Photography Legend Neil Leifer: "I Thought: Shit, What Will They Think in the Laboratory?"
SOURCE:Spiegel International
Neil Leifer is one of the world’s most famous sports photographers. Here, he speaks of his favorite photograph, the shocking openness of celebrities and the magic of Muhammad Ali.
His career spans six decades and his photographs have been published on more than 200 magazine covers, from Sports Illustrated to Time and People_. The photo of Muhammad Ali standing triumphantly over the knocked-out Sonny Liston is considered by many to be the greatest sports photo of all time._
Neil Leifer, 82, lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. He answers the phone; in his experience, he says, he is more focused and precise when speaking on the phone. He is currently working on a book about horse racing. In a virtual gallery, Camera Work in Berlin is showing 20 of his works in an exhibition that concludes on January 29.
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Leifer, my 17-year-old son has a picture on his wall that you took at the Ali-Liston fight in 1965. Do you have any idea why this picture still inspires people today?
Leifer: I really don't want to sound overly modest, but in this case the magic has nothing to do with the photographer and everything to do with the man. Ali's legendary status grew from the 1960s until his death. He fascinated people. If I had taken the same picture with two completely unknown boxers, do you think anyone would still be talking about it today?
DER SPIEGEL: What does this picture mean to you?
Leifer: For me, it marks the turning point in my career. I've taken a lot of pictures that I'm proud of, but thanks to this photo I'll be remembered long after I'm gone.
DER SPIEGEL: Ali died in 2016 and almost everyone remembers his final years, during which he visibly suffered from Parkinson's disease. Why does this photo move us so deeply?
Leifer: Because it reminds us of our own transience. Ali was young and handsome. Physically he was in great shape.
DER SPIEGEL: What immediately catches the eye is the enormous blackness that fills the entire background. You get the impression that the two of them are performing on stage.
Leifer: That's true. But look at photos from the 1950s and '60s, fights by Sugar Ray Robinson or Rocky Marciano: It's the same black background. Why haven't these pictures become as legendary as the Ali photo?
DER SPIEGEL: What is your explanation?
Leifer: In the history of sports, hardly any story is greater than that of Ali. It was said that there was no place on earth where he would not be recognized. Not a single one! He was the most famous person in the world.
DER SPIEGEL: What is your part in this extraordinary image?
Leifer: My job was to get the exposure right. We see a black figure in front of a black background – and it looks like it's jumping out of the picture. I took the picture with a strobe flash. I had a medium-format camera and a high-quality film that only needs little light.
DER SPIEGEL: The action seems frozen.
Leifer: That was the advantage of working for a magazine like Sports Illustrated. They could afford to set up a whole truck full of strobe lights.
DER SPIEGEL: How much time did you have to prepare for the fight?
Leifer: I flew to Lewiston, Maine, three days before the fight. I then had three days to set up the strobe lights and position my two remote cameras.
DER SPIEGEL: How much luck does it take to get a picture like that?
Leifer: There is hardly a better image to explain how important luck is. In the background, right between Ali's legs, you can see a man with a camera. That's Herb Scharfman, a photographer. He was also there for Sports Illustrated, and we were competitors that evening.
DER SPIEGEL: But he was sitting on the wrong side of the ring.
Leifer: Exactly. At the decisive moment, he only had Ali's backside in front of him.
DER SPIEGEL: While you happened to be sitting on the right side.
Leifer: What's more, we're talking about a single image here, not a sequence. That's different from today, where you shoot 20 pictures in one second. Back then, when I pressed the shutter release, I had to wait three or four seconds for my strobe lights to recharge.
"If you get lucky, you'd better not screw it up."
Neil Leifer
DER SPIEGEL: Did you realize that Scharfman on the other side of the ring was simply unlucky that evening?
Leifer: Not until the next morning, when I saw a picture in the newspapers, which had been taken from a similar perspective to mine. And I spotted Herb sticking out from between Ali's legs. It made me smile.
DER SPIEGEL: Did you realize that you had just succeeded in creating the picture of the century?
