He's worked at three Olympic Games, follows the Socceroos all over the world and gets the best seat in the house at every sporting contest in Sydney
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View a selection of Tim's favourite photos

World Press Photo winner and respected Sydney Morning Herald photographer, Tim Clayton's career began in Yorkshire England at the Evening Post as a 16 year old where he spent five years working in the darkroom developing film. He migrated to Australia in 1990 and has since managed to marry his two big passions in life - sport and photography into a successful career.

He regards Sydney as the ideal place for a sports photographer, "Sydney is great as it has so many sports competing with each other. It's not a one sport town. There are four footy codes, cricket and tennis in the summer, and a host of water sports that make for fantastic photography. Name the sport and it's probably being played - there's even a handball competition".

Having worked at the previous three Olympic Games he describes the Olympics as the pinnacle of a photographer's career. "It's the biggest show on earth and it's a great place to be for a sports photographer. Every day is a 19 hour day and you have to survive on 3 or 4 hours sleep every night. It's like doing 3- 4 grand finals a day. Everything you go to is huge. I would take anywhere between 2000 and 5000 shots per day at the Olympics.

I usually plan my day around Australia's best medal chances and will photograph 3-4 events per day. It really is draining emotionally because you might miss a great picture and normally if you miss a good picture you will agonise over it for days, but an hour later you might be at another event and take a really great shot and your day is good again. It's a roller coaster ride in terms of missing and hitting and trying to get a great shot.

The competition between photographers is akin to the athletes - we have a lot of respect for each other but we are all trying to capture that one memorable shot that encapsulates the colour, emotion, atmosphere and athleticism of the Olympics".

Tim lists swimming as his favourite sport to photograph, "You can photograph a swimmer a thousand times but the water never does the same thing every time. If you look at a breaststroker coming at you sometimes you'll get amazing things happening with the water; you may have done that shot a thousand times but you might get one frame where things happen with the water that makes that image unique". Squash comes in at the bottom of his list "Squash is really hard to photograph; it's very confined and there is nowhere to go really.

Tim stresses the importance of knowing a sport intimately "in 1993 the baseball league started in Australia and I'd never shot baseball in my life so it took me a full season to learn the play and know what type of action to anticipate. I also went to Nagano in 1998 for my first winter Olympics and I really struggled at first because it was all new to me, but at the same time I really enjoyed the challenge and the steep learning curve once I got a feel for the different events".

Tim describes the Canon EOS 1D Mark II as the Rolls Royce of photography "90 per cent of professionals use Canon cameras; they're faster, stronger and better than anything else on the market. Next time you watch a sports event just look at how many white lenses you see being used - they're all Canon lenses on Canon cameras. The auto-focus is fantastic and Canon has done a really great job in developing the product. The speed of Canon lenses is also unmatched".

Tim's next big challenge is the Soccer World Cup in 2006 when he'll be travelling to Germany for a month of non-stop action. "If the Socceroos are there I will spend my time following them, and if not I will take a completely different angle and feature some behind the scenes stuff. Soccer fans are the most devoted in the world, their passion and colour is unmatched. I'm already excited about it".