Paco Lozano – Eye of the Fighters

18/07/2024

Born on February 2, 1957 in Málaga (Spain), Paco Lozano Martín won his first Kodak camera in a competition when he was 12, and took up judo a year later in Nyon (Switzerland) – a country where he grew up until he was 16. A third-dan black belt, husband and father of judokas, he taught the discipline for 25 years while working as a photographer for the Málaga municipal Sports department. With his proverbial hospitality when he welcomes guests to his Andalusian lands, where the springtime terraces smell of jasmine and orange blossom, this disciple of Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Besson and Raymond Depardon waited until 2008 and the European Championships in Lisbon to take up sports photography for good. Published in many countries (Spain, France, Brazil, Switzerland, England, Germany, Israel…) and on a wide range of sports (athletics, chess, karate, fencing, basketball, cycling, tennis, soccer, horse-riding…), judo remains the field where his experience as a practitioner fits in best with his aspirations as an image hunter. Here, he comments on a selection of his favorites. – JudoAKD#010.

A French version of this article is available here.

“This photo was taken at the 2022 European Championships in Sofia. Usually, at the European Championships, you don’t see many ippons, as the level is very high and the athletes know each other very well, since there’s a lot of training together on the continent. Here, in the U60kg category, I’d first like to highlight the two protagonists, Georgian Lukhumi Chkhvimiani, 2019 World champion, and Spaniard Fran Gárrigos, 2023 World champion and three-time European champion. The Georgian is a super-stable judoka, but Gárrigos manages to score this spectacular ippon. His determination impressed me. I particularly like judokas who go for the ippon and don’t try to win with the shido.
The photo was taken with a Nikon D4s at 1/1000 shutter speed, ISO 2500 and F3.5. I edit all my photos with the Adobe Lightroom program and this photo was very nice because I managed to get the full sequence.
This photo was not published in any magazine.”

A side note – “During an European Open in Madrid, a guy took advantage of a break to sneak through all the security checks (in principle, only accredited people have to go through) and took my backpack with some of my photographic equipment, my wallet and my house keys. He did the same with the belongings of my photographer friend Gabi Juan. The incident was filmed as the competition was broadcast live on Judo TV. The equipment was never recovered, but in the hours that followed, someone tried to withdraw 5,000 euros from my account in England, then 2,000 euros from the United States. Luckily, I have a system that alerts my wife in the event of a large withdrawal. Without her authorization, the withdrawal is impossible. She was astonished by these amounts and we were able to prevent them… In my misfortune, I was lucky enough to have my camera and the lens I needed most at the time with me, and my computer was on a supervised table. I still had to borrow money from friends to get back to Málaga from Madrid…”

“I must say that I adore Maruyama. And I’m very sad that a judoka of this quality can’t take part in the Games. I think the International Federation should correct this, in a very simple way: each country in a single weight could take two athletes, i.e. if Japan can now take seven male athletes to the Games, they could take eight and the same for the female athletes, it’s not a big cost. The current rules deprive us of a possible Olympic final between Japan’s Maruyama and Abe in the U66kg category and between Canada’s Deguchi and Kilmkait in U57kg, which is very sad for the show and especially for the athlete who is kept out of the Games by being number two (official or unofficial) in the World rankings.
I paid close attention to this final, because clashes between the Koreans and the Japanese are always spectacular, given the excellence of their judo and the fact that they are direct and historic rivals at the Asian Games. It should also be borne in mind that this bout took place in Tokyo during the 2019 World Championships. In principle, the Games should have been held there in 2020, but Covid delayed them by a year. This fight was therefore very important for both athletes, as it was the final and the winner would be World champion. And Maruyama had just come through a terrible semi-final fight against Hifumi Abe.
My new Nikon D6 camera allows me to take from 1 to 12 burst photos per second. During a World Championship, I take around 10,000 photos a day, but this one is undoubtedly one of my favorites. In fact, it was chosen as Photo of the Year in the Media Judo Club competition, and the prize was presented to me at the Grand Slam in Paris, in a very moving ceremony attended by many photographers and friends. The relationship between the photographers is very good and we help each other out a lot, there’s a great atmosphere, we’re more friends than colleagues. Like anywhere, there can always be a fool, but most of them are real judo fans and we share the same passion. We spend hours sitting together and if anyone needs anything, they always get help from the rest of the team.”

