“He’d Have Them Taped on His Locker”: Legendary NBA Photographer Recalls Kobe Bryant & His Obsession With Photographs

Legendary NBA photographer Andrew Bernstein said the late Kobe Bryant was very specific about pictures.

Bernstein has been shooting photographs in the NBA for the last 37 years. He has captured all the NBA finals during this time and won the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award last year. He has been working as Los Angeles Lakers’ team photographer and Bryant is one of the players that he shot the most.

While talking with the Kamenetzky Brothers, Bernstein recalled how Bryant was very particular about pictures while they were working for his book.

“He was very specific and eloquent about the pictures that he remembered that I took,” Bernstein said.

“We found about 90 percent of the stuff that he wanted… He was very conscious that photos spoke to what he was trying to do on the court.”

Kobe Bryant would ask for pictures of the greats

And it was not just his own pictures. Over his career, Bernstein recalled, Bryant asked him for pictures of some greats of the game. He would then have them in his locker room and stare at them before a game.

“Even photos of the greats. He would ask me, out of the blue, ‘I need pictures of my muses, my mentors…’ I’d have to make pictures of (Larry) Bird, (Michael) Jordan, Magic (Johnson), and whoever. And the next game I go in (to his locker room), he’d have them taped on his locker,” Bernstein said.

“He would get himself ready, face his locker, staring at these photos.”

Bernstein had been an NBA photographer since well before Kobe Bryant arrived at the stage. In the decade before Bryant had come into the NBA, Bernstein had worked with the Lakers, capturing the likes of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Since Bryant came into the NBA in 1996, Bernstein had a close relationship with him. He captured some wonderful moments as he continued to work as the Lakers team photographer over the course of Bryant’s 20-year career.