Photo credit: Paige Bednorz

By Regan Bartel

Dunsmoor: Laser focused behind the lens

Getting photo evidence is fulfilling

Jul 26, 2023 | 7:00 AM

This article first appeared on February 23rd, 2023, and is the 7th most-read story on RocketFAN.

How would you like to watch a Kelowna Rockets home game through a camera lens?

Steve Dunsmoor does it all the time, through a narrow viewfinder.

As the official team photographer, Dunsmoor’s aim is to capture an entire game’s worth of emotion in just a few still shots.

“The game comes at you so fast and goes by you so fast, at times it feels like I can’t keep up”, Dunsmoor told RocketFAN. “It is just trying to catch those moments and follow the game while keeping your head up and paying attention to what’s happening behind the play because that is where a lot of cool stuff happens.”

Rockets face road test in games 3 and 4

Goaltending, discipline and depth driving 2-0 series lead over Blazers

Mar 30, 2026

Rockets DOA. Dominate. Overcome. Achieve

Things that make me go hmm....

Feb 02, 2026

Too good to ignore, too hated to care

Kelowna Rockets: The team the Internet loves to hate

Jan 13, 2026

Dunsmoor is no stranger to taking action shots at hockey games, but his daytime job of taking real estate photos for the past 15 years often gets in the way of his real passion.

“The speed of the game is miles above anything I am used to,” Dunsmoor added. “It is definitely a challenge every game. Whether you are shooting NHL, WHL, or Junior B, there is always a photographer behind you working just a little bit harder to try to get where you are.

“I am kind of in an elite position. It is a little heady, as I don’t feel that I am that guy. I love the absolute crap out of it. There is nothing else I’d love to do [taking photos] between the benches…it is where I belong.”

By word of mouth and an ad placed on Facebook, the now 50-year-old reluctantly submitted his portfolio after shooting minor hockey tournaments and games involving the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League’s Kelowna Chiefs.

“When this opportunity came up, there was a lot of hemming and hawing. I didn’t have the gear to do it, selling most of it during the pandemic, but I came into the Rockets office, talked, and walked out with the job”.

Now into his second season behind the camera for the team, Dunsmoor must have quick reflexes and even quicker trigger fingers.

“You think you have that perfect shot, and you go back to look at it and it’s not, but then you look at three others. In some games you feel like you’ve got nothing, but you get that one shot where Andrew Cristall just lights the room up, and a journalist walks by and tells me that’s the ‘money shot’, and it makes things better.”

On average, Dunsmoor takes 750 photos per game, then collects what he believes is the best and posts them for the hockey team and media to use, including us at RocketFAN.

Spending a good portion of the game between the two benches in what is known as the ‘suicide box’, while it is ideal for getting that action shot, it also comes with a health hazard.

“Boyko [Talyn] was playing the puck”, Dunsmoor recalls. “My attention was on [Turner] McMillen and another player about to fight. Suddenly, ding, the puck went off the top of my head. I looked down and thought, boy does that really hurt, and then I noticed a fountain [of blood] was coming out of my head.”

Dunsmoor received seven stitches from that incident, but chuckles now saying, “Somehow I have no scar, or next to no scar but a good story to tell”.

Outside of dodging hard rubber pucks and high-flying sticks, Dunsmoor must navigate around two referees and two linesmen, that more times than not, get in his way.

“They have the priority. They have a job to do, but when it comes down to it and they are in my way, I have nine other pairs of players to take photos, and sometimes I just need to watch.”

Dunsmoor is learning as he goes, having reached out to Seattle Kraken photographer Chris Mast for advice along the way, calling the former Everett Silvertip shutterbug, “an amazing guy and an amazing photographer”.

“I look at everyone’s work across the WHL”, Dunsmoor admitted. They are passionate about what they are doing. I feel unworthy when I see some of it, but it pushes me.

“I hope what I do, if they look at my work, pushes them. At the end of the day, we all make each other better.”