Bryan Keane
Aug 21, 2019
Olympian Turned Sports Photographer Rediscovering the Buzz of Competition
Bryan Keane is an Irish Olympian, former professional triathlete, and now a leading sports photographer whose work spans swimming, cycling, triathlon, and athletics for top publications including the Irish Examiner. He relies on the Outex waterproof camera housing system to capture action above and below the water line at international competitions.
Bryan Keane endured a rollercoaster of emotions in his former life as a professional athlete. Three years on from his retirement, the former Olympian has found the perfect job in his quest to challenge himself and rediscover the buzz of competition.
It's a little over two years since the Cork man woke up to a distorted reality, his career consigned at last to the past tense. In his mid-20s, after moving home from Belgium at the end of his cycling career, he spent a couple of years working as a photographer in Cork — a job he continued during a year in Australia.
But it was Down Under, at the age of 28, that he discovered a new obsession: triathlon, which enveloped his existence for the next eight years.
When that ended, the most obvious path was to return to photography — but how?
Keane was a few weeks into retirement when he got a call to pose for a shoot promoting the Tunnel Run, alongside fellow Olympian Natalya Coyle. The photographer that day was a recognisable face: Dan Sheridan. Their conversation would change the course of Keane's future.
Knowing how hard a field it is to break into, Keane asked Sheridan to meet for a coffee so he could pick his brains on photography. Sheridan went one better — inviting him to join a job in Athlone at a para-cycling event that weekend. He handed Keane a camera and let him shoot all day, then talked the whole way home about what it takes to succeed in the industry. As it turned out, Sheridan's agency, Inpho, had an opening, and Keane was offered a one-month trial.
Life as a photographer — it's not so different. The familiar rhythm of a standard week is still an alien concept, his weekends surrendered to live sport. Like triathlon, you observe the best, absorb what you can, then practise, practise, practise. "It takes time, craft, training hours," says Keane. "I was at the bottom of the ladder — welcome to the real world."
Trace the arc of Keane's career and you quickly spot a pivotal turning point: a terrible road crash that turned one of Ireland's fittest men into a bloodied wreckage on the Cork to Cobh road. When he steps back now and looks at his career with the wide-angle lens, he can see the whole journey in a new light. How the crash — cruel twist of fate that it was — set off a chain reaction that shaped his life for the better.
These days, he knows how lucky he is to have found a replacement — a path that feels just as meaningful. Keane still rides his bike in his spare time, swims in the sea, and runs when his legs allow it, but he no longer has to. He does it to stay healthy. And if he gets the odd flashback to his racing days, well, so be it.
"That's what I achieved with the time I had in the sport, but life moves on and you evolve into something different," he says. "It's over, it's done. I'm very happy to be on the other side."
See more of Bryan's work in the Outex Ambassador profiles, and explore the waterproof camera housing system he uses to shoot in and around the water.