Column and Photos by Alan Ashley
Everyone growing up had dreams for a career and someone in that field who inspired them.
If you wanted to be an architect, you might have looked to Frank Lloyd Wright.
If you wanted to be a famous writer, it might have been Ernest Hemmingway.
The Chelsea District Library is hosting an exhibition, “The Perfect Shot: Walter Iooss Jr. and the Art of Sports Photography” from now until Oct. 20. He served as my inspiration and interest into sports photography.
Most people don’t know his name, but they would recognize some of his iconic photos. Walter has been called the “Rembrandt of Sports Photography” by his peers for his use of light, shadow, color, and composition.
He got his first assignment for Sports Illustrated at age 17 and first cover by age 20. He has been on the SI cover over 300 times. He photographed every Super Bowl, from 1967-2020. There was a 2015 ESPN documentary, “Keepers of the Streak”, where he was one of the four photographers who had covered every Super Bowl to that point. He also did work for several companies, such as Nike, Adidas, Canon, and Coca-Cola. He published several photo books, including one featuring the 1984 USA Olympic athletes taken over an 18-month period. He has worked with almost every athlete in over 60 years of his photographic career; Pele, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali, and more.
Like most teenage boys when I was growing up, I looked at the incredible photos of Sports Illustrated. Many of my favorite images were taken by Walter. After taking a photography class in high school, I fell in love with photography and dreamed of specializing in sports. Photographing sports depends on luck, timing, and anticipating the action, but Walter took it to the next level. He used his camera to tell a story; not just document a play.
Digital photography didn’t arrive until the late 1990’s, so sending photos to be published was an experience. Walter could be photographing a Super Bowl, Wimbledon or a World Series and would have to put film on a Learjet, a helicopter, or even the Concorde – to send it to New York City to the Sports Illustrated office to be processed. You had no idea if you caught a great shot until after it was processed, unlike today when you know instantly.
Camera equipment was very different from today; photographers had to manual focus, manually set exposure settings, and like with my first camera, you had to manually advance the film after every click of the shutter. Film ISO also was very low, like 1600, unlike today where ISO can easily be set for over 10,000.
There are many stories about how much respect Walter has with the athletes. One involved the 1992 USA Olympic Basketball “Dream Team”. Sports Illustrated needed some publicity shots before the Olympics and were told they could have only about 15 minutes. When the team came in for the photo session and saw Walter was the photographer, they stayed almost 2 hours.
The exhibition has over 60 photos with some behind-the-scenes information about each one of them. Some of the information I already knew before seeing the photos, such as one of the iconic cover photos, “The Catch”, where Dwight Clark caught the game winning TD against Dallas. He took the photo in a horizontal format with a 50mm lens to make sure he got the catch. When it crossed the editor’s desk, it was cropped vertically and put on the cover. This is actually Walter’s favorite photo.
Every sports photographer has the dream of being published in Sports Illustrated. It would be like bowling a 300 game or climbing Mt. Everest; it is a bucket list item. Walter was a staff photographer for SI and had thousands of photos published in the magazine.
I fulfilled that dream by getting three photos published in SI.
There are a few other similarities between Walter’s photo career and mine. We developed our love of photography in our teens. We also started in the film era. He has photographed a wide variety of subjects, from Michael Jordan (developing a close friendship) to young boys playing baseball on the streets of Cuba. I have photographed Barry Sanders (not a close personal friend, LOL) to the local Chelsea HS athletes.
If you love seeing photography, or aspire to become a sports photographer, this exhibition is for you.
Walter Iooss is one of the best in the field of sports photography. Go online and you can find articles and videos about him and a lot of behind-the-scenes stories upon which he reflects. No matter what your dream career is, find someone in that field to inspire your passion.
Walter did for me.
