earthquake, having absolutely no idea what I was about to face. I think my inexperience made it easier to stay focused on solving the technical problems I faced in the devastation, and on communicating with the local people, while surviving on only four hours of sleep a night. I experienced the smell of death for the first time in my life. Looking into the faces of survivors, young and old, and listening to their prayers I felt an obligation to take the best images I could. Looking back now it seems bizarre to me that those pictures made the cover of Time Magazine and marked the start of my international photojournalism career.”

In late summer of 2001, Kai was preparing to take pictures at his best friend’s wedding when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He missed the wedding and jumped on the first Lufthansa flight allowed into New York after the attacks.

“Although there was a great need in the rest of the world to know what was happening on the ground after that horrible attack, it seemed to many of the photographers that the Americans would have preferred, at least initially, not to have had us there,” he says.

“To make my way every day from the Reuters office and our hotel, both in Times Square, to Ground Zero was a real challenge. The whole world knew what had happened but it was almost impossible to work. It would have been a lot better if the authorities had allowed the media better opportunities to show how tragic and horrifying this story really was.”

The emotional dimension of working in the aftermath of such a tragedy is something Kai talks about with clarity, and with the voice of someone who has been deeply affected by the experience:

“The problem for news photographers the world over is that we can get too ‘familiar’ with such horrible scenarios very quickly. When I have to do this kind of work I always try to keep some distance. I’m not sure I could take the objective pictures I must take if I got too involved emotionally.

“That doesn’t mean you roll through the streets like an ice-cold rock, but you need to have some distance in order to be an objective observer. To take pictures of grieving people searching for missing loved ones, in an acceptable way, is very difficult. You need to be close enough to show emotions, but also show respect for that person’s situation. From time to time in New York, I just stopped shooting these moments and tried to concentrate on more technical things like the heavy construction equipment or silhouettes of people working in the rubble or on organising my work.”

The next time Kai was dispatched to cover a major story in a ‘hot zone’ it was a full-on war. As coalition forces were preparing in Kuwait for the second Gulf War, he was assigned to be an ‘embedded’ correspondent with the Third Infantry Division of the US Army as it prepared to invade Iraq.

“This was to be the biggest challenge of my professional life so far,” he recalls. “The concept of the ‘embed’ was something completely different, living the life of a soldier as part of a convoy rushing from Kuwait through the desert towards Baghdad. It was not just the fear of getting shot while traveling with one of the two sides in a war zone. There was also no possibility to take a shower for four weeks and no toilets, just a hole in the ground that you had to dig next to tanks which were firing and being fired upon. No hostile environment in the world could have prepared you for this experience. Sitting on a proper toilet in a Kuwait City hotel seemed to me to be an absolute luxury.”

More recently Kai was sent to cover the conflict on the Lebanon-Israel border, an experience, he says, that did not affect him emotionally as much as the Gulf War assignment:

“The constant threat of Hezbollah rockets coming down indiscriminately was the biggest problem we had to worry about while covering the ground offensive of the Israeli troops going into southern Lebanon,” he says.

But another problem of a very different kind was about to reveal itself. A Reuters’ stringer in Lebanon was found to have altered photographs in a significant way, triggering a worldwide controversy that briefly embarrassed Reuters and provoked intense industry-wide discussion of photojournalistic ethics, and in particular, over the use of post-production techniques. The occurrence of similar incidents at other agencies and newspapers has ensured that this debate continues around the world.

“Our responsibility is to report the objective truth,” he says. “Altering the content of images for whatever reason is an absolute no-no. My own use of Photoshop is quite limited. I like to use just a few tools, mainly levels and curves for proper exposure and contrast control, then a nice crop and possibly a little darkening at the edges, but that’s it − essentially no different from what was available to us in the days of the traditional darkroom.

“It’s the same with staging a picture. I don’t like set-ups. But there are still photographers around who can’t resist ‘building’ or ‘improving’ an image. Recently, I was shooting a World Cup ski jumping event alongside two colleagues from other big agencies.

From where we were shooting it was impossible to avoid having a large steel cable from the gondola visible in the background of our pictures. But in the published images of one of these two colleagues it wasn’t there and I assume it was because he removed it later in Photoshop. In my view that is an absolute killer to all ethics in photojournalism. It leads people to question the moral and ethical standards of everybody’s work, not just that of those ‘black sheep’ who do this. I have to confess that from time to time I am unable to hold back and I end up arguing about it with them.”

Working for Reuters is not just about war and sport. Occasionally, Kai gets to do off-beat features, usually ideas that he generates himself. “Covering the news, there’s usually not a lot of time for doing features. However, Reuters supports any good ideas you bring in and tries to give you the time to realise a project.”

