Photographers using compact thermal-imaging cameras have crafted eerie and ‘poetic’ results at Milano Cortina 2026
W
hile most photographers are striving to ‘freeze’ motion using traditional cameras at the Winter Olympics this month, a creative trio from the photo agency Getty Images are seeking something much more unexpected: heat.
Equipped with compact thermal-imaging cameras – the kind typically reserved for scientific or industrial purposes – Pauline Ballet, Ryan Pierse and Héctor Vivas have been crafting eerie pictures of athletes on the slopes of Cortina and in the rinks of Milan. The Olympians’ bodies are rendered as spectral yellows and reds, while the ice and snow around them appears either cyan or indigo.
“As visual artists, we’re drawn to photography as a form of art that allows us to be expressive, creative and experimental,” Ballet says of their work. “Thermal cameras capture the infrared radiation emitted by bodies, thereby revealing heat, muscular effort and the thermal exchanges between the athlete and the environment in which they perform. It’s both a documentary tool and a poetic medium.”
