Andy Hooper
Daily Mail
In 2023 Andy covered The Ashes series, Wimbledon, The Grand National, FA Cup final, The premier League, Rugby Tests and all other major sports for The Mail.
Andy’s portrait of England captain Ben Stokes at the 1st Ashes Test match at Edgbaston. Stokes is photographed through one of the pyrotechnics as the players observe a minutes silence for the three people killed in Nottingham days before. This images is very unusual as only Stokes head and face are sharp and the rest of the picture looks like a painting through the heat haze. It has an emotive quality to it.
Early morning gallops at Newmarket. Andy has been using the Mails new photo project Soul of Sport to capture sport images more in depth than he would be able to with print. This eerie image shows the dedication of jockeys as they work out their race horses at 1st light on the gallops, Newmarket. It is a photograph Andy has been trying to capture for years and this summers weather made that possible.
World number one Iga Swiatek photographed in the evening light at Wimbledon. Weather plays an important part in a good sports picture (see the early morning gallops picture) but the opposite was true during Wimbledon this year. There were only one or two short opportunities with the warm evening light on Centre court. There are very few stadiums/arena’s where you can shoot pictures like this, with the background so clean and black. It is unique to Wimbledon Centre court and with the light dropping fast over the court roof you only have a few minutes to capture images like this one.