Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Photographer of the Week

Photographer of the week
Neil Leifer was born December 24th, 1942 in New York City. As a young boy he would scam his way into baseball games for free; he would bring his camera along and place himself with other fellow photographers to blend in and be able to take photographs of his own. He was fortunate enough to retrieve a free ticket to the 1958 NFL title game between the Giants and Baltimore Colts where he took many photographs which he eventually sold to Sports Illustrated. Those photographs ultimately jump started Neil Leifer's photography career landing him his first cover photo for Sports Illustrated at only 19 years old. Neil eventually went on to work for various companies such as Time, Life, and Newsbook.
His claim to fame definitely came when he was working for Sports Illustrated. I say this because Neil took a different approach to traditional sports photography. He would take photographs of sporting events from an aerial perspective, which would give the viewer a different field of view of an iconic moment in sports history. Neil was very good at captivating an intense moment in a very abstract manner, and that is something not many photographers can do. A couple examples of Neil's abstract manner would include the photograph of Cleveland Williams VS Muhammad Ali in 1966 at the Houston Astrodome where he suspended a camera from the rafters and took a photograph via remote control; capturing the moment where Ali knocked out Williams. Leifer did another one of these remote controlled photographs at a basketball game between the Kentucky Colonels and the New York Nets. This time he set up the camera behind the backboard where he took a picture of Rick Barry floating the ball over a couple defenders at the Island Garden in West Hempstead, New York. This photo gives us a very profound field of view; fish-like almost. I feel like the lights also add to the depth of field in the photograph. These are just a couple of examples of Neil's creativity with the perspective in his photographs
This project had a series of anecdotes which ultimately led to me choosing the photograph of Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston as my favorite photograph of Neil Leifer.  I say anecdotes because this photograph has been a poster on my wall since I was six. I chose Neil Leifer at random from the list of names, and when I googled his name the first photo was the one that's been on my wall since I can remember. Now the reason this photo is so important to me is because it was a part of the first 100 page plus  book I ever read which was Muhammad Ali’s autobiography. I understand the significance in the photograph and how Ali predicted he would knockout Liston in the first round. What stands out to me the most about this photo is how jaw dropping most of the spectators are. Really adds to Ali being the focal point of the photograph.
https://www.si.com/longform/neil-leifer/index.html











Sources
http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/muhammad-ali-knocks-cleveland-williams-astrodome-houston-1966/
http://neilleifer.com/biography/
http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2043

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