A side note – “Before each bout, I take a photo of the electronic scoreboard to remember the names of the judokas. I also like to take photos of the coaches. At team competitions, I like to take photos of the other team members cheering each other on from the edge of the mat.”

“This photo dates from the U73kg final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games between Japan’s Shohei Ono and Azerbaijan’s Rustam Orujov. You can see how Ono, a true legend, manages to throw his great rival, who realizes that at this moment the gold medal is slipping away from him. Ono retained his title at the following Tokyo Games and reigned for almost ten years in the U73kg category, with magnificent judo.
The photo was taken with a Nikon D5 and a 70-200 lens. It was published as a poster in the French bimonthly L’Esprit du judo.
At the same competition, I took the photo of Ono greeting the tatami at the same time as his coach in the background. This photo expresses so much about the essence of our discipline that I was asked to publish it in school textbooks in Japan.”

A side note – “In all the Olympic Games, the tatami mats are on a platform, which gives them a very original perspective, a bit like catwalks or fashion shows. For photography, it’s great when the stands are completely dark and the athlete stands out better without distractions in the background. The Paris Grand Slam is a good example of this. For this reason, it remains the favorite tournament of all photographers. The images are far more spectacular there.”

“As I’ve said before, the Grand Slam in Paris is my favorite and I’m always very happy when a Spaniard wins it. The fact that the scoreboard appears in the photo is always a plus, but it’s not essential. This bout was the U90kg semi-final at the Paris 2020 Grand Slam between Spain’s Niko Sherazadashvili and Azerbaijan’s Mammadali Mehdiyev. The Azerbaijani judoka is a very complicated one. He had beaten Niko several times, and his prize list lacked precisely that victory in Paris. This ippon gave him a lot of confidence to win in the final, also by ippon, against the Japanese.
The picture was taken with a Nikon D4s and a 70-200 lens.
It was not published in any magazine.”

A side note – “This Paris Grand Slam was one of the last tournaments on the circuit before the coronavirus pandemic. Covid made life difficult for all of us. For me personally it was very bad economically because the organization’s hotels are very expensive. We had to arrive two days before the competition and stay in the bubble, i.e. without being able to leave the room until the test was formally negative.
I remember that at the Paris 2022 Grand Slam, before I left, I was tested twice and found to be negative. When I arrived at the hotel in Paris, another test was also negative. But for the championship, I was surprised to find that the test at the entrance to the Accor Arena was positive. So I missed the Grand Slam in Paris and had to stay in isolation in the hotel room for a week, which meant I missed the flight back to Málaga. A fortnight after Paris, I was due to go to the Tel Aviv Grand Slam and had to test positive again. My doctor again told me that these were insignificant remains, but that the laboratory had detected them and that was why the result was positive. So I missed the plane and couldn’t get to Tel Aviv either.
As a photographer, you have to spend hours on the tatami under tension, because one second of slackness and you lose the best ippon of the championship. With the Covid, you had to wear your mask all day long, which was very uncomfortable for me. After the Covid, a lot of photographers stopped going to the championships.”

“It was during the Doha Masters in January 2021, back when health measures were very strict. The first time I saw Tato Grigalashvili, I knew I was up against one of the greats. It was at the Düsseldorf 2020 Grand Slam, and he had already won the gold medal by beating Nagase (JPN), Esposito (ITA), Wieczerzak (GER), Djalo (FRA) and finally Khalmurzaev (RUS), all great champions – Nagase was World champion and on his way to becoming Olympic champion, Wieczerzak was World champion, Khalmurzaev Olympic champion…. His charisma, technical variety, power and explosiveness make him an extraordinary judoka. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be able to immortalize such incredible ippons and, personally, he’s very kind and pleasant. »

