Heat seekers: amazing thermal images from the Winter Olympics

While 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.

Athletes compete in the pairs skating short programme at Milano Ice Skating Arena. Photograph: Pauline Ballet/Getty Images

“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.”

In fact, each camera has two lenses – one thermal and one photographic – allowing the operator to produce a curious foreshadowing effect if both images are combined (best seen in the luge and free-skating images below).

A luge athlete trains at Cortina Sliding Centre. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

“[You] can see the body in motion and its delayed thermal imprint, like a memory of the gesture,” Ballet says. “It creates a visual dialogue between the visible and the invisible.”

Ellie Kam and partner Danny O’Shea of the USA compete in the pairs free skating team event at Milano Ice Skating Arena. Photograph: Pauline Ballet/Getty Images

So how tricky is it to compose and shoot thermal images, compared to traditional photographs?

“It’s a bit like learning photography all over again, which is fun,” Ballet says. “The main difference lies in the visual language. In classical photography we work with light, composition and fast or slow shutter speeds; in thermal imaging we work with temperature, energy dissipation, colour and the thermal traces of movement.

A view of the men’s snowboard ‘big air’ qualifiers at Livigno Snow Park. Photograph: Héctor Vivas/Getty Images

An athlete lands during the men’s snowboard ‘big air’ qualifiers at Livigno Snow Park. Photograph: Héctor Vivas/Getty Images

“We are obviously confronted with several limitations, which we play with. It’s impossible for us to choose settings such as the exposure speed, aperture and focal length.

“Also, there are technical constraints such as a delay between pressing the shutter and the image being captured. This pushes us to reinvent composition, since our visual reference points change completely.”

Violette Braun of France competes during the speed skating women’s 3,000m at Milano Speed Skating Stadium. Photograph: Pauline Ballet/Getty Images

A competitor at the finish area during the women’s downhill skiing at Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

The trio are also experimenting with several other creative projects at the Games including infra-red photography, vintage Graflex cameras and digital composites.

Vivas said the Graflex cameras were “paying tribute to the type of camera that would have been used 70 years ago when Cortina previously hosted the Games in 1956”. But, in a modern twist, “[our] cameras have been adapted to record images on smartphones, enabling live transmission of the content captured”.

“It’s exciting to be part of Getty’s special projects team,” Ballet adds. “We can’t wait to share the finished set at the end of the Games.”