The photography's poet

Poetry is a form of art that creates a composition made by sentences, called verses, with the choice and combination of words according by some particular prosodic laws. However, if we replace words with lights and colors, dotted in our visual perception by nervous signal, then we could also talk about Photographic Poetry. When body is in movement, especially in sports, the harmony that the eye sees in real time during execution, like a slam dunk, is not reproducible. In photography, however, somehow you can give back that kind of emotion.

In 1987, Walter Iooss Jr. was one of Sports Illustrated’s photographers and he had already shot with one of his cameras champions like Muhammad Ali, “The Doctor” Julius Erving, Björn Borg and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and he was sent to Seattle’s NBA All Star Weekend’s Slam Dunk Contest. Here he realized from his shoots that the main problem was the focalization on players faces during the contest. The dunk is a very particular and unique moment in basketball. The adrenaline and attention that the fan holds inside him shortly before and after the movement is irreplaceable.

The next year, Walter showed three hours early to meet Michael Jordan, previous year’s Dunk Contest champion, to talk and ask him if he knew a solution for his problem. Maybe he could point where he’d have dunk, so at least the shoot would’ve been frontal. Between the two there was quite a feeling and Walter was the only one allowed to hang around Michael and the only one who photographed him in daily life.

The Dunk Contest was one of the most spectacular of all time, because MJ was facing Dominique Wilkins, Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey and Spud Webb. At the last dunk, everyone were holding breath, players, judges and fans. Micheal Jordan has the dunk to win and bring the trophy home. While he’s moving to take the run-up, he pointed to Walter the side where he was going to dunk, jumping from the free throw line. Walter positioned himself exactly under the basket, slightly outside the delimitation lines. He took the camera at the chest, lying down waiting for Michael’s movement.

And so the dunks’ Venere Botticelliana was born. No one before him could make such a beauty. In 1993, Iooss’ work was described in 27 cards, part of the “Collection Ioss” of Upper Deck’ stickers. His path was forged by his dedication and natural instinct for perfect timing. Last year he was awarded with the FOTOmentor Award. Christmas is already past, but if you’re basketball lovers you should buy Iooss’s book, Air Rare, anyway.