*POOF*  There goes the myth about traditional agencies having the best photos while the micros only offer crap.  We all know each and every one of those shots would be instantly rejected by the micros. 

Photographer Joe Klamar Explains His Controversial Olympic Portraits
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/07/06/photographer-joe-klamar-explains-his-controversial-olympic-portraits/

Photographer Joe Klamar Explains His Controversial Olympic Portraits
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/07/06/photographer-joe-klamar-explains-his-controversial-olympic-portraits/

OK, if this is the case, why were his shots chosen over those from some of the other photographers that had set up mini studios?
I stick to my original assumption that these shots were used in order to create more buzz.

I can't understand how a pro can produce such garbage. There's no excuse. Lighting is the worst I've ever seen, someone setting it up for the first time, would do it better. How is it even possible to compose them that badly, that you even miss the edge of the backdrop and shoot on a torn paper (just roll down the unused part, you idiot)?

And then the editors accept them and send them to the media ? With such competition I'd be a multimillionaire

His excuses are irrelevant.  He should not have let the results out of his laptop.

exactly.  and really...  �It was very embarrassing to find out that I wouldn�t be able to take advantage of a studio,� Joe told us by email.

I would think that a pro would have improvised way better than that -- but seeing the results, definitely should not have released any of those images. 

I think Getty intentionally turned this in to a publicity stunt to drive awareness for the company. They threw Klamar under the bus for the media play. How unlike them...

OK, here's a likely scenario (from a newspaper man's perspective): AFP had the invite to the shoot and included photos of the US Olympic team as part of the photo  schedule for the day, causing papers to leave space for the pix in their sports pages. When the pictures arrived, AFP were b*ggered, they hadn't got anything else, so an irate sports editor thought "scr*w this photographer" and pushed them through, as per schedule, rather than sending out an apology and cancellation. For reasons of their authenticity as news shots, the torn paper, etc, could not be retouched according to AFP's ethics (I've even seen sensor spots carefully preserved in wire pics).

As I understand it, Getty automatically archives everything on the AFP picture feed making it inevitable that once these pictures were released by AFP they would immediately enter the Getty archive. That's the policy, so that's what happened.

Therefore, from the moment this event was included in the AFP picture schedule, the outcome was pretty much inevitable.

However, the photographer's excuse was pathetic. Even with a restricted backdrop he could have gone for tight upper-body poses, etc, and there was no requirement to have the wrong WB.

Wow! When I took a look at Klamar's portfolio at Getty ten hours ago, there were thousands of images, today only four of them remaining.
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?contractUrl=2&language=en-US&family=editorial&assetType=image&mt=photography&p=joe+klamar

I still see 34000 images there, most of them snapshots.

I still see only 4 :s . Perhaps I should have deleted cookies (which I won't, not to see more crap)

I have always from the very start maintained that trad agencies and especially microstock, should stay away from editorial photography and this if anything is living proof.
Absoloute cr#p.