BPP 226: Andrew Bernstein - The Mamba Mentality and Sports Photography

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Andrew Bernstein is a sports photographer with more than 40 years of experience shooting Basketball. Andy is a Naismith Hall of Fame Photographer and co-authored The Mamba Mentality with Kobe Bryant using Andy’s vast collection of images he captured over his 20-year basketball career.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

  • How Andrew Bernstein got started in Photography

  • How Andy got started photographing sports

  • What Andy learned in his long career photographing Kobe Bryant

  • How working with high-level athletes has made Andy a better photographer

  • How photographing sports has changed over the past 40 years

  • What Andy’s associate photographers must know before taking the court and shooting for him.

Resources:

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Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!

Full Episode Transcription:

Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:00 As a hall of fame photographer, which is a huge accomplishment here, you've been shooting for more than 40 years. Andy, you took Kobe Bryant's first NBA photo, and you also took the last photo of him walking off the court as a professional basketball player. I want to know did that 14 year old kid, Andy Bernstein from Brooklyn, who just picked up his camera ever imagine that that camera in his hand would get him so far and make such a big impact in the world of sports.

Andrew Bernstein: 00:28 Well, that's a great question. And I, I wish I had known, you know, it's a letter to my younger self kind of thing. But the answer Raymond to that is no. I knew that I loved photography that as soon as I picked up a camera at 14, my dad gave me a, an old Canon TL camera and we made a trip out to the Western United States to all the national parks. And I just really loved the feeling of having the camera. In my hand, I love the feeling of seeing something and then translating it through the camera. You know, the camera was a kind of a vehicle for my, whatever I saw in my head. And then seeing the end result when you got the film back, you know, that, wow, that actually was what I was thinking about or seeing, or learning or learning, wow.

Andrew Bernstein: 01:16 Maybe I should have taken a different angle or approached it differently or different time of day or whatever. Right. but I had no idea. I had no idea that photography was, could be a career other than other than our family friend who was like a wedding and bar mitzvah photographer. I mean, I had no idea that photography was, was a business that a huge business, you know, commercially that every single product had to be photographed in some way for its packaging. You know, every magazine cover had to be photographed by somebody, you know, every billboard you saw car ed, no matter what it is, if it had a photograph on it, somebody, and, you know, I kind of had this epiphany later, but some professional photographer had to take that picture, you know and then, you know, news photography as well and war photography, sports, photography, all that stuff in photojournalism. So I really it really started with sort of I don't know, a personal attachment to the camera itself as a way to express myself at 14 years old and then that continued through high school. And when I decided to go to college through a weird set of circumstances, I did pick a college that actually had any photography classes, but we did have a college newspaper daily paper. And that, that, you know, fed my my desire and also my interests.

Raymond Hatfield: 02:55 When you were 14, would you consider yourself a creative or somebody with an eye for creativity or were you more kind of by the books technical aspect?

Andrew Bernstein: 03:05 Oh, I had no idea technically what I was doing. No, I mean, you gotta think about, this was the, you know, in the era of manual focus, manual exposure, you had to have the right film for the right lighting situation, you know I mean, I didn't know anything from anything. I mean, we, we went out my dad and I went out to the national parks and of course everything was de lit, you know, was at night, but it was flipped by the sun one way or the other. So we just use daylight film. I didn't know, like tungsten film existed. I didn't know about high-speed film. We shot Kodachrome the whole time, Kodachrome 60 slides, slide film.

Raymond Hatfield: 03:44 I don't think any photographers today know about you know, different, different lighting film stocks. Right,

Andrew Bernstein: 03:49 Right, right. And so we got, we bought my dad and I bought probably, I don't know, maybe 60 or so rolls of, of Kodachrome in the, in the, you know, yellow box with the orange writing. And with the film came a mailer. I mean, you probably know about this, but I don't think the listeners know about this, that when you bought Kodachrome film and I think even some of their other films as well, it came with a mailer, a prepaid mailer that a as soon as you would shoot the film, you'd stick the film in the mailer find a mailbox anywhere in the United States, stick it in there. It went back to, to Kodak in Rochester and it was re it was sent to your home. Right. So that's how film was co at least Kodachrome film was developed. Ko. Kodak was the only, they had the monopoly on, on Kodachrome.

Andrew Bernstein: 04:38 So you could send black and white or other kinds of slide film to your local Photoshop, but you couldn't send Kodachrome, I guess you could throw your Photoshop because they would send, send it to Kodak, you know? Right. Weird what a weird system. It was weird. Yeah. And they had, you know, they had, like I said, the monopoly, they had, they own the technology. So this is kind of a funny story, which I've told before. And you probably have heard this, but I don't know if your listeners have, but so we get all these mailers and we're, you know, in grand Teton national park, we're in grand Canyon. My dad shoots a roll of film in his Canon camera. I shoot a roll of film to my Canon camera. We go to the next national park. We stick it in the mailer, you know, put it in.

Andrew Bernstein: 05:21 I mean, we didn't have, we didn't think we'd ever see it again. And quite frankly, I mean, you're in like Yellowstone national park and there's like a bale box, you know, who does it, how's that ever going to get to Rochester and then get to my house. But anyway, we did that and we were gone for like two and a half, three weeks. And we come back from the trip and there's this stack my mom like piled up the stack of yellow boxes. It literally came in a yellow, these yellow boxes and there's a stack of them. And you know, it's not differentiated by whose film it was or anything like that or where it was shot. So we start rifle and through the boxes, you know, my dad's looking through them, I'm looking through them. And, and my, my dad's like, Oh, look at this picture of Mount Rainier.

