“I often wander aimlessly”

Sebastian Wells is one of over 700 photographers at the Beijing Olympics, but he has a different focus than his peers. In the interview he talks about special motifs, his favorite moment and the conditions in China.

When the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing come to an end this Sunday, fights for medals in more than 100 competitions have been broadcast around the world on a wide variety of channels. Especially in times of corona restrictions and few visitors on site, the (moving) images play a special role in conveying the major event. And for many of the photojournalists reporting from Beijing, the busy weeks are like a sporting competition.

Photographer Sebastian Wells, born in 1996 and a member of the Ostkreuz photo agency, has been accompanying major sporting events for years. Unlike most of his local colleagues, however, Wells eludes the photographic competition for best sports pictures. He takes the liberty of not focusing on the presentation of the sporting winners. Instead, he shows employees, spectators, helpers and athletes with almost equal rights in their respective tasks in the game of games and in this way enables a subjective look behind the scenes of the production.

Speaking to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Wells discusses his experiences over the past two weeks, the specifics of these Olympics and the changing meaning of photojournalist work on the ground.

How are you in Beijing? Are you happy with your photos so far?

I’m fine given the circumstances. For many photographers, the Olympic Games are characterized by lack of sleep and extreme exertion. It’s a lot of pressure to deal with the simultaneity of so many events, not wanting to miss a lot and doing a good job every day. Two Olympic Games in one year (the postponed summer games took place in Tokyo last summer, ed.) are definitely a special challenge and a great physical strain. Despite all my doubts about traveling to Beijing at all, I am quite satisfied. Despite all the limitations, I think I took some pictures that describe the nature of the games today.

This is your fourth time photographing at the Olympic Games. What do you want to achieve with your photos?

I would like to work on a contemporary photo series that reflects Olympia for what I think it is: an extraordinarily political event.

What excites you about photography of sporting events anyway? Aren’t there enough Olympic Games photos yet?

There really are enough pictures of the Olympic Games. The modern games are a media festival. Agencies and newspapers sometimes prepare for this for years. For most, working at the Olympic Games carries a lot of prestige. However, I often find the photographic representation of the games irrelevant. As a rule, it is an industrial mass production of photos of the athletes or illustrative images that have little depth in terms of content.