THEY compete in crowded stadiums and on hazardous terrain, using hands and eyes, tools and experience, and sometimes their elbows, too.

We are not talking about athletes but rather the photographers who get up close and click away.

“Sports photographers are artists,” said Gail Buckland, the guest curator of a new show, “Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present,” at the Brooklyn Museum.

Ms. Buckland — a Brooklyn native, not a fan — says that sports photographers have traditionally been regarded as hard-working craftsmen who snap the winning goal or disastrous error, then do it all over again the next day. But, she argues, sports photographers have been producing art all these years. The best ones knew exactly what they were doing.

For example, one of the strongest photos in the exhibition depicts a football player gripping the ball, his trunk bent forward, biceps and tattoos bulging, helmet flying off, as he fights for inches with the opposing linebacker. In conversation, Ms. Buckland compared the ball carrier to a Picasso Minotaur, for brute power and intent.