Andrew Bernstein: 06:06 This is unbelievable. And look at this old faithful picture in Bob. And I said, dad, well, can I see that box for a second? You know? And I take the box from him and I'm looking through it. And then I see the, there's a picture of him, like in front of old faithful, there's a picture of him, like in front of, you know, the grand Canyon. I said, but dad, that's my role of film in the pictures. And so he's like, wow, that's pretty good. I kid, you were pretty good. He thought he was like this, this great sort of amateur photographer. He was really a doctor and he should have kept it on his day job. But anyway that really convinced me, you know, it was very empowering. It was very cool to see the end result because, Hey, you're reliving this great trip and a great bonding experience with your dad, but also you're seeing like, wow, you know, I actually took that picture. I created. That was pretty cool.

Raymond Hatfield: 06:59 Yeah. That's gotta be a good feeling. So early on, obviously, you know, you go out and you you're photographing wildlife, you're photographing nature. Tell me how all this transitioned into where you're at today with sports.

Andrew Bernstein: 07:11 Well boy, that's a, that's a big question. So I ended up going, like I said earlier to the university of Massachusetts not because they had a photography program even have a photography class in their communications department a was close to home. It was in Massachusetts, but it was only three and a half hours from my house. So it was literally closer than almost any state college state university of New York college. And I didn't really want to go to college with the same kids I went to high school with. So it was a whole different set of friends and, and they were all into the Boston sports teams and all that stuff. And we hated them, you know, being a new Yorker. But so that was kind of flood, you know, body with, with those guys. And I gravitated towards the college newspaper because I went to a very big high school in Brooklyn and we had a monthly newspaper and we had a yearbook and I ended up in senior year being the editor of both.

Andrew Bernstein: 08:08 So we had a paper at UMass called the UMass daily collegian came out five days a week. And when we were in Western Massachusetts at the time, our paper, our college paper was the town's newspaper like Amherst. They didn't have it, wasn't an Amherst newspaper. It was the UMass paper. And because the next biggest paper, the Boston globe had to be trucked in from Boston. It was printed in Boston. So it was an afternoon paper, you know, back in the day you had your morning edition afternoon edition of the papers. But in our area, in Western mass, when 90, 90 miles West of Boston, we were, you know, we were it. So it was a very prestigious paper and won a lot of awards. And I walked in there. It was like the second week of my freshmen, freshmen year. And I met a guy named Chris born a photo editor. And he looked at me, he looked up from his desk and he, he saw me at a camera around like Canon TL camera around my neck. And he,

Andrew Bernstein: 09:04 He said, Hey kid, you're a photographer. And I said, yeah, because you want to work for me. He was like desperate. And I said, yeah, that'd be great. He goes, go out and shoot this. I don't even know what it was. It literally gave me an assignment that moment to go shoots. Okay. So, you know, I was, I was versed in using the

Andrew Bernstein: 09:22 Dark room. I had to get familiar with their dark room, but I knew how to process film. I knew how to make prints. He taught me how to work on a deadline, out to work towards the design of the page. You know, if it was a front page picture or whatever, and I shot everything, Raymond, I mean, everything from feature pictures to portraits, to news type pictures college protests going on, Jimmy Carter came through our campus for his 1976 presidential campaign. Believe it or not. I had a front page of that. All the the arts events, the, the theater shows the dance concerts the fraternity and sorority parties. And of course, sports, you know, and I love sports. I grew up huge sports fan in New York. I was always the shortest kid on my block. So I knew I would never play like varsity junior varsity.

Andrew Bernstein: 10:15 And I was always the last kid picked, but I love sports. And sports became kind of my thing. Although I did love doing all of the other things that I just described, but I really enjoyed going out and shooting the football games, even in the cold, you know, the basketball games shot hockey, women's sports, a lot of sports. I had never shot before. You know, I have shot rugby. Lacrosse was very big, you know, up in the Northeast sports like that tenants. And then I came out to California, the summer of my well, after my sophomore year as the summer of 77. And my sister is a little known fact, but my sister's an actress and her name is D D Khan. And she was in this little movie that you might've heard of called Greece.

Andrew Bernstein: 11:00 I think I've heard of it. Yeah. And she actually

Andrew Bernstein: 11:03 Played the role of Frenchie in grease. Yeah. The pink hair, you know, the whole thing. So this is my sister, my oldest sister. So I came out to spend the summer with her. I mean, just literally I had nothing to do that summer. And she said, come on out, I'm filming the movie. You can stay with me. You can come to the set. So I ended up going to the set with her every day. And I brought my camera, it was very loosey goosey there. You know, I, I brought my camera and I gravitated towards this set photographer very, and I didn't know at the time, but a very famous what they call the unit photography, the guy who was on set every single day, taking the still photos. His name was Alan Pepe. And he had shot every, almost every amazing, great film for paramount and others, but paramount was his main client.

Andrew Bernstein: 11:51 And anyway, I was kinda, you know, a little bit bold and he was very approachable, incredibly approachable. You would all sit down for lunch together. And he saw me with my camera says, yeah, I see you taking pictures here. And there. He says, why don't you, you know, get them developed, bring them in and show them to me, you know, at lunch sometime. So I did, I found a dark room in Hollywood and rented it. And I went and developed some of my pictures. They're all black and white and I brought them and he, he really looked at them and he gave me some pointers. And then he said to my sister, he said, you know, your brother's got a pretty good eye. You know, I see a lot of young photographers and he's got, definitely has something. And, you know, maybe he should take a bonafide class and like learn, you know, the, all the ins and outs of photography.

