Lakers photographer who shot 400,000 pictures of Kobe Bryant reveals the one photo he will never forget

Before Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships, before he was named NBA MVP, before he became an 18-time NBA all-star, before the Academy Award and the Olympic gold medals and the business empire, he was an 18-year-old rookie fresh out of high school — and that's when Los Angeles Lakers team photographer Andrew Bernstein first met the promising young athlete.

"The young Mamba hadn't become The Mamba yet," says Bernstein in an interview with q's Tom Power. Bernstein remembers approaching Bryant to introduce himself, as he did with all the new players — but unusually, Bryant said he already knew who he was.

"I said, 'Really?' Because we'd never met. I thought he was kind of being smart. And he said, 'No no, I know who you are because I had all your posters in my room growing up,'" remembers Bernstein.

"And I'm thinking, 'Who reads the absolute microscopic type on a poster?' I mean, this guy was absolutely obsessed with everything, including that."

It turns out Bryant's obsession with those posters didn't stem from a love of photography; the basketball great would use them to better his play.

'I was completely blown away'

"He told me later on that he would look at my pictures and other photographers' pictures and dissect them, like he would in a science lab — what was going on and how the athlete was moving his body and how the other player was reacting. And unbeknownst to me, he used my photos throughout his career," says Bernstein, who estimates he has shot more than 400,000 photos of Bryant and later worked closely with the basketball icon on his book The Mamba Mentality.

"When we put our book together, I was completely blown away that this was part of his process of preparation. And I was glad to be part of that."

Berstein says there was a lot of mystery about why Bryant adopted the moniker of "The Black Mamba" — also a type of deadly snake — and he kept the rationale close to the vest while he was playing. But in The Mamba Mentality, he revealed what it meant to him.

'Transcended the game of basketball'

"The book was his vehicle to get that out to the public, to teach young basketball players, coaches, parents, businesspeople, it didn't matter. The Mamba mentality transcended the game of basketball," explains Bernstein. "So when we started to put the book together and he wanted to collaborate with me on it, my photos needed to speak to his process and his craft and how he approached both of those elements to become the iconic athlete that he was."

Bernstein says it was "an absolute pleasure and an honour" to work with Bryant. "It was a challenge, too," he adds, "because he was, as he is in most things and was in life, obsessed with making this book the best you could possibly be. And I had to live up to that."

Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others. The crash happened around 10 a.m. local time, roughly 50 kilometres northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

'No words to express the pain'

Since the news broke, there has been an outpouring of grief from fans, fellow athletes and dozens of celebrities. Sunday's Grammy Awards also opened with a high-profile tribute to Bryant.

• Related: NBA legend Kobe Bryant, daughter Gianna killed in helicopter crash

Bryant retired in 2016 as the third-leading scorer in NBA history, finishing two decades with the Lakers. He held that spot in the league scoring ranks until Saturday night, when the Lakers' LeBron James passed him for third place during a game in Philadelphia, Bryant's hometown.

In December 2017, the Lakers hung banners retiring his No. 8 and No. 24 jerseys in the Staples Center rafters in an unprecedented double honour.

Bernstein says he's still processing the news of Bryant's death, but remembers him as someone who was relentless in his pursuit of greatness, both throughout his career and into business life.

"It's incredibly inspiring to me, and should be the millions of people, that you can go from being an unbelievably successful, iconic athlete, then seamlessly into the business world and creative world. I mean, the guy won an Oscar like a year after he retired. You know, that just didn't happen by chance."

'I want to remember that young Kobe before the journey started, the beginning'

So, after decades spent photographing Bryant, which image will Bernstein remember for years to come?

"I'm just remembering that very first picture I took of him, that very first head shot on that very first media day as this young teenager with this kind of wild look in his eye. And I go back to that," says Bernstein, who posted the image to his Instagram account because it's how he wants to remember Bryant. 

"I want to remember that young Kobe before the journey started, the beginning," says Bernstein. "And as a father, we all like to look at our kids' baby pictures and remember how that journey started. I felt like I was there for him being raised in the NBA from the beginning, and I'm proud of that.

"I'll always be grateful to him," concludes Bernstein. "He'll live within me forever, as he should with everyone else."