« Lightsaber Practice with Captain Solo | Main | Harvey Milk School »
August 17, 2003
Great Sports Photographs
Today's Observer was accompanied by a special issue of the Observer Sport Monthly magazine devoted to The World's 50 Greatest Sports Pictures. The online version only shows the Top Ten, which is a pity because for my money there were some cracking shots which didn't get the recognition they deserved.
Of the ten pictures on the web site, I'd put the Ali-Liston shot first, narrowly ahead of the 1912 Grand Prix shot and the picture of six thoroughly uncomfortable Belgian footballers confronted with Diego Maradona with the ball at his feet in third place. (Incidentally, the much more famous photograph of the 'Hand of God' incident only made it to number 33.)
Some of the more impressive photos outside the top ten can be found elsewhere on the web, albeit not always at a decent size: my favourites are Bruno Fablet's otherworldly image of the Paris-Dakar rally (scroll to bottom third of page), Bill Frakes & David Callow's spectacular view of Marion Jones' winning margin in the Sydney Olympics 100m final, and a memorable shot of a tired, muddy but defiant Fran Cotton (scroll to foot of page) playing for the 1977 Lions. (NB: the photo of Fran Cotton is cropped fairly drastically - the version in the magazine shows that Cotton is flanked by two equally muddy team-mates.)
Posted by John at August 17, 2003 02:53 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://soreeyes.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/695
Comments
where can i find a copy of no 40 "steam power" on the 50 greatest sport photos. would really like to have.
Posted by: Jack Lennoux at August 28, 2003 11:30 AM
A bit of googling revealed several copies online. This page promises a larger version if you click on the image, but when I tried I got a report that the server can't be found. The biggest version I could find anywhere else was here, almost halfway down the page.
Posted by: John at August 28, 2003 08:56 PM
Hi. I've been looking for a picture from the Barcelons Olympics of 1992 of a high platform diver, back arched against the backdrop of the city, mountains and sky plus the Temple of the Sagrada Familia.
Do you know where I can see this picture ? Was it one of the 50 best ?
James
Posted by: James Brady at April 24, 2004 01:34 AM
I've found two photos which match your description, and a third which clearly isn't the particular shot you're looking for but is thematically similar.
The first can be found at the British Olympic Association web site. This one is mentioned in the foreword to the 50 Greatest... collection, where it was explained that as the shot was set up for publicity purposes rather than a true action shot it hadn't made it into the collection proper.
The second shot is at the Dallas Morning News site. In this one the diver is just taking off; I don't find it as impressive, but it could be the one you're looking for.
The third shot features a diver captured in mid-routine. Probably not the shot you're after, but quite nicely composed.
Posted by: John at April 24, 2004 10:36 AM
I agree with you regarding the photo by bruno fablet. Have been trying to get myself a copy of it for ages but cannot. Any ideas where i could try? Thank you,
Vincent
Posted by: Vincent at June 23, 2004 12:59 AM