Andrew Bernstein: 12:41 You know, just keep in mind. I was really learning on the job at the college newspaper. So he recommended a night class. I leave was on a Wednesday night at art center, college of design in Pasadena. And I went up there and I enrolled, I took the classes, an intro to photography class, kinda like what you're doing here, you know, but back in the dark ages when we didn't have internet, you know, we actually, I had to literally go to a class like Neanderthal. Yeah. And the teacher was great and gave us a sign. You know, there was probably, I don't know, 12 of us in the class and it was a weekly class and I loved doing the assignments. And, but I got to tell you, Raymond after the first class, my sister was living in Hollywood. And if anybody that had ever been to Hollywood, they know the famous sunset strip, right.

Andrew Bernstein: 13:29 My sister lived right off of sunset strip. So you had to drive down sunset strip to get to her apartment. And I remember coming down the Hill from Pasadena where the school was, and then getting on sunset strip, and then it's full of billboards. I mean, it still is today, but it's very famous for having billboards. And w I, I honestly remember looking up and seeing these billboards and seeing wow that somebody took that marble Earl at, you know, and somebody took that Dodge truck ad and somebody took that perfume billboard, and that travel one. And it was like the biggest epiphany in my life. Honestly, it was like you know, this giant light bulb went off in my head. And I, it convinced me that I could have a career in photography somehow. And sports didn't know it was going to be in sports.

Andrew Bernstein: 14:19 I thought it could be more in news and documentary. I was leaning a little bit also towards film and video video was kind of, you know, at its sort of infancy then. So I went back to UMass and I applied to art center to, to transfer, you know, and they accepted me and they, they accepted me though for the following summer. So I would essentially have to spend my entire junior year at UMass. And at some point I believe in November, I got a letter in the mail. There was no email, there was no texting. And none of that stuff, I got a letter in the mail saying, Hey we have an opening now, somebody dropped out for the spring term. Cause art center is trimesters. And the spring term started in February. Would you be willing to, you know, come early, come early in February know,

Andrew Bernstein: 15:09 I'm like, yeah. You know, and I hadn't even taken my finals yet. The beginning of my junior year I think I actually blew off my finals quite frankly.

Andrew Bernstein: 15:20 And it was a fun, like last month of just hanging out with friends.

Andrew Bernstein: 15:24 Yeah, of course. I went to class and everything.

Andrew Bernstein: 15:26 And I moved to to LA it was sometime in January of 78. It was the famous blizzard of 78 in the Northeast, which at the time was the biggest dump of snow in the history of the Northeast. I landed in LA God's honest, truth is 84 degrees.

Andrew Bernstein: 15:44 And I'm like, I, this is a no brainer. I mean, if, even if this photography thing doesn't work out, I mean, it's 84 degrees of January really. I'd have to wear a parka and like, you know, my car isn't buried in the snow.

Andrew Bernstein: 16:02 And anyway started art center that February and never looked back and anyway, sports to answer your question or a really roundabout way. I was, I was the black sheep of my class, quite frankly, art, center's a very commercial advertising oriented university. Okay. College and photojournalism was not okay.

Andrew Bernstein: 16:26 Particularly encouraged at art center. And sports

Andrew Bernstein: 16:29 Was like the poor stepchild of journalism. But I did have two teachers that believed in me and had pushed me that wouldn't let me get discouraged. Also, I'm a Brooklyn guy. So you tell me like, I can't do something. It only fuels me even more. And my one teacher, bill Robbins really took me under his wing and, and I ended up working for him in his studio and learning the business of photography. But also he introduced me to a friend of his who was a staff photographer for sports illustrated. And he then in turn introduced me to the local LA sports, sports, sports illustrated photographers. And that's where I really learned everything I needed to know and convinced me that that's where I wanted to go with my career. So I used my mentorship that bill and my other teacher, Jim Picabo was so generous, but also the photographers I worked for, I, I was like a sponge.

Andrew Bernstein: 17:23 You know, I, I took it all in. I saw how they worked. I saw how they interacted with the athletes, how they prepared, how they dealt with the PR people, how they ship their film, how they took care of their equipment, you know, and then I learned the very specialized technique of lighting, indoor arenas for hockey and basketball, primarily with strobes, which only a few people in the country knew. So that opened all the doors for me. And I'm extremely grateful to the people at the forum, the Lakers and Kings at the time who, you know, really took a liking to this young sort of aggressive, but dogs, buffer, who was sort of relentless, you know? And that led to my introduction to the NBA in 83, which was my first gig, which the NBA all-star game in 83 at the forum. And it all just kind of mushroom from there. Quite frankly,

Raymond Hatfield: 18:17 Some of the questions came out of that. Oh my goodness. I think one of the biggest ones, which I had actually planned on bringing up later, but since you brought it up or diving straight in a few months ago, when I had the pleasure of interviewing Jon SooHoo, who is as many know the lead photographer right now for the Dodgers who is currently celebrating his world series winner. Yeah. w w I asked him, what's one of the things that he learned while shooting under you because you two work together and he brought up the time that you two had worked shooting, I guess you two had met at USC women's basketball. And you brought them in bringing, shooting some Clippers games. And he said that from the technical side, the thing that you taught him that helped him the most was learning how to strobe arenas, many new photographers who are listening to this might think, well, the only time that you need to use a flash is when there's not enough light to get some sort of base exposure. Right. So to ask here, let me ask why now, when we live in a world where cameras can shoot up to ISO 3 million, literally, why are we still using strobes? And where, where are you putting these things?