A side note – “In the picture, we can see the mask worn by the Georgian coach. The Covid period was very tough for everyone, but we photographers had a particularly difficult time. Our job is particularly difficult, but having to do it with a mask on all day is just awful. At the Tokyo Games, we had to take a test every day. From the sports center to the hotel, we couldn’t go out to eat or even just walk around – it was completely forbidden. We were allowed to go into a store to buy something to eat, then quickly return to the hotel, or order meals on the Internet. That was it. Travel was also more difficult. Flying to Tokyo with the mask is no picnic. Flight and hotel prices also went up, and every trip was subject to two covid tests before departure and two more tests on location. This is also why many photographers had to stop going to the championships.”

“This photo is the perfect example that in life and especially in sport, miracles do exist. We’re in Tokyo to watch the bronze medal match between Russia and Israel. It’s hard to find a more unequal match on paper. Russia is a judo superpower with a long tradition of World, Olympic and European champions. Israel, by comparison, is a small country with incredible confidence.
Israel decided to try a surprising strategy. In the first bout, Russia presents its great champion Mikhail Igolnikov in U90kg, twice European champion, winner of several Grand Slams, and Israel decides to move its U81kg competitor Sagi Muki to U90 kg and, incredibly, Muki scores ippon.
1-0. In the second bout, Raz Hershko (ISR) also wins and you can already see worried faces on the Russian side. The score is 2-0. But now it’s the turn of Bashaev, an amazing judoka in the individual competition, who created a huge surprise the day before by beating none other than Teddy Riner to win the bronze medal in the O100kg category. Once again, the Israelis surprise by moving up a category in their U100kg Peter Paltchik and yes, you guessed it, he wins and it’s already 3-0… The Russians’ faces are no longer worried: they’re horrified. But here comes Daria, European champion, and for Israel, Timna Nelson-Levy, who pulls off one of the most spectacular ippons of the Games. The photo shows the moment when coaches Oren and Shany embrace and the rest of the team erupts in joy. It was a crazy 4-0 victory over Russia and an Olympic bronze medal.
This photo was taken with a Nikon 120-300 lens and a Nikon D6 camera, and was published in L’Esprit du judo magazine and in Israel, since I’ve been working with the Israeli Federation for years, as well as with Switzerland and at the Games for France. The sanitary measures at the Tokyo Olympics were very tough: daily testing during the fortnight of the Games, masks, empty stadiums. It was all very sad and strange, especially for people like me who had experienced the excitement of the London and Rio Games.

A side note – “During the eight days of judo at the Tokyo Olympics, I took 54,000 photos and the rest of the sports 10,000 photos. Before the digital era, sports photography was a very different exercise. Rolls of film represented 36 photos, and I would have had to take a truck with me to take 55,000 photos of judo alone.
For me, the success of a photo is as much a question of technical quality and the emotion that emanates from it, as it is of the details that give it its flavor. If the technique fails and the photo shows fantastic action but is blurred or badly framed, it’s useless. If it’s technically perfect but doesn’t show anything interesting, it’s no good either. It’s a very subtle exercise.”

“This photo is probably the one that has won me the most awards. It’s the London Olympic Games quarter-final between Lucie Décosse and Yuri Alvéar. The Frenchwoman won the bout in nine seconds with a perfect uchi-mata from the very first takedown. I’ve always enjoyed photographing Lucie Décosse because she’s a particularly photogenic fighter. But I had one regret: I often missed her! In other words, she was often called to a mat that wasn’t the one I was sitting on. By the time I’d taken my things to her mat and made my adjustments… she’d already scored ippon and the fight was over! This time in London, I was ready, and I’m glad I was able to capture the action.
This photo also features Colombian Yuri Alvéar, an athlete for whom I have immense respect. Because she comes from a country where success in sport, especially when you’re a woman, is not given to everyone. Even so, she won three world titles and three bronze medals, as well as two Olympic medals between 2009 and 2018. In fact, although she lost this bout in nine seconds, it was she who, the following year at the Rio World Championships, put an end to Lucie’s long run of invincibility in major championships, in what will remain the last competition of the Frenchwoman’s career.
This photo was featured in the French magazine L’Esprit du judo. I was also invited to comment on it for the International Judo Federation website, where several photographers were asked to submit what they considered to be their photo of the decade. »

