If you've never watched When We Were Kings ... now is as good a time as any.
Great movie ....
"SCARED AH WHAT ... !?"
When We Were Kings (1996) - IMDb
Great movie ....
"SCARED AH WHAT ... !?"
When We Were Kings (1996) - IMDb
The Greatest
- Thread starter Grizzly
- Start date
The story behind "The Photo" is, at least I think, a fascinating one. If you watch film of the fight you'll see that Ali's arm was in that position for just a split second. It happens just a smidge, in a blur, just at the 7:23 mark in the YouTube video above. Blink and you'll miss it. But that fraction of a second became one of the most iconic, and greatest photos, dare I say it, of all time.
And two different photographers captured the moment, albeit fractions of a second apart. One was good, the other was great. The good photo won AP photographer John Rooney the 1965 World Press Photo contest as Photo of the Year. It's the black and white photo. The great picture, on the other hand, was largely ignored by everyone. The editors at Sports Illustrated didn't put it on the cover, or even in the magazine. The judges at the World Press Photo contest rejected it and didn't even give it an honorable mention. Years later they later picked the great photo as the Photo of the Century.
Neil Leifer was an aspiring 22 year old photographer when he went to Lewiston, Maine, to photograph the fight between Sonny Liston and the man then known as Cassius Clay. The editors of Sports Illustrated had sent Leifer along with senior photographer, Herb Scharfman, to cover the fight. Scharfman wanted a seat next to the judges table, which left the new kid to fend for himself. So the two were stationed on opposite sides of the ring.
In Rooney's picture, the good one (used in the meme above and often mistaken as "The Photo"), Scharfman can be seen to the left of Ali's knee, like a little Danny Devito trying to get a picture, the balding man with the dark-rimed glasses who has half-risen out of his seat, his 35mm Rolliflex camera useless for anything other than a shot of Ali's rear end. In Neil’s picture, the great one, Scharfman is perfectly framed between Ali's legs, standing there, looking useless himself, hoping that Ali would turn around.
Rooney's picture was good, good enough, in fact, to go out on the wire and be featured on front pages throughout the country. But look at both pictures. What makes only one iconic? Partly it’s the color and clarity of Leifer’s Ektrachrome over Rooney’s black-and-white Tri-X film. Similarly, there’s Leifer’s Rolleiflex camera, as opposed to Rooney’s 35mm SLR, which is a photojargony way of saying that Leifer ended up with a big square, not Rooney’s rectangle. Look at both frames. The square is essential to the composition. Its solid structure supports, reflects Ali’s strength, and more importantly, it captures the dimly lit cavernous blackness above the man.
There was a documentary several years ago where a small snippet of it focused on Leifer and the shot. It might have been that end-of-century thing that ESPN did, I can't remember. He said at the time he really didn't know what he had, but that he thought it was a pretty good shot. He took a big risk for that fight. He loaded Kodak’s latest Ektachrome film into his Rolleiflex medium format camera (larger than the full-frame 24 by 36 mm used in 35mm photography, but smaller than the large format 4 by 5 inches), which is an overly technical way of saying that Leifer was shooting in color, and using a medium format camera which requires a lot of light, at a sporting event, which at the time was nuts. Everyone else was using black and white which didn't require special lighting and they were using 35mm SLRs which could shoot several pictures a second in rapid succession. Shooting in color meant he needed to have the lighting just right, and a lot of other things.
To capture the color, Leifer had rigged special flash units over the ring, but this led to another challenge, it meant Leifer had basically just one shot. The other photographers wielded the equivalent of semi-automatics while he held a sniper rifle. Leifer’s strobes needed time to recharge, which meant he couldn’t click and click. Whenever a fighter fell, the other photographers could quick-twitch their shutters like crazy, but Leifer had to pick one moment, stealing the sniper's motto: one shot, one kill. If he missed, it was 20-30 seconds before the strobes would be recharged for another shot. The shot would be gone forever.
But he got the shot, and it's great.
And two different photographers captured the moment, albeit fractions of a second apart. One was good, the other was great. The good photo won AP photographer John Rooney the 1965 World Press Photo contest as Photo of the Year. It's the black and white photo. The great picture, on the other hand, was largely ignored by everyone. The editors at Sports Illustrated didn't put it on the cover, or even in the magazine. The judges at the World Press Photo contest rejected it and didn't even give it an honorable mention. Years later they later picked the great photo as the Photo of the Century.
Neil Leifer was an aspiring 22 year old photographer when he went to Lewiston, Maine, to photograph the fight between Sonny Liston and the man then known as Cassius Clay. The editors of Sports Illustrated had sent Leifer along with senior photographer, Herb Scharfman, to cover the fight. Scharfman wanted a seat next to the judges table, which left the new kid to fend for himself. So the two were stationed on opposite sides of the ring.
In Rooney's picture, the good one (used in the meme above and often mistaken as "The Photo"), Scharfman can be seen to the left of Ali's knee, like a little Danny Devito trying to get a picture, the balding man with the dark-rimed glasses who has half-risen out of his seat, his 35mm Rolliflex camera useless for anything other than a shot of Ali's rear end. In Neil’s picture, the great one, Scharfman is perfectly framed between Ali's legs, standing there, looking useless himself, hoping that Ali would turn around.
Rooney's picture was good, good enough, in fact, to go out on the wire and be featured on front pages throughout the country. But look at both pictures. What makes only one iconic? Partly it’s the color and clarity of Leifer’s Ektrachrome over Rooney’s black-and-white Tri-X film. Similarly, there’s Leifer’s Rolleiflex camera, as opposed to Rooney’s 35mm SLR, which is a photojargony way of saying that Leifer ended up with a big square, not Rooney’s rectangle. Look at both frames. The square is essential to the composition. Its solid structure supports, reflects Ali’s strength, and more importantly, it captures the dimly lit cavernous blackness above the man.
There was a documentary several years ago where a small snippet of it focused on Leifer and the shot. It might have been that end-of-century thing that ESPN did, I can't remember. He said at the time he really didn't know what he had, but that he thought it was a pretty good shot. He took a big risk for that fight. He loaded Kodak’s latest Ektachrome film into his Rolleiflex medium format camera (larger than the full-frame 24 by 36 mm used in 35mm photography, but smaller than the large format 4 by 5 inches), which is an overly technical way of saying that Leifer was shooting in color, and using a medium format camera which requires a lot of light, at a sporting event, which at the time was nuts. Everyone else was using black and white which didn't require special lighting and they were using 35mm SLRs which could shoot several pictures a second in rapid succession. Shooting in color meant he needed to have the lighting just right, and a lot of other things.
To capture the color, Leifer had rigged special flash units over the ring, but this led to another challenge, it meant Leifer had basically just one shot. The other photographers wielded the equivalent of semi-automatics while he held a sniper rifle. Leifer’s strobes needed time to recharge, which meant he couldn’t click and click. Whenever a fighter fell, the other photographers could quick-twitch their shutters like crazy, but Leifer had to pick one moment, stealing the sniper's motto: one shot, one kill. If he missed, it was 20-30 seconds before the strobes would be recharged for another shot. The shot would be gone forever.
But he got the shot, and it's great.