Andrew Bernstein: 19:25 Well, just to give people sort of an overview back in, back in the day, and we're talking about way back before me in the sixties, John Zimmerman, Neo life, or the literally the godfathers of sports photography Walter goes, hi, Peskin. I mean, these, these guys are the Ansell Adams, you know, of, of sports photography. They all work for sports illustrated and sports illustrated sort of invented this, this technique of bringing these gigantic strobe units in and installing them in the catwalks or the balconies or where they could put them, because the lighting in the old arenas was so horrendous and the film wasn't good. I mean, you couldn't shoot action. You know, you need to shoot action around, you know, 500 of a second to stop the action, right? Well, you couldn't, you couldn't find film with a high enough, we used to call it ASA, but ISO, that was sensitive enough to stop the action.

Andrew Bernstein: 20:25 So by putting these strobes in for that moment in time, when the photographer pushes the shutter button and all of these strobes go off, you're literally just erasing the light that's in the arena, the available light. And you're, you're essentially have this gigantic light source, this big strobe light, light source. It's like, if you, if you took about 300 flashes, like a normal speed, light, or little flash, you would put on top of your camera now, and they all went off at the same time. That's about the amount of light that comes out, keep in mind, you know, it's about a hundred and something feet from the floor to the strobes. And they they're all hardwired together. And wires are flown down from the catwalk and it's a big production and it was refined down. The equipment got a little bit easier to manage, but still it was, it was like a four hour set up.

Andrew Bernstein: 21:18 And none of the arenas back when I started, and this is, you know, late seventies, none of them had permanent installation of strokes. So if the photographer I was working for, let's say, you know, the great Peter read Miller and I was assigned to work with him, but tonight's, you know, Lakers game at the forum. All right, we'll use that example. I would have the strobes probably in, in my garage or I'd have to go to his house to get them. And they would probably, they were in cases, it's probably 12 of these shipping cases. They were about 40, 60 pounds a piece. And you'd have these four strobe packs and four heads that had to be assembled with tubes and reflectors and clamps and cables. And I would drive them over in my little Volkswagen. I don't know how he got everything in there to the forum at like 10 o'clock in the morning, meet up with the rigger guy named marker set, a wonderful guy.

Andrew Bernstein: 22:17 And we would, after the teams finished their game day practice, he would literally stand in the middle of the court and rope these strobe up to the catwalk. I'd be at the top, he'd be at the bottom and he would rope them up. I would take them off, put them on the catwalk, he'd send the other ones and then I'd spend the rest of the day. And sometimes it was, there were two of us setting these strobes up and the photographer would come in about three o'clock and I'd have to be done by then, because then I have to get him ready for the game. You know, hook everything up. He would always do remote cameras. Those would have to be set up. And then I would basically, once everything was set up, the player started arriving around five, five 30, then it's, you know, basically game time. And I would camera assist him changing film throughout the game. If something went wrong, having to fix it, whatever back in those days, we'd have to run to the catwalk if a strobe went out or whatever

Speaker 4: 23:16 In the middle of a game. Yeah. So,

Andrew Bernstein: 23:20 And then game is over, right? Photographer goes home, Hey, he leaves all the film with me. Right. I have to disassemble everything, pack it all up. Then I have take the film to the, to the airport usually and ship it overnight. Like by Delta dash or something to New York, because it'd have to be processed at this Time-Life building in New York the next day to make the magazine headlines. Yeah. It was crazy. It was just nuts. So to answer your question and I tend to give long answers, Raymond, I'm sorry, but the reason why we use strobes today, right? Yes, you're right. The cameras are so much better. But the quality of light that you get from strobes, you can't duplicate with even the best arena lighting that we have now, which is now they've gone from mercury vapor lights to led lights, which are really they're beautiful.

Andrew Bernstein: 24:15 You know, the the quality of light, the directional, you get a little bit of a highlight, but it doesn't look like strokes, you know, strokes just have that, you know, that Christmas to it, you can shoot at a much lower ISO, which today honestly, really doesn't matter that much. But, you know, back in the day, it was the difference of going into the forum and shooting. I mean, they didn't even make 1600 ISO film in those days. You'd have to shoot like 800 film and push it or 400 film and push it. And then pray that it wasn't grainy, that it would just all fall apart that processed into the, and put in a magazine. Like you said, I mean, I just spent time in the bubble shooting available light. Sometimes it's ISO 10,000 and it looked gorgeous, you know

Raymond Hatfield: 25:03 Like the quality of the imagined, right. But

Andrew Bernstein: 25:05 The quality of light of strobes is amazing, still beautiful. Still sort of the, the quality of choice at the NBA wants the NHL for the most part, wants a lot of magazines, still preferred training cards. The clients at the, the leagues have the NBA and NHL. But the gap has definitely narrowed and I can see a day where really we we move away from the strobes because it's a huge expense. And B you have to technically, you have to know how to shoot with strobes because you shoot one picture every four seconds, keep that in mind because the strobes fire, and then they have to re recycle back up, you know, they have to, their energy has to be recycled. So you can shoot again, it's not like a little flash, which you can shoot almost with motor drive. So it's a different way of shooting. You know, I see almost the end of the era here as cameras get, get better and better. We're not there yet, but almost, yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 26:09 Oh my goodness. This is you know, so obviously, you know, 20, 30 years ago, the strobes were to get that good base exposure to get enough light so that you can capture and freeze motion. And today it's more of an aesthetic choice and then moving forward it's could possibly be phased out.