A side note – « These were the first Olympic Games I ever covered. The first thing that pleasantly surprised me was that the tatami was set on a platform, like the catwalks for fashion shows. The light was excellent and there was nothing behind to interfere with the image. As a photographer, it’s the best.
As for the event itself, you could feel the tension everywhere. The athletes are tense, the trainers are tense, the referees are tense… In fact, it was at this Olympic tournament that we had the refereeing imbroglio in the -66 kg class between the Japanese and the Koreans. First of all, the Korean was declared the winner even though the Japanese had launched the most important attacks of the bout. There was a huge roar from the audience, so much so that the table called the fighters back to take another bow and this time declare the Japanese the winner… this time provoking the fury of the Korean clan! This fight was undoubtedly one of the reasons behind the switch to video refereeing in the years that followed… As for the referees of this fight, unless I’m mistaken, I don’t remember seeing them afterwards.”

“Maruyama always puts on a good show. One of the things I try to do, which isn’t always possible, is to show the athletes’ faces, both Tori and Uke, which gives strength and intensity to the photo. As for the referee – here the Frenchman Matthieu Bataille – when we look at the photo, we follow his gaze and focus on the protagonists, then if we continue to analyze the photo, we see that there is another actor and often great protagonists showing their joy, sadness or anger. The great Cuban coach Ronaldo, who sadly passed away not long ago, immediately springs to mind when I think of these silhouettes whose presence immediately added value to the frame. With athletes like Maruyama and older ones like Zantaraia or Iliadis, to name but a few, I could easily take over 200 photos in a single bout.
This picture was taken with a 70-200 lens and a Nikon D6.
I don’t think it was ever published in a magazine.”

A side note – “A few years ago, I attended a European judo championship with a friend. We’re both black belts and have been practicing for many years. We were following a very intense fight when one of the judokas made a very badly executed attack. All the photographers unnecessarily started a long burst. Only my friend and I didn’t take any picture. This was repeated several times until he managed to score a spectacular point, and this time we were the only ones to photograph. We couldn’t help smiling and winking at each other…
It’s true that sometimes champions surprise you. I always say that the best hunter is not the one who never misses, but the one who misses the least. Because we all have failures, even with Maruyama.
The work of a photographer is physically and mentally exhausting, because at the Olympic Games, for a fortnight, you’re taking photos all day and concentrating all day, it’s exhausting. At the Tokyo Games, I took 64,000 photos in 15 days. Just looking at them is crazy. The selection and editing are to die for. Fortunately, it’s every four years.
After a World championship, it takes me at least a fortnight to organize, edit and send the photos to magazines and websites. I always say that my job is not to take the photos (that’s a pleasure), but to spend all day in front of the computer from morning to night: it’s very hard. Out of 30,000 photos, I generally keep 10,000; the rest are deleted.”

“I always like to arrive two hours or more before the competition starts. Firstly, to get the best place, and secondly, because I have time to chat with the judokas and coaches who aren’t under stress just before the competition starts… I like to visit the warm-up room. After so many years, I’ve made friends with many judokas and coaches. It’s worth noting that many judokas contact me and follow me on my Facebook and Instagram social networks, over the years a friendship has developed.”

“I also like to take photos from every possible angle of the competition hall. The atmosphere is very special when it’s empty. It also allows me to witness curious moments like Shohei Ono’s visits to the tatami mats at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Games. He likes to walk around the tatami where, in a few hours’ time, he’ll have to fight for that medal. He reminds me of those generals who, before a battle, see the scene, take notes and start planning their battle plan.” – Interview by Anthony Diao, spring-summer 2024. Opening picture: ©DR/JudoAKD.

A French version of this article is available here.