Tremendous stuff from Walter Iooss Jr

[Elliotte Friedman]

Not photos, but 50 years of personal memories. It's great stuff.

http://cnnsi.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?expire=&title=The+intrepid+SI+photographer+spent+the+last+50+years+-+12.12.11+-+SI+Vault&urlID=466369802&action=cpt&partnerID=289881&fb=Y&url=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1192863/index.htm

 

[imjustagirl]

Interesting. Good stories. Not keen on him telling guys what he wants to shoot, like the Reggie Jackson and Earl Weaver stuff.

 

[mrbio]

Classic stuff. Like the insights on Johnny Mac very much. Photographers are great sources for information.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

This was a very good issue of SI, worth the yearly subscription rate all by itself. Of course, I only paid like $20 and got a cheap pullover to go with it, but still.

 

[flexmaster33]

Classic stuff. Like the insights on Johnny Mac very much. Photographers are great sources for information.

Yes, I love having a photography along on a feature assignment. They'll bring up a whole new line of questions that I would never have thought to bring up.

 

[playthrough]

This was a very good issue of SI, worth the yearly subscription rate all by itself. Of course, I only paid like $20 and got a cheap pullover to go with it, but still.

Ditto. The feature on the 1986 Bengals by King and Co. is terrific too.

 

[mrbio]

Classic stuff. Like the insights on Johnny Mac very much. Photographers are great sources for information.

Yes, I love having a photography along on a feature assignment. They'll bring up a whole new line of questions that I would never have thought to bring up.

They have the best seat in the house and they pick up many minute details most do not see or hear - such as regarding body punches in boxing matches. Still remember one photographer talking about the anguished sounds Zab Judah was making after getting hit by Miguel Cotto's body shots.

 

[ringer]

I loved the story of Neil Leifer yelling "Cov-ah! Covah! I even left room for a headline!"

Made me laugh out loud.

 

[Walter Burns]

I was a little amazed (although not surprised) about the LeBron stuff. Over the past couple years, he really seems to have developed into someone who's lost touch with reality in favor of his reality, and Iooss's dealings with him seemed to cement that idea.

 

[Shaggy]

I've seen a few newspapers that do a photography blog, where they show a good picture from the last week or so and do a behind-the-scenes of how it came to be.

If you have a photographer that's also a good writer, it's great content.

 

[I Should Coco]

Great stories in there. I especially liked the one about the first Super Bowl, and how SI was going to use a Lear jet at halftime and right after the game, just to get the rolls of film back to New York.

Ah, the good ol' days of film ...

 

[Versatile]

Interesting. Good stories. Not keen on him telling guys what he wants to shoot, like the Reggie Jackson and Earl Weaver stuff.

I definitely thought that was interesting. I wonder whether it's a product of his lack of journalism and academic backgrounds. He comes across as a guy who made up the rules as he went. Then again, the Jackson shot was specifically requested by an editor, he says.

 

[imjustagirl]

Interesting. Good stories. Not keen on him telling guys what he wants to shoot, like the Reggie Jackson and Earl Weaver stuff.

I definitely thought that was interesting. I wonder whether it's a product of his lack of journalism and academic backgrounds. He comes across as a guy who made up the rules as he went. Then again, the Jackson shot was specifically requested by an editor, he says.

Right, but I think that just means "see if he still does the same thing." Not "Tell a player to pose this way after hitting a home run."

 

[21]

Saw an incredible exhibit of Iooss's work at the Newseum in DC last spring, not sure if it's still there. Amazing to see some of those shots blown up almost lifesize....also a great video of him explaining how he got the shots.

 

[Versatile]

Interesting. Good stories. Not keen on him telling guys what he wants to shoot, like the Reggie Jackson and Earl Weaver stuff.

I definitely thought that was interesting. I wonder whether it's a product of his lack of journalism and academic backgrounds. He comes across as a guy who made up the rules as he went. Then again, the Jackson shot was specifically requested by an editor, he says.

Right, but I think that just means "see if he still does the same thing." Not "Tell a player to pose this way after hitting a home run."

