100 Greatest Photos - Part II

Let’s keep up with the hockey tradition, yes?  & on a sidenote I do miss hockey.  Life is unbearable without baseball & usually hockey helps me fill in that gap & it becomes something unique for me to experience.  Because I DID start off as a baseball fan, but the past 5 years I have also acquired a taste for hockey, too.  But an offseason without both… it’s The Void times itself.

But hockey.  Especially USA hockey.  USA hockey is do or die!  I did an English paper on this moment… sort of.  My paper was Soviet-US communist-capitalist tensions coming to a climax in a hockey game that functioned as a proxy war, but this photo is mainly the pure emotional climax of an event.  The US was not supposed to win.  If you’ve seen Miracle, then you know how it’s set up.  It’s the underdog of underdog teams versus the undefeated champions of forever.  No one in the US even KNEW that the team existed before the game against the Soviets.  & most of the US populace stopped caring afterward – because contrary to what you might think, this was NOT the gold medal match; this was merely the game to get INTO the gold medal match.  But for the US people stifled in the Cold War, it meant so much more.  & it meant even more to the players who sincerely just wanted to play a great game.  Who wanted to WIN against a team of red Gods, who had never lost in… who the hell knows when.

This photo defined America & this photo & all the circumstances also turned into a whole political propaganda thing, but this post is not the time for that because I went into it in a lot more depth in my research paper.  But this photo defined the Olympics; it defined the United States; it even defined a bit of the Cold War.  The US had won.  They had triumphed.  & it was a win for hockey because so many people were tuning into a sport they never even knew existed.  & when the team won… it was one of the greatest victories ever recorded.  It was one of the greatest moments an American could ever experience.  & it did give birth to some hockey fans that day.  & the legacy lives on.

Baseball, on the other hand, seems to have always been cherished.  Things are as American as “Baseball & apple pie.”  Baseball is “America’s pastime.”  Baseball has some of the greatest athletes to have ever walked the face of the earth & some of the greatest characters.  & some of the greatest stories, true & fictional, that can move you to tears.  For how can you NOT be romantic about baseball?  Whether it’s Moneyball or Bull Durham, Field of Dreams or even The Sandlot, you can feel SOMETHING.

& these fans are being baseball fans – they do things that are so odd to “normal” people.  They’re superstitious.  If they feel that their team will win because of wearing lucky underwear or driving to work a certain way or eating a certain thing or even being in a special spot, they will do it.  & if there’s any way to watch an important game… that way will be found.  Even if it’s standing at the top of a building looking down on players that look like ants.  It’s what a fan does.  & it’s been captured.  & it’s a beautiful picture nonetheless.  It’s a perfect view of the fans & the field alike.  It’s a perfect showcase of a fan tied to the game.  It’s what Sports Illustrated is really all about.

Remember how much I was gushing about being a Giants fan?  & as a Giants fan you are supposed to hate the Dodgers & anything remotely connected to them with a passion?  Well… I make an exception.  It’s Jackie Robinson.  I think he’s allowed to be an exception because of everything that he is & was, not just as a baseball player, but as a human being.  Jackie himself has said: "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."  & his life is so important because he impacted not only all of baseball, but the world.  He impacted the world with its Jim Crow & its color lines & its racism.  & he still stands for that fight today.  & he also stands as another ballplayer doing whatever he can to win.  & this picture showcases how great a player he was, not just a political figure.  It’s the moment before impact, & Jackie’s always gunna fight on the field.  He may not have been able to fight against the white people in the stands spitting on him, throwing things @ him, or even sending him death threats, but he sure was going to tear it up & give that opposing team hell on the field.  That was a promise.

& then there are images that are more tied to photography than even sports. 

You don’t need to know who this woman is.  You may not even know who this woman is.  You may not even know that she’s a gymnast or what the hell she’s even doing.  You may not know of her accomplishments.  You may not know Nadia.  But in this moment… it’s perfect.  & even if you don’t know her or what she does… you can just feel perfection.  This moment is perfect, just like all the other moments she had that were perfect.  But she’s frozen in time forever perfect.  Her legs pointed perfectly straight up @ the sky & her head pointed to the bar.  & you can’t see anything else accept her & the beam, but really her.  Because no one else matters when someone is this perfect in what they do.  & this picture & this person are unforgettable.

We have digital cameras now, so capturing moments should be easier, right?  That answer is actually no.  You can have the fastest camera in the world, but what if you’re not at a moment to witness it?  What if you’re not at the right angle?  & what if it STILL doesn’t come out right?  If sports photography & photojournalism was easy, then everyone would be doing it.  & sure some people think that all of their Instagram pics are worthy of winning some awards, but they’re not.  It’s pictures like these that will forever separate the amateur from the professional – or at least an amateur that will stay an amateur & an amateur that will soon become a professional.

This man is in the air.  He’s determined.  He’s perfectly above the judges, glaring @ him, waiting to mark him down.  He’s as high as the rest of the athletes competing against him; he’s as high as the score board.  His arm is pointing where he wants to go.  & he’s willing himself to go even farther than that.  Where will he touch down?  Will he get a medal?  Or does that even matter in this moment?  Do you want to focus on what will be, or what is happening?  Or a mixture of the two?

But I harped upon this in the first post, but there are a lot of people who don’t value sports photography.  They laugh & retort that it’s just so easy to take a picture of an athlete @ an event.  & in some ways, it is.  People do it all the time on their little point-&-shoots.  & some take some adequately nice amateur photos to post to their flickrs or their tumblrs & they may or may not have used a semi-professional Canon or Nikon lens, but it’s still not the same.

All of these photos are the greatest.  For every one of these photos, like for any work of art, there are millions upon millions of forgettable ones.  Not every painting is The Mona Lisa.  Not every song turns out to be a Mozart symphony.  & yet we sometimes forget this.  So sometimes we need reminding.

& those nay-sayers out there can flip thru this, especially this shot above & can realize how up their ass they truly are.  I mean LOOK @ that picture.  Don’t just regard; intently look @ it.   Look @ all the lines: the two lines for the light fixtures perfectly in place; the three small lines outlining the ring; the lines of the tables.  Look @ the colors & shapes: the huge white square juxtaposed against the white lines surrounding it & the green shapes of the ground.  Look @ this angle, being able to see everything in a truly omnipotent way – a feeling that you can’t always achieve if you’re right next to something.  Sure you can’t get the emotions on the face, but you can feel the emotional scale.    From this high, you see the figure on the ground, dark against the pale square; you see that it’s juxtaposed with the other darker figure holding his arms up in triumph – he won.  The losing figure stays on the ground in defeat, hoping to melt into the white square but failing.  Everything looks so small, but it’s all so much larger than that.  The ants are actually magnified in scale.  It’s a photo great for its documentation of an athletic event, but also for its formal elements.  & it’s removed from the event, yet it’s completely zoned in on it.  It’s far away, yet it’s also so painfully close up.

I don’t have the time nor the energy to go thru all 100, so I just went thru a few of my favorites briefly.  I do implore you to browse thru it yourself.  Possibly even leave a comment about your favorites.  Maybe talk about the formal elements of the photo or the emotional meaning – especially to you.  Or you can go on a tangent & talk about something else.  I went on a few myself, it’s alright.

Or you could just look @ this blogpost & do nothing about it.  Most of you are doing that already.  You feel like I’m a waste of your time, don’t you?

See that was my futile attempt to semi guilt-trip you.  It didn’t work, did it?