Photography
In 1950, he began taking photographs as a research tool for his drawings. What started as a secondary medium became what Riger was most known for. He described his approach to sports journalism:
You cannot possibly photograph sport unless you understand it completely, and understand and know the men who play it. The same intensity they have to play the game you must have to record it. Not stop it, but suspend it forever in time.
From 1950 to 1994, he copyrighted more than 90,000 master photographic negatives, more than 40,000 of them involving pro football. Many of these photographs appeared in Sports Illustrated, and Riger published two ground-breaking books of sports photo-journalism: The Pros: A Documentary of Professional Football in America, Simon & Schuster, 1960 and The American Diamond, Simon & Schuster, 1965. In addition to football and baseball, Riger's images cover boxing, horse racing, and all things Olympic. (see Getty Images ) His subjects were celebrated athletes of the day: Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Jack Nicklaus, Willie Mays, Johnny Unitas, Frank Gifford, Muhammad Ali, Jim Clark, Eddie Arcaro, Nadia Comăneci, Wilma Rudolph, Pele and those who coached them Vince Lombardi, Willie Schaeffler among others.
Read more about this topic: Robert Riger
Famous quotes containing the word photography:
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)
“If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)