Inside the growth: The photographer who turned poker’s rawest feelings into historical past

Over the previous fifty years, Joe Giron has witnessed a number of the greatest and worst issues an individual will ever see. He noticed airline disasters and earthquakes. He stood in the identical room with Nirvana, Steve Ray Vaughan, and Eminem. He traveled with Pantera. He stayed up all night time to see poker legend Chip Reese win the trophy that now bears Reese’s title. 

If merely being within the room was all he he’d completed, Giron’s life will nonetheless be exceptional. But Giron did extra. From the time he was 18 years outdated till now, Giron has recorded all of those moments for history. His work in journalism and rock and roll images had been legendary on their very own. Twenty years in the past, because the poker growth hit its peak, Giron turned his lens on the World Series of Poker. Today his poker images archive is the definitive library of the poker growth at its apex.

That’s why we reached out to Giron this summer season. His pictures are greater than a unprecedented visible report of poker historical past. They additionally communicate to a topic PokerOrg is exploring in depth within the lead-up to the 2026 WSOP Final Table: what may the poker growth educate us about making poker larger, extra compelling, and extra memorable sooner or later?

In our sequence Inside the Boom, PokerOrg speaking to the individuals who lived by way of the poker growth, documented its defining moments, and helped form the best way the sport was seen. The dialog beneath is condensed from an interview with Giron in July 2026, by which he discusses photographing the WSOP on the peak of the growth, the gamers and moments that outlined that period, and the way the Series has modified by way of the lens of somebody who helped protect its historical past.

From rock and roll to the Rio

You arrived in poker with out figuring out a ton concerning the sport, then walked into the WSOP at what might have been absolutely the peak of the growth. What do you bear in mind seeing and feeling whenever you first entered that room?

I walked into the Amazon Ballroom on the Rio for the WSOP in June of 2006. I had been within the poker {industry} for a complete of six months at the moment overlaying WPT occasions. The scale of the ‘organized chaos’ that was the WSOP was what struck me probably the most overlaying that occasion. The room was large and each inch of the realm was full of poker tables, workers and gamers. 

It felt fairly chaotic to me, however issues ran very easily for probably the most half. The ‘mothership,’ as we’ve come to name the primary stage, was not that giant in 2006, It was caught within the northeast nook of the ballroom, nevertheless it was nonetheless spectacular. Lighting and rigging and manned-rolling digicam dollies occupied a big a part of the realm, in addition to the poker desk containing cameras that exposed the gamers’ playing cards to the TV viewers.

Before poker, you had photographed main information occasions and spent years round rock bands. Did poker appear boring by comparability? How did you discover the motion you probably did?

I used to be a workers photographer for main newspapers in Dallas and Seattle earlier than going the freelance route into the music {industry}. I photographed music artists for report firm industrial shoots and editorial journal shoots for most of the main rock publications. 

I didn’t discover poker boring firstly as I used to be trying to seize moments of emotion that instructed the story of the tournaments photojournalistically. What helped capturing the WPT occasions is that I might go to an occasion for the ultimate three days. That often meant I used to be there for the cash bubble and gamers getting paid for his or her efforts. That is the place you seize emotion and good moments you wouldn’t usually seize on day ones. 

Once I discovered the sport higher, my coaching as a information photographer allowed me to anticipate the place the motion would possibly occur and the place the emotion would possibly come from a participant and seize that elation or dejection. After being within the {industry} for 20 years, poker can appear to be boring on the early phases of the event. But my philosophy has at all times been to shoot impactful photos which have context and inform the story of the event at hand. After all, it’s referred to as ‘reside reporting.’

History in a single body

Writers may reconstruct occasions afterward, whereas ESPN may edit lots of of hours right into a tv story. You needed to acknowledge and seize a second because it occurred. How do you make one body inform the entire story?

As far as photojournalism, I’m a giant believer that both you’ve got the expertise otherwise you don’t. There isn’t any technique to masks not having the expertise to inform the story and to create impactful imagery. I used to be lucky to know that I had that expertise by age 18 and targeted on getting as a lot sensible expertise within the newspaper {industry} in addition to going to Ohio University which had a high-powered photojournalism program.

Having that have means that you can anticipate being in the proper place on the proper time. It’s all about instinctually figuring out the place to position your self to seize the second that tells the story. Context and putting the proper visible parts into {a photograph} assist to inform a narrative in a single body. That’s often my greatest grievance about most poker photographers within the {industry} today. They lack context of their pictures, and it’s exhausting to inform that individuals are taking part in poker. Pretty footage of individuals’s heads are solely fairly footage of individuals’s heads. Without context, they don’t inform the story of the occasion or event.

Did you discover gamers turning into extra aware of cameras? 

As far as cameras being round poker in the course of the poker growth, there weren’t that many competent photographers throughout that timeframe, so I don’t assume gamers had been that used to cameras being round them. My method is to try to not impression the motion on the desk in any means and supply ‘fly on the wall’ protection of gamers.  

I would favor that gamers not make an enormous deal after I method a desk to take some footage. I would like sincere, natural pictures of the gamers. I don’t need them mugging for the digicam or flashing me a thumbs up. I hope to not impression the movement or integrity of the sport.With the introduction of the iPhone and iPads, some gamers today are oblivious to the cameras. They are often their units. That has introduced in an entire totally different set of challenges to creating good pictures of those gamers whereas their noses buried of their content material.  

Which gamers from that interval had been particularly compelling photographic topics—not essentially as a result of they had been well-known, however as a result of their faces, habits, feelings, or bodily presence constantly revealed one thing? 

