Eric Lalmand

A graduate of ICADI, one of the two photo schools in Liège, he looked for work and found a position as a photo laboratory assistant. It is the development of dandruff. On weekends he reports for himself, on motor sports events, his hobby, which abound in Belgium.

He builds up a book with his best photos and shows it to different agencies to get hired. He heard that a place had become available at Reporters, the large Belgian sports photography agency, founded and directed by Alain Schroeder, the master, whom I have represented for a long time.

Alain told him straight away: “You work quite well, but if you want to exist in sports photography, particularly in Belgium, you will have to take up football and cycling. If you're not good at both sports, you're useless."

Reporters at the time, it was a small group of very successful photographers, all members of the staff must be capable of doing everything and excelling in these two sports, the two most important for the Belgian and French markets, those where the agency makes its figures.

So Alain said to him: “This weekend, choose a match, even a small match near you, and work. See you again on Monday."

Eric goes for it, excited like a young labrador, an opening to join Reporters, it's at least as exciting as the prospect of a one-on-one dinner with Sharon Stone.

He makes 4 “rolls" of slides and returns on Monday morning, little finger on the seam of the pants, waiting for the verdict.

At the time, editing (selection) took place on the light table, at Reporters as everywhere else.

We looked at each image in the thread count and put on the left the ones that were good and went into the archives, on the right those that were less good or not at all and went to the trash.

Final verdict, left pile: 0, right pile: all. That's 4 times 36 photos.

And Alain, taking some from the pile on the right, speaks and comments on them:

“Seriously Eric, you even missed the team photo, the sky takes up two thirds of it. As for the actions, you trigger early or too late, your players are clear but we never see the ball... We don't even know it's football! »

Eric returns home depressed, on the verge of abandonment, on the verge of starting to weave the rope with which he will end things. He tells himself that he won't succeed because he isn't cut out for this job.

His wife shakes him: “Was Mr. Schroeder unfair or do you agree with his comments? »

“He's right," replies Eric, “each of his criticisms was relevant"

“So you're going to do it again and you're going to do better." »

Behind every great man there is a woman, says the adage attributed to Talleyrand.

Eric knows he hasn't been good. He grew up devouring the books of Gérard Vandystadt, a good sports photo, he knows what it looks like.

He goes back and does better. The next time even better and that's how the vacant place at Reporters came back to him.

It's 1989.

And today, the man looks at you from the height of his career, with seven Olympic Games and almost as many Football World Cups. He did the Tour, the Grand Prix, the tennis grand slams... Everything that matters in short.

He has slowed down a bit, the long journeys are taking a toll on him. He continues to take photos and devotes himself more to editing for the Belga agency.

It's him who, when a photographer comes home from a report, asks him to stand next to him in front of the screen and says: "You were good" or sometimes "but where were you?" ".

He has become the judge, the one who decides: “left or right".