I've long felt that few of the ethical rules of journalism are intuitive. It's difficult to explain to people without a journalistic background why we can't pay for interviews or root for the teams we cover.

Iooss began with Sports Illustrated as a teenager. I couldn't find any evidence he went to college. (If there's one disappointment I have with this story, it's that there wasn't a little biography box explaining Iooss' [Iooss's in Sports Illustrated-ese] career path.) As I understand it, he started with SI as an 18-year-old and never went to college and really only left SI for one period, when he worked for a music studio shooting bands and singers such as James Brown.

It's entirely conceivable that the editors at SI never thought twice about his educational background and didn't bother explaining ethics to the kid, in which case I'm sure some would be a little taken aback by some of these stories. It's also possible that they knew Iooss' process and didn't mind it because the results were so stunning.

Even his story about asking Jordan to tell him which angle to shoot from at the dunk contest would give some pause in a journalism classroom setting, though I don't particularly mind that example because he didn't ask Jordan to change his routine. The Reggie Jackson and Earl Weaver anecdotes were more troubling. Iooss, if he is to be believed (I'm not saying he's lying, but I am questioning whether his ego made him feel as though he had a bigger role in some of these events than he necessarily did), would have manufactured the news to some degree.

 

[imjustagirl]

The dunk contest doesn't matter, because it's not real.

 

[lcjjdnh]

Interesting. Good stories. Not keen on him telling guys what he wants to shoot, like the Reggie Jackson and Earl Weaver stuff.

I definitely thought that was interesting. I wonder whether it's a product of his lack of journalism and academic backgrounds. He comes across as a guy who made up the rules as he went. Then again, the Jackson shot was specifically requested by an editor, he says.

Right, but I think that just means "see if he still does the same thing." Not "Tell a player to pose this way after hitting a home run."

I've long felt that few of the ethical rules of journalism are intuitive. It's difficult to explain to people without a journalistic background why we can't pay for interviews or root for the teams we cover.

Maybe that's because some of the rules don't really make sense and are in place, more cynically, for reasons other than "ethics".

 

[mr lo]

hi, i would like to clear up a few facts. i started at s.i. at 17. i did not attend college. i worked at s.i. throughout my career, except from mid '82-'84, when i worked with fuji, documenting the us athletes training, and competing, in the olympics. the earl weaver story is true. he is the one who volunteered to get into the argument, not me. i showed reggie the photo from 1967, where he stood watching the flight of his home run. he knew the mag was doing a cover on him, and wanted to do this, and pose after he hit a homer. i can only ask a player, they must comply. this is not done to stroke my ego, but to take an interesting photo. it is always better when the person your shooting is working with you. i am as surprised as anyone that these incidents happened. i also don't believe i am breaking any unwritten rules of journalism. i just want to work with the athletes, not betray them, or waste they're time, but what's most important is to take a photograph that we both are proud of.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

hi, i would like to clear up a few facts. i started at s.i. at 17. i did not attend college. i worked at s.i. throughout my career, except from mid '82-'84, when i worked with fuji, documenting the us athletes training, and competing, in the olympics. the earl weaver story is true. he is the one who volunteered to get into the argument, not me. i showed reggie the photo from 1967, where he stood watching the flight of his home run. he knew the mag was doing a cover on him, and wanted to do this, and pose after he hit a homer. i can only ask a player, they must comply. this is not done to stroke my ego, but to take an interesting photo. it is always better when the person your shooting is working with you. i am as surprised as anyone that these incidents happened. i also don't believe i am breaking any unwritten rules of journalism. i just want to work with the athletes, not betray them, or waste they're time, but what's most important is to take a photograph that we both are proud of.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Finally read the piece, great stuff.

A few years ago my wife's employer hired Iooss to take a picture of the family's kids. My wife does not know anything about sports or SI and when she said the name I went, "Wait, Iooss?" She said yes. And she was right, and the picture, of course, is very cool. Huge copy of it hangs in their entryway.

The Leifer stories are great. There's a story of his famous Ali-Liston pic of a rival photog who is pictured between Ali's legs. I think the story was the guy - and Leifer - both knew Leifer had gotten the shot because of perfect positioning.