Shooting the Sailors
Official photographer for the Louis Vuitton Trophy, Bob Grieser, looks back at his long, illustrious career
When it comes to longevity in America’s Cup circles, few can outstrip US photographer Bob Grieser. The grey flaxen-haired photographer-cum-fireball first covered the America’s Cup in 1974 back in the halcyon days of Newport, RI and hasn’t looked back since.
Grieser, 63, is a newspaper photographer by trade. His first assignments to the America’s Cup came during a lengthy stint at the Washington Star (before it folded in 1981). But more profound exposure to it was during his tenure as Chief Photographer for the San Diego bureau of the LA Times when 10 photographers worked under him, including a future Pulitzer Prize winner.
His top non-yachting assignments included photographing the Pope with President Carter in Washington in 1980. “I started barking like a dog,” Grieser reminisces, revealing a trick of his trade. “He wasn’t supposed to come near us but he did. I was trying to put on a wide angle as he picked up a baby. That was a good picture.” He also had a six week stint out in Somalia for the LA Times during the famine in 1992.
When it comes to the Cup he has gone from newspaper photographer to team photographer, working first with Team New Zealand in 1992 and one of his most rewarding experiences, with PACT95 and their mermaid-adorned yacht. His top shot was “the mermaid coming into Mission Bay in a huge swell that was breaking at the entrance and I’ve got them surfing down a wave. I call it ‘surfs up’. That was a really cool shot.” Later he captured PACT95 breaking in two, which he turned into a poster entitled “Bay Day at the Office”. He has since worked for AmericaOne and BMW Oracle Racing.
His most hair-raising Cup experience was in San Diego. “I had my own boat there and one time we were all using long lenses and the next thing we knew they were coming at us. We barely had time to switch to wide angle lenses when Dennis [Conner] and Bill Koch were circling around us.”
But in recent years he has worked solely for Louis Vuitton, where he says he hopes he is now part of ‘the family’.
Grieser is official photographer for the Louis Vuitton Trophy, a job he shares with New Zealander Paul Todd, both involved with the US/New Zealand-based photo agency Outside Images.
“I think it is fantastic,” says Grieser of the event. “It is great for sailing. It is good for photographers, it is good for the America’s Cup community. It gives people the chance to follow teams. It gives teams a chance to get a barometer on how they are doing crew-wise.”
Among the new faces involved he recommends: “Ben Ainslie is the one who impresses me. And Karol Jablonski is a tough sailor. He’s not afraid to mix it up. I’d put him in the ring with anyone.”
As to his style, Grieser says he still has the eye for a news photographer and while his colleagues spend most of their time looking down the “big glass” (ie long lenses), he prefers shorter lenses that can encapsulate the whole story in one frame.
When not travelling around the world as a yachting photographer, Grieser is still based in San Diego and says that when he gets back after this event, he will be itching to get down to the BMW Oracle Racing compound to see their new solid wing sail trimaran.
