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Rangefinder
Magazine Rf
Cookbook by Peter Skinner
It’s now history that the 1984 Summer Olympics really catapulted Fujifilm’s ratings in the U.S. and Walter Iooss’ photography played a key role in achieving that milestone. The two-and-a-half year, Fuji-sponsored Shooting for the Gold project was itself an Olympic-like undertaking during which Iooss made thousands of images, many of them featured in the book published by Jameson. Of all those images, the one that stands out in Iooss’ mind—and probably to a large percentage of those familiar with Shooting for the Gold—is the Greg Louganis “miracle shot” as the gold medal winning diver seemingly reaches for the sky against an eerie, dramatic sunset and streaks of poolside lights. During the lead-up to the Olympic Games, Iooss had photographed Louganis three or four times trying to come up with one great picture of the greatest diver in the world. “I wanted to do something special with him,” says Iooss. The opportunity came late one day when Louganis was training in Mission Viejo, Calif. The setting sun was a vivid orange-red against the dark of the cobalt blue sky. Louganis was diving from the high 10-meter platform and even though the impact on hitting the water from that height was hard on his hands and wrists, he was eager to cooperate with Iooss and made about six dives for the photographer. As Louganis hurtled by, Iooss, who stood as close as he could to where Louganis would pass him, panned the camera and fired using a slow shutter speed to streak the ambient light while the speed of electronic flash captured Louganis in mid-flight. When Iooss saw the image he flipped it, to make it appear as if Louganis was diving upward and the result was electrifying—the streaking sunset creating an effect like one would imagine the flames of Dante’s Inferno. On seeing the photographs, which Iooss had enthusiastically shown to Louganis as soon as they were processed, the champion diver’s comment was not directed at the stunning visual qualities of the shot but at his dissatisfaction with his own in-flight form: “I’m bent,” was his take on the image. Ah well, you can’t please them all. At least Walter Iooss and the rest of us rate the shot way up there. “Of all the images I have taken in my life, no image has stood out more for me,” says Iooss of the photograph. We can see why. To see this photograph and the full range of Iooss’ portfolio go to www.walteriooss.com/. INGREDIENTS
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Renowned sports photographer Walter Iooss is unequivocal
in naming the definitive image from his acclaimed 1984 Olympic Games
project, Shooting for the Gold. What does he consider the one photograph
that truly captured the essence of the Los Angeles Olympics; the one
that epitomized the Olympic spirit? “That’s easy: it’s
the shot of Greg Louganis, diving against a blazing sky with streaks
of light around him and between his legs. It’s one of my all-time
favorite shots,” he says. And that, considering the sheer volume
of spectacular images Iooss has made in his 40-year career, certainly
places the shot in the higher echelons of sports photography.