In Alex Slitz’s own words, he failed at painting.

So, he decided to pick up a camera, a move that would lead to a 15-year long career at daily newspapers across the country — including a five year stint at the Daily News after college — and would end up putting him on Getty Images’ 120-strong team covering the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

“I could barely draw a stick figure and switched to photography,” Slitz told the Daily News via email from Milan. “It didn’t take long to know I wanted to be a photographer, even if I didn’t yet know which direction I wanted to take.”

Slitz, who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, attended Western Kentucky University and took a job at the Daily News in 2009. While at the Daily News Slitz covered events ranging from family events at the Bowling Green-Warren County Airport, summer camps for children and a sinkhole that swallowed several cars at the National Corvette Museum.

He considers the Daily News to be the place where he “fell in love with storytelling.”

“I’m grateful I didn’t jump straight into a large market early on,” he stated. “Working in smaller newsrooms forced me to do a little bit of everything and build strong fundamentals—how to earn trust, work quickly, and tell complete stories.”

After a stint in Florida working at the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers and a year spent at Evansville’s Courier & Press, Slitz went to work for the Lexington Herald-Leader as the paper’s chief sports photographer.

Slitz’s time at the Herald-Leader was chiefly spent with the University of Kentucky’s basketball and football teams. He left for the Charlotte Observer in 2022 and in 2023 moved to Atlanta.

Atlanta was where he began working for Getty on a freelance-basis. This is where many of Slitz’s career highlights were made — from split second racing finishes to the World Series to professional golf’s U.S. Open.

By August of 2024 he started working with the company full time and relocated to Houston.

“Working at Getty had been a goal from the moment I decided to pursue sports photography full time, so being able to do this work now feels like a full-circle moment,” he stated.

This year marks Slitz’s first time covering a Winter Olympics, but he was able to cut his teeth in the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. His focus in Milan is on ski-jumping and cross country skiing. While these sports are new to him, he said the mechanics of covering them are not.

“By the time I reached the international stage as a sports photographer, I felt prepared,” he stated. “The scale may be different, but the process is the same.”