Kai explains a recent story he was able to do close to home: “There lives, in my neighbourhood, a 65-year-old bodybuilder. As a younger man, he won Mr Universe twice and was also World Champion, and a former training partner of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He now runs his own gym in Hanau. He plans to compete for the last time in an international championship later this year. I was able to follow him in training twice a week for two months to do the story. Being able to go back again and again like that is a luxury that enables you to get a picture that is as close to perfect as possible.”

These days, a part of Kai’s life has come full circle. Four years ago, at the age of 33, he decided to return to his earliest passion, playing soccer, and he now, when work allows, keeps goal for the local amateur team in the German Fifth Division.

It took a while for him to break into the starting team, but according to Kai: “I’m much more dedicated now and after a lot of hard practice I am finally playing regularly. While travelling the world to cover assignments it’s important to have a base you can always return to, in private life as well as in sport. My teammates, mostly students and guys 10 to 15 years younger than I am and doing more ‘normal’ jobs, take me for who I am as Kai their teammate and not as the old guy who goes around the world taking pictures of heroes like Kahn, Beckham and Ballack, and who sometimes manages to bring home an autographed jersey. And this means a lot to me. It’s great just to talk with them as I normally only meet professional colleagues or the people I have to photograph.”

And the future? Kai is already involved in planning for Reuters’ coverage of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing where he will lead their coverage of the athletics events. “Working in a team of top professional photographers and meeting and challenging competitors like AP and AFP is pure pleasure for me.”

Kai’s Influences

“My way of working, but not the style of my pictures, is influenced by a number of photographers. First to give me a hand at the agency was Wolfgang Rattay, former chief photographer for Germany and now Reuters’ senior photo correspondent. He helped me to sharpen my senses as a journalist and to understand that when shooting for a big agency like Reuters it’s very important, aside from making the creative pictures, to make sure you have the picture that tells the story.

“Two other Reuters colleagues − Jerry Lampen from the Netherlands, a World Press Photo winner, and Damir Sagolj from Sarajevo − have also helped me through some difficult times. Jerry, a good friend, always shares a laugh, and his tips and tricks with the camera and Photoshop are absolutely invaluable. Damir is someone very special, even within Reuters. His approach to working is great. Sometimes he covers a scene and nobody realises he was even there.

“Reuters North America chief photographer Gary Hershorn is brilliant with his use of remotes to cover sports and he showed me the ins and outs of using them in difficult or unusual locations to get pictures I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to make.

“While I’ve never wanted to be ‘a photographer just like...’, I have always looked at the work of Don McCullin with great respect. He is a great photographer who did great work under difficult conditions at a time when technology was not what it is today.

“The sports photography of the old Allsport was always quite impressive to me. And it’s great to see the work of the Sports Illustrated guys like Simon Bruty, Bob Martin and Bill Frakes. They always produce outstanding results but are never afraid to experiment. And they are great colleagues to work with − always fair and helpful, always willing to help younger photographers.”

Tom Szlukovenyi, Reuters’ global pictures news editor, on Kai Pfaffenbach:

“Kai is one of the best photographers Reuters has and few can match him when it comes to shooting sports, especially soccer. It is not only that he knows the game intimately; he also has formidable reflexes and can predict the next moment in the action. Most importantly has an incredible desire to win and be the best.”

Technical: “I have utter confidence in my Canon equipment which has served me well for 15 years. At the moment, I travel with two EOS‑1D Mark II N bodies, an EOS‑1D Mark II and the incredible EOS‑1Ds Mark II. I’m looking forward to later this year when Reuters will provide me with the new EOS‑1D Mark III.

“I use the entire range of Canon EF lenses, from the 15mm f/2.8 fisheye up to the 500mm f/4L IS. Working with one of the EF1200mm f/5.6L lenses (and there aren’t too many of them in existence) during the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005 was one of the most exciting technical moments in my career, not least because I had to climb up a seven-story scaffolding on the opposite side of St. Peter’s Square in Rome with that huge lens plus a tripod on my back!”

“When it’s sunny, the EF16‑35mm f/2.8L USM and EF70‑200mm f/2.8L IS USM are my ideal reportage lenses. I also carry an EF1.4x II extender. In a hostile environment traveling light is absolutely necessity, so two cameras and two lenses usually do. I stick with an EF24mm f/1.4L USM and an EF135mm f/2L USM especially when there’s not much light. Sometimes I’ll even use just the EF28‑300mm f/3.5‑5.6L IS USM, but it depends on the circumstances and, of course, the light. But I’ve always got a wide angle, ready to react quickly.

“Working in hostile conditions requires special equipment. In certain regions body armor is absolutely mandatory. I’ve met younger colleagues so full of adrenalin that they forget to take their helmet or flak jacket from the car or hotel. Of course in such situations colleagues help each other out across agency lines.”

Kai Pfaffenbach: In keeping with the best

Kai’s Influences

Kai Pfaffenbach

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