Phil Taylor is one of the most talented and respected photographers in ice hockey. If you have followed the Australian Women’s Ice Hockey League (AWIHL) or the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) on socials over the past decade, you have more than likely seen his work.

In fact, as someone who has covered the AWIHL for several years, whenever I need a photo of a player from a team, I first check to see when that team travelled to Melbourne, and search through Phil’s photos.

Without Phil’s work, and the work of all our volunteer photographers, past and present, it would be impossible to tell the stories of our great sport as effectively.

Phil joined us at the NHL Global Series in Melbourne last year, and has graciously allowed us to use his photos ever since. We are thrilled to be able to share a little part of Phil’s story here, on Hockey Hype Australia. Here he is, in his own words.

How did you get started?

At the invitation of Tania Chalmers, I tried my hand at shooting a couple of Mustangs games during their championship winning 2014 season. The first game I shot was against the Bears in late June but I have no idea what the score was, I was having enough trouble keeping up with the play!

I did another game against the Northstars in July and then the under 18 women’s series against NZ. After getting a taste for it, I was pretty keen and did the whole 2015 AIHL season plus the Brown tournament – that was full on with so many games crammed into a few days.

I’ve been shooting for the Mustangs since then as well as shooting AWIHL since 2016. Tania gave me some advice when I started – don’t follow the puck as most of the action will occur in front or behind the puck. There are times when I can read the play but then you get guys like Timmins, Wishart and Lawrence come along and you have to re-learn what you thought you knew.

As a photographer, Richard Costello was someone I could admire for his ability read the play so well and know exactly where to point the camera at the right time.

What does a typical game look like?

A typical game for me would be to make sure everything I need for the game is packed and ready to go the night before – cameras, lenses, batteries etc. I generally arrive around 2 hours before a game so that I can get ready, check in to see what is on the game day run sheet and take some pre game shots.

After shooting the game, it’s off home to spend a couple more hours or so culling, processing and uploading images for the league and teams. Although I shoot for the Mustangs, I approach the game looking for images that will suit the AIHL and both teams to show case the game.

If you go into this thinking that you’re a fan of a team then you’re not going to be providing good service to the league or the teams, and you’re letting down those fans who can’t travel to games. You need to observe and let the flow of the game tell the story. As part of that, I’ll also look for images that can be used for marketing or promotional work.

Fan reaction images can be some of the most powerful and we’re lucky that we have a lot of very passionate fans that come along to the games, especially some of the interstate supporters who follow their teams around.

What are some highlights?

I have been very fortunate to have captured a number of AIHL and AWIHL finals series, along with the two Trans Tasman series at the Icehouse.

Last year, I was the only local ice hockey photographer lucky enough to be accredited to capture the NHL Global Series here but the highlight so far is capturing the Mustangs 2023 championship. I’ve captured the championship team photo a number of times but it’s a bit surreal when it’s the team that you’ve shot for almost a decade.

The Mustangs have been good to me over the years and I’ve been very happy to capture some of their best moments for them.

Who inspires you, and how do you continue to develop your craft?

There are a lot of good photographers in the league and it’s been great to have worked with Paul Furness, Cassandra Edwards, Jamison O’Malley, Matt Hartigan, and Peter Podlaha to name a few.

The standard is improving all the time and I’m always looking at ways to elevate the standard of photography for the league. I’ve invested a lot in my own skills development over the years, as well as the equipment that I use, culminating with the introduction of goal cam for this season.

The goal cam was a big project. Paul Furness and I had talked about it for awhile but I had cooled on the idea until I saw some images late last year that rekindled it. I made a few enquiries and investigated the product but knew I would need approvals from the right people to make it happen.

Going for a product that was already NHL approved would be more cost effective and make the process a bit easier than starting from scratch and developing something here. The Icehouse were very supportive, as were the AWIHL and IHA, leading to a successful introduction at the AWIHL finals series and Trans Tasman challenge the following weekend.

It’s pretty exciting to introduce something new for the AIHL and hopefully the fans will appreciate what it can deliver.

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