Andrew Bernstein: 26:26 Yeah, I think so. I think probably it could be fake. I mean, it's like almost like film really comparison, you know, we, we were shooting film, you know, exclusively because digital didn't exist. But once we got to the end of the nineties and digital cameras started coming in and we were playing around with them and then starting to incorporate them into our coverage around 2000, by 2004 or five, it was almost 80% digital. We still shoot we're shooting films as we were shooting two and a quarter Hasselblad film, which was gorgeous. And then it became necessary to have basically live coverage of what we do because it, you know, we couldn't wait for the film to get developed. Sure. So we were playing

Raymond Hatfield: 27:13 And ride alone to New York has got to just be nailed, I think.

Andrew Bernstein: 27:16 Yeah. Right. So we went, we at the MBA went full digital, I think it was around 2005 ish. And the only time I've shot film quite frankly, is back when I did my book with Phil Jackson back in 2010. And I did a, a portrait series in black and white because I just missed doing it. And I had the luxury of time. But I have not shot an assignment or a game or anything on film 15 years at least. Wow. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 27:44 W well that kind of brings me to my next question here, as you brought up there, your, your book you're one of your most recent books is the Mamba mentality, right? Yeah. Could I call you the, one of the coauthors obviously was cold, right. Okay. So yeah, the Mamba mentality co-written with Kobe Bryant and it's all about how he plays or how he played basketball. Right. So the mama mentality is kinda to bring it all together. It's how you approach this obsession with what it is that you love and take it to a place to where you didn't even think it was possible to reach that full potential. Yeah. Having been with Kobe for so long and other really high level athletes, how have you used the Mamba mentality in your own life and career as a photographer to advance yourself?

Andrew Bernstein: 28:37 Oh, great question, Raymond. Well, one of the, one of the four pillars of, of the Mamba mentality is obsession. And I was obsessed, you know, we just talked about it. I mean, once, once I got my taste of photography and how I could express myself and how cool it was just to be in the darkroom and see something, literally the magic trick of a print being appearing before your own eyes, you know, under the red or orange light, it was just unbelievable. But then I became obsessed with it. I mean, I had a camera around my neck every single day in high school, and it became a joke like my friends would always, and the teachers would always kidney. They always had this camera around my neck. And I, I was, I was obsessed with it because I loved it so much and I wanted to learn more and more.

Andrew Bernstein: 29:32 And that's why, you know, I ended up making a very difficult decision to change my whole life around it. At 19. I was 18 years old actually, when I made that decision. So, you know, after I met Kobie when I met Coby and he was 18, right. And I met him that my set of media day in 1996 and his rookie season. And he, I went to introduce myself and he said he knew who I was because he had all my posters on his wall as a kid. Wow. And I'm thinking something really unique about this kid be who reads a photo credit on a poster, first of all, but the obsession that he had with his craft, which was so evident from like the moment, not only the moment I met him, but when I first saw him on the court it really, you know, I'm 20 years older than him at the time.

Andrew Bernstein: 30:25 And I'm thinking, wow, this is like almost a mirror image of how I was at his age, quite frankly. Because I was very driven. I was I couldn't, wouldn't take no for an answer. I had a chip on my shoulder. I had talent. Like he did. I was like a caged animal. Like he was his rookie year because, you know, he wanted to play more and coach Harris wouldn't play him. And, you know and I wanted to get published in sports illustrated more than anything else in the world. And all things come and do time. But so we bonded over that obsession and that fueled really my career path, quite frankly. And you know, when I say that I was aggressive, it means that I, I was determined, you know, I don't like really using the word aggressive because people kind of this construe it as being arrogant.

Andrew Bernstein: 31:22 Right. And maybe I was a little arrogant. I mean, other people would have to tell you that, but I think you have to have a little bit of arrogance because arrogance comes from self-confidence and it also comes from being driven and being sure yourself and, and all that. And and having a goal in mind. Right. my goal was to be a professional photographer me right in front of me. You can't see it because it's right here, but it is literally painted on my wall and huge letters, dreams, post goals equals destiny. And that that's one of Peter Guber, my good friend and mentor owner of the Dodgers or the warriors. He wrote that in his book and I, I have taken that to be my mantra in life, you know, dreams plus goals equals destiny, destiny. You know, my photography life started off as a dream. You know, that dream became a goal. What's the goal. The goal was to be a professional photographer in sports. So I made this decision to follow that dream to California, to find a school that could help nurture that. And that led to all the doors opening that we just talked about. And destiny, you know, I mean, I've been doing this for longer than 40 years, so apparently it was my destiny and continues to be, I still, still love what I do.

Raymond Hatfield: 32:41 Yeah. I, I've heard you say I've heard you say on other podcasts and other interviews before that, when you received your hall of fame award or indoctrination, I suppose that, and I forget who it was, who told you this, but it was that some of your best photos are ahead of you, is that right?

Andrew Bernstein: 33:01 Yes. That was our great commissioner, Adam silver who took me aside Adam in the MBA, very generous, make a little cocktail party before the actual hall of fame event where I received my award. And there were like three or four of us who were getting various awards. And Rick Wells for example, was getting inducted into the hall of fame. It was pretty cool. And I had known Rick my whole career. And he took me aside, you know, congratulated me and, and said, and said that he said, Andy and this is I'm 37 years into my career at this point. Right. And he said, Andy you had a great career. We still love having you around. And I think your best pictures are in front of you, you know, and for your boss, your ultimate boss to say that.

Andrew Bernstein: 33:47 So it was inspiring. You know, he was throwing the gauntlet down, like, you know, keep it, keep it going. Just like David stern did at the beginning when he really put a lot of confidence in me as a young photographer baby was always really amused by, by, by, by my sort of relentless pursuit of everything having to do with covering the NBA. You know, he, he loved it. He he was a great mentor, a great friend. And, you know, we lost him in January, on January 1st, this year. And of course followed by the, the incredibly shocking loss of Coby and Gigi three weeks later. But that was so inspiring when Adam said that to me and really kind of, it was like almost a second wind, quite frankly, for my career.

