Meet the photographer behind the viral picture of Jack Hughes’ enamel on the Olympics

Hours earlier than capturing one of many enduring photographs of the 2026 Olympics — and maybe sports activities this decade — Elsa Garrison scouted her environment at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, host of the lads’s gold medal hockey recreation in Milan. The Getty Images photographer made a psychological be aware of the place Team Canada households had been sitting, then did the identical for the Americans. She knew that after the sport, the victorious gamers would seemingly skate towards their family members for a second of celebration. Garrison wished to be prepared.

As she and American ahead Jack Hughes each realized that night, iconic pictures occur when preparedness meets a vital second.

Garrison, who has been with Getty for practically 30 years and goes by her first identify solely within the firm’s picture credit, shot the sport from close to middle ice on the penalty-box aspect of the rink. When Hughes scored the game-winning purpose in time beyond regulation, Garrison instantly took photographs of elated American gamers pouring off the bench. She didn’t linger close to middle ice, although. Less than a minute after the purpose, she moved to the nook of the rink, proper in entrance of the American households.

As Garrison predicted, that’s precisely the place the Team USA gamers skated earlier than the medal ceremony. As the golden-goal scorer, Hughes was on the prime of Garrison’s psychological listing of gamers to shoot. She snapped a collection of photographs by way of the glass, together with the now-viral picture prone to be proven in sports activities images courses. Hughes has the American flag draped round his shoulders and is gazing into the gang, his proper fist lifted. He’s grinning, displaying off his chipped entrance tooth and still-bloody mouth from a high-sticking penalty drawn earlier within the recreation.

“It’s all the elements you would look for from somebody who scored the game-winning goal,” Garrison mentioned.

“It’s definitely a pretty legendary picture,” mentioned Hughes, who performs for the New Jersey Devils. “The photographer just captured the perfect moment of the teeth and the jersey and the flag draped over my shoulders and just the pure excitement.”

If the gold medal recreation had been performed at an NHL rink, the place seats are straight in opposition to the boards, Garrison’s image would have been inconceivable. But at Santagiulia, there was a spot behind the glass to accommodate extra photographers, so Garrison was capable of rush by way of it shortly to get in place after the sport. Her project for Getty was to observe the perimeter whereas different photographers lined as much as get on the ice for the medal ceremony. She was the one nonetheless photographer located by the U.S. households, permitting her to seize a picture totally different from anybody else: one that will endure for many years.

“We’ve gotten so used to images having such a short shelf life,” Garrison mentioned. “To see this one have a little bit more staying power has been really cool.”

“It just brings you back to the moment,” Team USA coach Mike Sullivan mentioned.

Garrison works out of Getty’s New York workplace and lives in New Jersey, so she ceaselessly shoots Devils video games and is aware of loads of the workforce employees. One of her first ideas after snapping the picture was that the workforce can be proud of it; she had no sense within the second how far the picture would attain.

In the time since, Garrison has gained greater than 10,000 Instagram followers. She’s been inundated with direct messages. She doesn’t consider another picture she’s taken in her profession has obtained this type of consideration. That’s saying one thing, given her monitor report.

Garrison isn’t any stranger to taking momentous sports activities photographs. She shot Eagles operating again Saquon Barkley’s backwards hurdle over a defender in 2024, in addition to Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles bowing to gold medalist Rebeca Andrade on the 2024 Paris Olympics. ESPN soccer reporter Adam Schefter and SportsHeart posted a compilation of these two photographs, in addition to the Hughes picture, with the caption: “Three of the most iconic sports images captured in the last few years have all been taken by the same photographer.” The publish has practically 200,000 likes on Instagram.

Garrison is from Brainerd, Minnesota, a city about two hours north of Minneapolis greatest referred to as one of many settings within the film “Fargo.” She first picked up a digicam as a freshman in highschool, then began working part-time as a photographer for the Brainerd Daily Dispatch as a sophomore. After graduating from the University of Missouri, she was employed by Allsport, a photograph company acquired by Getty in 1998.

Garrison was the primary lady employees photographer at Getty. She believes the trade has modified and turn out to be extra inclusive previously 20 to 30 years. Last month, on the Olympic workforce determine skating occasion in Milan, she seen that seven of the eight or 9 photographers on the worldwide press pool carpet had been girls.

“There is a lot left to do, but I feel like women are more encouraged and more welcomed to be sport photographers than certainly when I started,” she mentioned. “We’re not as singled out or harassed or any of that sort of thing. We’re allowed to do our jobs for the most part.”

In the late Nineties, Sports Illustrated — then identified for its wonderful images — used one in all Garrison’s University of Missouri soccer photographs for a two-page show. She was thrilled to look within the journal, however when she opened it, she noticed that the publication had incorrectly added further vowels to her maiden identify, Hasch, and had written her first identify as Eli, not Elsa. Her pleasure shortly pale into disappointment.

“Maybe I should just go by Elsa so they can learn how to spell that first, and then I can add my last name later,” she remembers joking.

A yr or two later, she was taking pictures the 1999 Stanley Cup Final between the Dallas Stars and Buffalo Sabres. Sports Illustrated wished to make use of one in all her photos of Buffalo goalie Dominik Hašek. She was taking pictures movie on the time and mailed the journal her slide mount with solely “Elsa” written on it. That’s the way it ran, and it’s how she stored submitting photographs after.

“I felt like it was a way for me to kind of scream that I’m here without screaming that I’m here,” she mentioned.

She quipped that if she tried so as to add her final identify now, Getty’s system would most likely crash.

The Hughes image is a significant achievement for Garrison, nevertheless it doesn’t imply the remainder of her job is on pause. She images quite a lot of sports activities for Getty and has a variety of soccer video games on her schedule with the 2026 World Cup nearing. She additionally shoots many New York space groups, together with the Knicks, Nets, Yankees, Mets, Liberty, Devils and Sirens.

In the aftermath of the Olympics, Garrison obtained a textual content from Neil Leifer, who shot arguably probably the most well-known sports activities image in historical past: Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston in 1965. He congratulated her on capturing a terrific second with the Hughes picture. Between that message and the widespread recognition her image obtained, Garrison remains to be in shock. But by way of all of it she feels satisfaction in her work.

“I did my job that day,” she mentioned, “and I did it pretty well.”