Q&A with Katelyn Mulcahy
Getty Images intern in Los Angeles
Mulcahy, a University of Michigan graduate, describes her experiences as a sports photographer during the COVID-19 pandemic.
by Hallie Hart
Katelyn Mulcahy graduated from Michigan, where she took photos at football games and other events. Now, she is an intern for Getty Images.
Photo by Marc-Grégor Campredon
As Katelyn Mulcahy snapped photographs in Dodger Stadium, she wondered about the stories of people depicted on the cardboard figures that replace lively fans.
Many cutouts wear permanent smiles, and others are in the crowd with mouths agape as if they are yelling. Did some people pay more than $100 to appear on cutouts because they are true-blue Dodgers enthusiasts who never miss a game? Do they want their families to spot them on TV?
Mulcahy, a sports photographer from California, can’t uncover the mystery behind every cardboard form, but she has used her camera to capture the unusual sight of MLB games without fans.
For three weeks, Mulcahy enjoyed the surreal whirlwind of her dream internship with Getty Images, bouncing from a PGA tournament to NBA games to the Los Angeles Marathon, but then the COVID-19 pandemic brought sports to a screeching stop.
Although Mulcahy has had more free time than she expected, the return of baseball this summer brought her back to work for five LA Dodgers games. With camera equipment and a mask, Mulcahy was part of a limited group of reporters allowed to cover these events in person.
Mulcahy, a 2019 Michigan graduate, talked on Zoom about her experiences as a sports photographer during the pandemic. In front of a wall of neatly arranged, colorful photographs meant to spark her creativity, she discussed the ways she has navigated challenges and learned from photographers around her.
Note: This interview has been condensed for length and clarity purposes.
Q: How many (people) would you say are working in the stadium? What size group are you working with when you’re in there?
A: I believe that 30 members of the media are credentialed, and that’s also including writers. I don’t know that that’s potentially including the TV crew, because obviously, they still want to cover baseball from all of the different angles. But I work with about anywhere from four to five photographers, and we’re all spread out on the main concourse where they would sell food and T-shirts and everything. They have tables set up for us right next to where we shoot, where there’s Ethernet cords so we can connect to Ethernet if we’re sending a lot (of photos), and there’s power strips. … It’s interesting because we’re so spread out, but there’s not really any roaming allowed because of the tier system.
Note: As a precautionary measure, people in the stadium are split among three tiers with different levels of access to places in the venue. Reporters are in Tier 3. Tier 1 includes players and other people who need to be on the field.
Q: How do you get creative with the shots and still follow those rules at the same time?
A: The first game, I will say, I just kind of stuck in place. … I didn’t want to come in and just expect that I could go anywhere, because there are some people who can go to the third base side, above the third base, and maybe get some shots from there, but I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes necessarily by asking too much on my first game. I think the second or third game, I asked, “Is it OK to go up a tier and shoot from even higher?” Even further away from the players, further away from everyone else, just so I could get a different angle. I was given the go-ahead, but I also don’t know, potentially rules are changing every day, so it might have just been for that game.
I liked that during the pregame, I felt like I could go up and take some shots of just generally the whole stadium being empty. Especially, too, because earlier, it’s a bit lighter, and sometimes, that can be a bit better for getting wider shots to just really understand how strange the stadium looks empty.
I definitely looked towards other photographers and how they were covering baseball to get some inspiration, as well as, I was able to set up a remote camera behind home plate.
Q: I saw pictures you had taken from the (2019) World Series where there were fans just packed in there, and you got some crowd shots and everything. What was that like to go from that being the norm to covering these baseball games where it was empty stands you were getting in these pictures?
A: I definitely will say that the cutouts that they have at Dodgers are a bit, I’m not going to say eerie, but it just makes me go, “Wow, all of these individual cardboard cutouts are lives right now. What are they living?”
I miss the roar. They’re pumping in sound into Dodger Stadium, at the very least, and they do it when certain things happen during the game. So let’s say Mookie Betts hits a home run, Cody Bellinger hits a home run, they’re going to pump in more fan noise that’s, “Whoa, there’s a home run,” but it doesn’t really match up to actual fans. It makes me miss people just absolutely celebrating something that’s just right on a field, and they’re all celebrating it together.
Q: How have your mentors at Getty Images helped you during this time?
A: I think a lot of them probably noticed right off the bat that I’m not maybe superconfident from the get-go, but it’s also, sometimes I let my nerves get to me. Not that it necessarily affects my work, but it’s to a point where I would be so much better off if I just didn’t freak out about the small things, so they made me really feel like one tiny, accidental, very easily fixable mistake was something I didn’t have to believe it was the end of the world over. It was really nice that they not only did that from the start, from my first golf tournament that I covered, but (also) that they were so accepting that I was willing to learn. That’s what I love about Getty Images; I feel like they’re a general family.