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Photographer Kohjiro Kinno captures the game from a different perspective
With all captions by Kohjiro Kinno
Light / Dark
Yes, he played the game through high school. Yes, he was even a member of the junior varsity golf team. But Sports Illustrated photographer Kohjiro “Kojo” Kinno doesn’t play golf. Doesn’t touch the stuff.
“That shit’s expensive!” he says with a laugh. “It goes back to college: I had no money and was super focused on photography at that point, so all my money went into cameras and film. I’ve only played two or three times since.”
In golf’s stead, Kinno spends his downtime surfing up and down the Southern California coastline. His on-course time is now spent almost exclusively at major championships and Ryder Cup events.
“I was a skateboarder in high school,” recalls Kinno of his entry into photography. “There was no internet, so I grew up reading TransWorld Skateboarding and Thrasher and right away I knew I wanted to be a magazine guy; I wanted to be a photographer. I had tunnel vision.”
Kinno’s entry into photography is a familiar one in action sports, where creativity and ingenuity are requisite and photographers are as much a part of the action as the athletes. It’s a fertile space for young photographers, but not one that guarantees mainstream success. Kinno’s rerouting into golf photography came unexpectedly when he was called on to assist Sports Illustrated photographer Robert Beck at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
“I didn’t know a thing about him when I hired him,” recalls Beck, who became a de facto mentor to Kinno. “He was the hired hand for the weekend. He hung out helping for years assisting me and a few others at SI.”
After nearly eight years of on-the-job-training, the magazine threw Kinno a bone. He took advantage of the situation and made a go of it. Today he is a staple of the magazine’s golf photography (along with his gig as The Golfer’s Journal photo editor), trusted to capture the game’s biggest moments in his own way.
“He has an aversion to other human beings, so he tends to shoot from off the beaten path,” says Beck. “That creates angles and visions that are at odds with the norm. His stuff is different and unusual…as is the man himself.”
Miriam Marseu, SI’s golf photo editor, agrees: “He can frame the space in front of him like no other, using negative space dramatically and poetically. He is great on a team because he takes more chances to get us something different and he is great when he shoots an event alone because he knows when he needs to be at key moments and holes.”
Let the the following images be entered into evidence.
—Brendon Thomas
145th Open Championship, Royal Troon Golf Club, Troon, Scotland, 2016. Rory McIlroy blasting out on the seventh.
01
Yokohama Country Club, Yokohama, Japan, 2017. The fourth green from above. I was in Japan for three weeks to photograph a few different courses with the full bloom of the cherry blossoms, called sakura. This was on my third and final trip to the course during that stay. My main objective was to get an image that satisfied me. I’m not interested in creating images we’ve all seen before.
02
2014 Masters, Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, Georgia. I was at my fourth Masters, covering the tournament for Sports Illustrated. The course is amazing. I decided to walk around the course once we were allowed out to photograph the morning light skimming the fairways.
03
Tiger Woods, 2014 Farmers Insurance Open, Torrey Pines Golf Course, La Jolla, California. What can I say, I’m glad I’ve been able to photograph a bit of Tiger Woods’ career.
04
Foam Study, Huntington Beach, California, 2017. I’ve always been intrigued with shooting aerial photographs. I’ve shot from helicopters, airplanes, hot air balloons and blimps. This one I shot with a drone at my home break.
05
Jordan Spieth, 2016 Masters, Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, Georgia. Dead silent. So many people, all watching one golfer. It’s no wonder this is the hole that so often determines the outcome of golf tournaments.
06
Chambers Bay Golf Course, University Place, Washington, 2015. I photographed the course early in the year for a preview, and when I returned for the U.S. Open, it wasn’t green anymore. I spent three days there from dawn ’til dusk photographing course scenics. I even got onto the train that goes along this course to see if I could get a shot from the moving train. No, that didn’t work out.
07
Phil Mickelson, 145th Open Championship, Royal Troon Golf Club, Troon, Scotland, 2016. This was my first trip alone to cover the British Open. It was one of the easiest and most enjoyable golf tournaments I’ve ever covered. Royal Troon is an incredibly photogenic course. That coupled with a super-helpful media crew and a sideways rain made it a memorable one. Everyone was very polite and the tournament staff did everything they could to accommodate the photographers and media. I loved it.
08
Zach Johnson, 2016 Ryder Cup, Hazeltine National Golf Club, Chaska, Minnesota. I covered the Ryder Cup for Sports Illustrated with the stud Robert Beck. I assisted Robert for many years before jumping into the freelance world and it was fun to be able to work with him. We split coverage and I followed the Zach Johnson/Jimmy Walker group that day. It’s always fun to be able to incorporate the crowds into the action shot. The media received Ryder Cup backpacks as gifts, but I sold mine on eBay.