Raymond Hatfield: 34:37 Wow. As if you were already feeling kind of like, you know what, I got this routine down, this has kind of become just like second nature. And then it was with that, that you thought, wait a second, maybe I, how can I, did you think to yourself, how can I take this to the next level?

Andrew Bernstein: 34:52 Well, you know, I never, I'm never, once in my career have mailed it in so to speak, I've never gone to a game and just sorta punch the time clock and left because I a, I would be you know, I would be short shrifting my employer and myself. I mean, I, I have a really strong work ethic that work ethic came from my dad. It also came from magic Johnson because I watched magic as a young photographer. And he is a young player. Literally bring the lunch pail every single game. I mean, it could be pre-season game. It could be a meaningless game in January. You know, it could be a playoff finals game. Didn't matter. He, every game, every possession he was involved it really was incredible to me that a guy could be that attached, you know, in that involved.

Andrew Bernstein: 35:44 And I took that to heart and continues to this day. I, every game I go to, I approach the same way as I did, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, doesn't matter. The last thing I want to do is come home and be in my car literally after a game, like kicking myself that I wasn't paying attention, or I was talking to somebody or just wasn't, wasn't centered it, wasn't present. And I missed, you know, a Blake Griffin dunk, which, you know, things happen. Right. And technically things happen. Sometimes the refs buttons is in your way, you can't get a picture. Sometimes the camera system, the strobes don't work, you know, a lot of things out of your control, but if I can control it I want to be the guy that that at least I can go home and say, you know what? I did the best I could, I might've missed a couple, but that happens, you know, Kobe says that he used to say that what you only missed the, the shots you don't take, right. Or something like that. So, you know, I, I prided myself in in really being centered and really being present when when I'm at a game or on an assignment or whatever I'm doing, you know, for my craft,

Raymond Hatfield: 37:01 Well, seeing your like long career and knowing, obviously, as I said, several times, you know, hall of fame photographer, I don't think that anybody here is questioning your, your work ethic. But when it comes to sports, it's, it's easy to see who wins and who loses, who becomes great. And you can kind of tally those up by the amount of wins versus losses, but for a creative pursuit like photography, how do you measure greatness?

Andrew Bernstein: 37:29 I measure greatness by how you, the viewer react to my photos, quite frankly. If, if there's an emotional response to my pictures and now, you know, so much is so immediate, you know on social media, if I get responses to my photos that I just shot that, you know, after I get home or if I'm on the plane or whatever, and I post some photos from tonight's game and I get reactions to it. That is the most satisfying thing to me ever. And plus, you know, I have a lot of professional pride in myself, my own inner pride and going back to what I said, you know, if I know I gave a hundred percent of my effort and did the best I could, and something happened that was out of my control. I can live with that, right.

Andrew Bernstein: 38:20 If I can control it, meaning that I, you know, all the elements are coming together and I'm present in the moment you know, taking a page at a Phil Jackson's book. Well, our book that we did together then then you know, I'm at peace with that really. And so I measure greatness by, with, for other photographers work because I'm blown away every single day. When I see other photographers talking about Jon SooHoo, I mean, let's talk about Jon for a second. I met Jon. He was, I think, a sophomore at USC, right. I was introduced to him by Steve Brenner. Who's still the PR guy for the, for the Dodgers. Took Jon under my wing. He was very shy, but he was also very good photographer. He was working for the daily Trojan newspaper and we bonded, and he was so easy to work with.

Andrew Bernstein: 39:16 He worked in the dark room to start off with me. We had darker Madonna stadium. This was when I was working for the Dodgers from 84, through 95. And a couple of years in, he had earned his way into being a photographer, like a full-time photographer. And then we brought other people in to do the lab work and, and kind of the grunt work that he was doing at the beginning. And look how far he's come. I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, you know, I didn't even shoot the 88 world series. The once the Dodgers left Dodger stadium after game two, I had to go to Madrid Spain with the NBA because it was the first time NBA had taken a team, which was the Celtics to Europe. So I had to do that. Jon took over, he went to Oakland, shot them, winning the world series, the whole thing in 88, you know, fast forward 32 years later.

Andrew Bernstein: 40:09 And he just shot them winning again, you know, and he's a beloved member of the Dodger family. Couldn't be more proud of him with great friends and I follow his career, you know, like, like so many others that I follow so many greats out there. It's a great community, great fraternity sorority of of photographers, who we all pull for each other. We really do. And this competition and competition fuels you and keeps you on your toes, you know? And my great friend, net Butler, you know, my cohort has been doing this almost. I think that's been doing it 35 years and I just finished my 39th year for the MBA. That's based in New York. We just spent seven weeks together in the bubble and we're great colleagues, great friends. We push each other a little bit, you know maybe we want to one up each other, every game which is, which is fine and great. It keeps you, keeps you motivated, you know? Sure. And I'm very thankful for these friendships that I've developed over the years with some incredible photographers and great, great people.

Raymond Hatfield: 41:22 It's great to hear, I think in a world where on Facebook and with digital photography, there's so much, you know, quote unquote competition that, that there's true admiration between and like other greats out there in your field. And that it's not, it's not all about like who can win. Who's the best I'm going to win. But that you can all kind of survive in the same space and respect each other's work, which I love that. And speaking of Jon, when I interviewed him, he attributed another thing that he attributed to learning from you was how to work with athletes as well, in the sense that oftentimes you only have moments with these players one-on-one and you have to be able to get the image. So from your point of view, what tips do you have to not only build rapport with these top level athletes, but still get that shot that you need in just moments?