Some of my favourite gamers from my early days in poker included Doyle Brunson. He was on the first televised last desk I shot in December of 2005. There was a lot character in his face, and at all times carrying the cowboy hat. Scotty Nguyen was a showman, gregarious, and you could possibly inform he was having enjoyable taking part in the sport. Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi was younger, intimidating, and never afraid to take probabilities. Burt Boutin was very energetic and unstable on the desk,

poker photographer should stay shut sufficient to see intimate moments whereas turning into nearly invisible to the individuals experiencing them. How did you earn that entry and belief with gamers throughout these years?

My method has at all times been to be as skilled as doable and to not be intrusive whereas taking pictures at occasions. As gamers see you and your work as time goes by, they arrive to just accept you and belief you to be a part of their setting. As any good journalist is aware of, you aren’t a part of the story and don’t need to develop into a part of the story. While capturing I’ve at all times tried to place myself at arm’s size from interacting with gamers throughout play. It goes again to be a workers photographer at newspapers. The greatest pictures are going to return when gamers are simply being themselves and never making an attempt to pose for the digicam. 

Did you’ve got any hassle photographing somebody on the worst second of their event or life?

I’ve by no means had an issue photographing individuals or poker gamers on the worst second of their lives. It’s part of the job of a photojournalist. You are there to seize these moments and inform the story whether or not good or unhealthy. Most of these ‘worst’ moments in poker are when gamers are being eradicated from a event or take a nasty beat and lose most of their chips.  

They get emotional, however I consider these moments present that gamers care and that poker isn’t only a sport of robots with none emotion. There hasn’t been a kind of pictures that I’ve chosen to not publish.  

Ironically one {photograph} I selected to not publish was a profitable second from a WPT occasion at Seminole Hard Rock. This was throughout Covid in 2021 and we may solely publish footage of gamers with face coverings. When this participant received, he was emotional and his face overlaying slide off his face.  It was an awesome, emotional second, however due to the restrictions in place, we couldn’t publish it on the time.

Boom crews

Between 2006 and 2010, on-line poker websites, blogs, magazines, tv crews, and unbiased media had been all competing to doc the identical occasion. What was the connection among the many photographers?

Between 2006-2010, there have been solely a handful of photographers capturing poker, principally all for one firm. I consider the connection all of us shared was collegial, territorial, chaotic. We had been all pleasant with one another and labored as a crew. We had been territorial as a result of there have been solely so many working alternatives at the moment in comparison with now. It was chaotic, as a result of a number of the photographers weren’t superb and also you questioned if they really captured the images wanted for the project or had been they simply there being fan girls and boys to be part of the poker scene.

Who had been the individuals outdoors the highlight—the sellers, ground workers, media staff, associates, relations, satellite tv for pc qualifiers, and various hangers-on—whose faces belong within the true historical past of the poker growth?

Some of the individuals outdoors the highlight in the course of the poker growth who made an impression on me embrace Matt Marantz of 441 Productions, Nolan Dalla, Steve Preiss from Wicked Chops, Dr. Pauly McGuire from Tao of Poker, the PokerStars Blog Team–you, Howard Swains and Stephen Bartley—Rich Korbin from PokerStars and Oliver Tse, an actual character who was a kind of  poker agent roaming the halls of the WSOP with a rolling briefcase and making sponsor ship offers for gamers to be patched on the TV desk. I consider he might need had a day job, however would scurry across the hallways able to characterize gamers for a reduce of their patch-wearing proceeds.

Your archive now capabilities as a part of poker’s historic report. What do you hope individuals fifty years from now will perceive concerning the poker growth and also you once they look by way of your pictures?

I don’t consider photographers may have captured the poker growth like we did with out the appearance of digital images. As the growth was occurring, digital cameras had been simply beginning to get good and able to capturing photos below all kinds of lighting circumstances. From a technical standpoint, if we had nonetheless been capturing movie, there would have been many obstacles to acquiring good photographs as a result of shade images would have required using filters for proper shade stability and shade movie was not that quick from an ISO perspective to shoot indoors below obtainable mild circumstances.  

We may have captured it nicely with black and white movie, however shade emphasizes the splashy, practical facet of the sport in its true colours. Plus, processing the movie would have required a bunch of time within the darkroom or sending the movie out for processing. Digital images made it doable for us to have instantaneous photos to edit and run by way of postproduction after which add in a well timed method to editorial web sites or distribution channels. I hope the images of that period can present future generations how the sport of poker was rising in recognition as had been the event venues and TV manufacturing units used to televise the sport to the mass public.  

Rock and roll all night time

Was there any picture you really liked that was the toughest to seize?

In 2006, Chip Reese battled by way of one of many hardest event fields ever to win the first-ever $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship on the World Series. He took house over $1.7 million after dueling with Andy Bloch for an ever-lasting seven hours.

You instructed me a pair weeks in the past that you simply aren’t going to retire within the conventional sense. Why is that?

When I noticed you latterly, we mentioned getting older and an finish sport for work and retirement. Obviously, I’ve been very lucky to do what I at all times needed to do: be knowledgeable photographer.  

It’s the outdated cliché: ‘I don’t really feel like I’ve labored a single day of my life. I did say that I wouldn’t ‘retire’ in a conventional sense, which means that so long as I’m bodily succesful and so long as shoppers nonetheless have the arrogance in me to provide top-level, world-class images for his or her wants, I’ll proceed to indicate up at occasions they need to rent me for. 

Hell, it may all be gone subsequent week, however I can safely say, I achieved all I ever needed to as knowledgeable photojournalist, music {industry} photographer, and extra.

Poker has been an awesome, area of interest {industry} for me. It was an {industry} that desperately wanted good visuals to inform the story of the game. I’m glad I used to be capable of have an element in setting a high-bar and industry-standards for future generations of poker photojournalists to try to realize.

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All photographs courtesy Joe Giron