Andrew Bernstein: 42:14 Well, if we're talking about, let's say a portrait shoot, right? Or, you know, a quick shoot that you would do with a player, you know, by the batting cage or after practice or whatever, but let's just call it a, you know, roughly loosely, a portrait type of setup. The key absolute key is preparation. I mean, you cannot be fumbling around because you have very little time with these guys and women, that professional athletes are wonderful. They also, for the most part, have an attention span of like a bottle of water, you know, they want to get in, they want to get out 99% of the time they're incredibly cooperative and they know that you're doing something that's going to promote them in one way, shape or form. You know, they're either doing it and making money from it. If it's a commercial endorsement, or if it's an editorial thing, a magazine cover, I mean, you're there to make them look good, obviously.

Andrew Bernstein: 43:11 Right? And your job is to be completely prepared. So you have to know your equipment, you have to know your setup. You can't be messing around with lighting. Things have to be locked in before the athlete shows up. And I learned my lesson very, very early with magic gaining the night, I forged a wonderful friendship with magic on and off the court, like I said he, I think he came into the NBA a year before I started. And we grew up in the NBA together and I started shooting a lot of his off the court stuff, you know, his family stuff, and then his endorsement stuff. And one of the very earliest shoots I did was when he was endorsing converse. And it was a, it was a big shoot. It was a production shoot, you know, art director, there there's all kinds of people running around and it was on the set and he was filming a commercial, you know, somewhere.

Andrew Bernstein: 44:06 And then I had my set set up and I had very little time with him. And it was a little complicated as to what I needed him to do. And I had to stand in who kind of helped me sort of get everything roughed out. Right. But back in the day, when we use film, we would always shoot a Polaroid. Right. And he had a Polaroid back, like we're shooting two and a quarter. You take the film back off, put the Polaroid on the back of the Hasselblad. And you know, you shoot that Polaroid takes 60 seconds to process, right? So he magic comes in the set he's jovial, he's his usual, you know, smiley self, again, him in the position I want. And then I go to take a Polaroid and he, he, goes, well, hold on, what are you doing? And I said, I said, well, magic. I gotta take a polar. He goes, Oh, no, no, no, no. She says, when I come on your set, we don't do Polaroids. Wow. He says, you be ready. I mean, and I said, Oh, okay. And didn't do a Polaroid ever did a Polaroid after that of him. But I did learn by lesson that you better be locked down, man. You better just no 98, 99% at your, you know, and yes, you gotta tweak things here and there. Once you get the person in there and do some variations as to the actual shot. But anyway, that was a very eyeopening moment. He and I laughed about that on my podcast because he remembered it, you know,

Raymond Hatfield: 45:36 I bet he did. And

Andrew Bernstein: 45:38 It made me a better photographer because, you know, Polaroids are great, but they're also a little bit of a crutch, you know, you're leaning on the Polaroid to, I don't know, to to verify or kind of validate or something. You know, yes, I did use it on other shoots, but never with him again,

Raymond Hatfield: 45:59 You know, when I was I went to film school originally I studied cinematography and one of my teachers big lesson that he tried to instill was that failing to prepare is preparing to fail. And I've heard you say a version of this, which is luck favors the prepared. And I think that that is such a great story about how you were prepared enough to that luck kind of delivered itself to you. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Well, you,

Andrew Bernstein: 46:25 That's a very famous Walter Yost scene as well. Luck favors the prepared. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 46:30 Well, because it's, I mean, it's, it, it makes sense. And it really gets you on your game real quick, real quick. Right. So I know that,

Andrew Bernstein: 46:38 Well, hold on one second Raymond, because it's really important for people starting out in photography, that part of the preparation is, is learning your equipment. You have to know how your equipment works. First of all. Okay. And that comes with shooting, shooting, shooting, and then shooting more and writing things down. And when it doesn't work, understanding why it doesn't work or you didn't get the result that you wanted, or things are overexposed, or you use the wrong lens or whatever it is, right. Because you have to know it has to be innate when, when you're on the job, when you're, even if you're an amateur photographer, you don't want to be out shooting nature. You don't want to be out shooting, surfing your kid's soccer game and be fumbling around trying to figure out what, how does, you know, what do I do with this setting and blah, blah, blah. You have to learn that. And that's, that's, you know, it's like learning a language, you know, you can't get, you can't go to a foreign country and just think you can get by with four words, you know, you have to learn the language. So it's, you have to learn your equipment.

Raymond Hatfield: 47:42 Now this might be a a large question here, but I see many photographers who are very frustrated, trying to learn photography. And I feel like I see it as they're trying to learn too much, too fast. Do you think that when you had first started and getting, going and growing as a photographer, that that same frustration also came from trying to learn too much too fast or that it was maybe a timeline difference between taking the photo in and seeing the result? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Andrew Bernstein: 48:11 Oh yeah. Well, there wasn't that much to learn. I mean, no, really, honestly. I mean, I got to, I got to give you an example. My daughter is 12 and she started to take up photography. So of course, you know, I get her camera and it's all digital and I try to teach her how to work it. And I have no freaking idea, all this stuff. Does these digital cameras today? I'd be, I really don't. I hate to say that, but it's true. I mean, I know the basics of course, but to be able to then to explain every dial and nuance and setting and menu and all that, we didn't have that stuff, you know, it was, it was a, it was a box basically, you know, the camera had a, had a manual, everything, and you had to learn what kind of film to use.

Andrew Bernstein: 48:59 You had to keep track of the film and had a film calendar. When you got to 36, you knew you had to change film. You know, you didn't have to deal with downloads and Photoshops and computers and, and workflows and all that archiving business. And I, yes, I do sound like a dinosaur, but it's frustrating because, you know, back in the day, the, the science of the craft of photography, you know, learning, lighting, learning light, right. Learning exposure learning even composition focus, what lenses to use. Those are the important things. You know, now people, you know, you, you get very inundated with all the technology, and it's very hard to break down these new cameras to those five or six essentials. Quite frankly. It really is. So she took, my daughter, took an online photography class right before the pandemic. And they start off by putting the camera on the manual setting, which I thought was great. Yeah. So she had to learn almost like I had to learn, you know, from the beginning. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 50:10 So definitely a lot of, a lot of overwhelmed, maybe not so much a time thing, but just, just being overwhelmed by the amount of options.

Andrew Bernstein: 50:17 And then, you know what I think it w and I hate to say anything against my friends at Nikon, and I'm a Nikon guy. I think it's overkill. Honestly. I think there's so much in these cameras. I can't imagine people using, you know, one 10th of the things that are available inside scammers. I mean, not only they do still, but they do video too. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 50:38 I don't know. It's a whole new set of menus, I guess, going off on a tangent. Well, Andy we're getting to the end of our time here, but I got one last question for you if you're up for it. Yeah. You have multiple photographers working with you for you to cover many sports events, you know, same, same day. You could have multiple photographers, different locations. I want to know. What's the one aspect that you look for when hiring an associate photographer. And then what do you tell them before they take the court for their first game?

Andrew Bernstein: 51:10 Well, keep in mind that we also do events. So I'm the director of photography for AGS staple center, Microsoft theater. So in addition to the teams that play in staple center, you know, we have five teams or five teams that play in staple center. We also do the concerts. We do a lot of meet and greets. We do. We have an event today actually, a get out the vote event today at staple center. So photographers have to be come to me and to be considered, you know, as part of our very small close-knit group a personality first and foremost, you have to be able to work with others. You have to be able to roll with things. You have to be able to adjust on the fly. You have to be diplomatic. It's never about you. It's about the client.

Andrew Bernstein: 52:00 It's about the situation. And we've had every known situation that you could possibly imagine thrown at us over the years. You have to be incredibly adaptable to different kinds of assignments. Like one night I could send you to a Kings game the next night I'm sending you to a U2 concert the next night. Maybe it's an award show the next night. It could be you know, a camp at one of the teams is doing a youth camp. I mean, all kinds of stuff. And yes, I have photographers who are more specialized in, in other, in certain things than others, but I like to have sort of interchangeable personalities and also people who can bring different skills to the, to the table. Cause that might keeps my clients happy, quite frankly. And and follow, follow the protocols, follow the rules, follow the procedures that we have, the workflows, my clients, all of my clients are very specific.

Andrew Bernstein: 52:59 How they, like things shot, how they like things delivered how they, like things fulfilled afterwards for archiving purposes, all of that. So you know, it's, it's it's a big enchilada. I mean, it really is. It's not just, you're a good photographer and you take nice concert pictures. It goes way past that. So we have very few openings because we are very tight knit, right. We have very little to no work, which is kind of interesting in my office here with it's usually three or four people, you know, doing stuff. And right now it's just me. But that's okay. And it will come back. You know, this will all be part of all our histories and I believe live events. We'll come back when they're ready and we'll be back to work.

Raymond Hatfield: 53:47 Andy. I I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. I appreciate all of your experience and coming on and sharing everything that you did in the little amount of time that we had today. It's, it's been fantastic, but before I let you go, I know that there's going to be listeners who are interested in learning more about you and how to follow you along the line. So can you share where the listeners can keep up with you online?

Andrew Bernstein: 54:11 Yeah. Thanks Ray. First of all, it's been a blast talking to you too, so thank you very much. I know it was a little hard to track down cause I was in the bubble there for seven weeks. I'm glad that we made it work. Yeah. But thank you for that. And the opportunity to talk to your audience cause you know, it's all starts somewhere. It started for me somewhere as our view somewhere. And I, I love talking to new people who have gotten the bug of photography. So hopefully, you know, we did some good today. So my photography can be found on Instagram primarily at ADB photo, inc. Also as a website, ADB photo, inc. My platform that kind of my other life I have is called legends of sport where I host a podcast. I just actually released my 100th podcasts, which is amazing.

Andrew Bernstein: 54:59 So that's legends of sport on, at legends of sport on Instagram. And the podcast can be found on Apple, Spotify, we're distributed and partnered with the LA times. So it'd be in the LA area. You can also find us on the LA times app. They have a podcast tab on the app as well as their online platform, but Apple, Spotify, primarily. And YouTube, we're releasing all of our podcasts and video on YouTube as well. So it's called legends of sport on YouTube. So, you know, we love getting new followers. We love getting people's opinions. We have a blog called legends of sport.blog, where you can interact with our blog and we're going to have a new website soon. So stay tuned for that. And we'll, we'll announce that on our social media, which is legends of sport on Instagram.

Raymond Hatfield: 55:52 Perfect. Of course, I'm going to link to all those things in the show notes, but Andy, thank you again so much for coming on and sharing everything that you did.

Andrew Bernstein: 55:59 Raymond, it's been a blast and I love somebody like you who keeps the fire burning in the photography community and anything I can do in the future, you'll let me know and you know, stay well. Okay. And everybody out there stay well, wear your mask. We'll get through this together.