Leifer: Nobody realized that. Sports Illustrated printed a color photo on the cover – by a different photographer. It wasn't until 1999, when they were looking for the best sports pictures of the decade, that they realized how good my picture of Ali was. And finally, 34 years after the fight, it was good enough to put it on the cover.
DER SPIEGEL: In the end, you benefited enormously from this photograph.
Leifer: It's always about doing your job well. In my opinion, that's the crucial difference between a good photographer and an excellent one. If you get lucky, you'd better not screw it up.
DER SPIEGEL: You were 13 or 14 years old when you started doing sports photography. How did that come about?
Leifer: My parents were living in a low-income housing project on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Many immigrants lived there – Irish, Italians, Jews. My father worked at the post office, and my mother also had to work. We were poor. I couldn't afford a ticket to a baseball or football game.
![Leifer at a football game in 1961: "As of today, I know there is a God."](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/d6285fca-279a-4766-8d4d-2515f8db5bb7_w488_r1.530557677616501_fpx54.88_fpy50.jpg "Leifer at a football game in 1961: "As of today, I know there is a God."")
Leifer at a football game in 1961: "As of today, I know there is a God."
Foto: John Iacono / Sports Illustrated / Getty Images
DER SPIEGEL: How did you manage to watch the games anyway?
Leifer: I loved football, I was a fan of the New York Giants. There was an army hospital near Yankee Stadium, and once a week they brought veterans to the stadium to watch a game. I found out that two or three buses pulled up every time, full of wheelchair users. They needed people to help push these men into the stadium. That's how I was able to get directly down to the field.
DER SPIEGEL: What happened next?
Leifer: My first picture, which would later become famous, I took on my 16th birthday. I had no connections, I didn't know anyone. The camera became my ticket to the world. It ended up taking me to the White House, where I photographed the president, or onto a fighter plane with the Top Gun unit (Eds. note: an elite, U.S. Navy flight school).
DER SPIEGEL: Is the story true that your bar mitzvah speech was mainly about the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team?
Leifer: My mother came from an Orthodox family, so they sent me to an Orthodox temple. I was a big Brooklyn Dodgers fan at the time, but because they never won anything, most people just called them the Brooklyn Bums. Then, in 1955 they actually won the World Series, beating the dreaded New York Yankees. The rabbi called my name, I stood up to make my speech and said: As of today, I know there is a God. How do I know that? Because he helped the Brooklyn Dodgers win against the New York Yankees this year.
DER SPIEGEL: Many of your photos were taken during boxing matches. Your favorite one shows Muhammad Ali and his opponent Cleveland Williams from above.
Leifer: That photo hangs on the wall in my living room. It is my absolute favorite picture.
DER SPIEGEL: Why this one in particular?
Leifer: Because it has almost nothing to do with luck. Everything about it was planned. Actually, everyone thought a photo like this was impossible. There is no other place where such a picture would have been possible. Normally, the device to which the strobe lights are attached hangs 20, maybe 25 feet above the ring. You can, of course, use a fisheye lens if you want to photograph the ring from above, but you can't get the camera high enough. If the camera is too close to the ring, the lines are distorted.
"I realized I had hit a home run."
Neil Leifer
DER SPIEGEL: What was different in Houston?
Leifer: They called it the "Eighth Wonder of the World” at the time. The suspended lighting gondola measured some 70 feet in diameter. It could be raised under the roof, like an elevator, because the stadium was also used for political party conferences or rock concerts. For a boxing match, they had to raise the thing 70, maybe 80 feet – so that the spectators sitting high up had a clear view of the ring.
DER SPIEGEL: And you attached your camera to this gondola?
Leifer: I took a Hasselblad with a 50 mm lens and placed it exactly above the center of the ring so that it was symmetrical. I then took the picture with a remote shutter release.
![The boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Cleveland Williams in Houston in 1966: "I could think of nothing I could change."](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/7cb74373-36c6-4529-9a97-74c3ec2041ad_w520_r0.9965902633074446_fpx50_fpy49.83.jpg "The boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Cleveland Williams in Houston in 1966: "I could think of nothing I could change."")
The boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Cleveland Williams in Houston in 1966: "I could think of nothing I could change."
Foto:
Neil Leifer / Sports Illustrated
DER SPIEGEL: This time the two boxers are surrounded by an almost blinding brightness, two artists on one canvas.
Leifer: This effect would also be impossible today, because everything is now plastered with advertising. The name of the promoter is written on the ring floor, there are beer advertisements everywhere, along with the names of the companies sponsoring the fight.
DER SPIEGEL: This time, you knew immediately that you had achieved something extraordinary?
Leifer: When the magazine came out a week later and I saw my picture, I realized that I had hit a home run. Although this photo didn't make it onto the cover either. You often discover something afterwards that disturbs the perfection of a picture, which motivates you to do even better the next time. Not here. I could think of nothing I could change.
DER SPIEGEL: You have immortalized yourself in this picture. Where exactly are you?
Leifer: At about nine o'clock, in a light blue shirt. My right hand is on the Rolleiflex, the other is on the remote switch I had with me. It's the moment I pressed the remote shutter release.
DER SPIEGEL: You only had 12 frames in the camera that was hovering over the ring. You had to be rather sparing.
Leifer: I used the first two shots as a test, to be sure that the camera triggered the strobe lights. But I knew that the decisive picture would be the one when one of the two fighters was lying on the ground. And the other triumphantly made his way to the corner of the ring.
"Suddenly I saw Palmer waving in my direction."
Neil Leifer
DER SPIEGEL: You photographed stars like Ali and Frazier during training or at home. Was it easier to get access to great athletes in the past?
Leifer: Back then, the magazines were more important for the athletes than they are today when it came to generating publicity. And of course the organizers wanted to advertise. But the stars themselves were also more open. If you went to the gym where Ali was training, you didn't have to work for Sports Illustrated or Life Magazine to meet him. When he finished training, he would come out and entertain the people who were waiting for him. And if you said: I'm Neil Leifer, do you have five minutes to pose for my high school newspaper, you got it.
DER SPIEGEL: You had an unforgettable experience with the golf pro Arnold Palmer.
Leifer: In terms of his status, Palmer was definitely in the same league as Muhammad Ali. He was young, handsome and charismatic. For a few years, he was the best golfer in the world.
DER SPIEGEL: You hardly knew anything about golf back then.
Leifer: On the 14th or 15th hole, his ball landed on the edge of the green. He was about to putt. I was nearly 120 feet away from him, I had my 600 mm telephoto on a monopod. I started taking pictures and suddenly I saw Palmer waving in my direction, pointing straight at me.
DER SPIEGEL: You thought he was waving at you?
Leifer: I had no idea what he was doing. Then I saw him put his club down and walk around the green, right towards me. He leaned down to me, put his arm around my shoulder and whispered so nobody could hear. "Neil, could you maybe move a foot or two? You're right in my line of sight.”
"O.J. took my camera and dropped the towel."
Neil Leifer
DER SPIEGEL: Did sports stars used to have a more relaxed relationship with photographers and with the public than they do today?
Leifer: For sure. A good example would be my 1969 shoot with O.J. Simpson, who I accompanied into the examination room during medical checks.
![Football star O.J. Simpson during a medical examination in 1969: "Click, click, click, click."](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/b5abdaee-e6de-47a1-8f70-f79ff5a13fff_w488_r0.6638591117917305_fpx49.99_fpy45.13.jpg "Football star O.J. Simpson during a medical examination in 1969: "Click, click, click, click."")
Football star O.J. Simpson during a medical examination in 1969: "Click, click, click, click."
Foto:
Neil Leifer / Sports Illustrated
DER SPIEGEL: The football star who later ended up in prison.
Leifer: The journalists loved him. He was approachable, it was a pleasure to work with him. It would never have occurred to me that he would be able to kill anybody.
DER SPIEGEL: Which he denied until the very end. What exactly happened in the examination room?
Leifer: O.J. was naked, he only had a towel on. He wanted to know whether my camera was set for the light in the room using no flash. I moved the focus for him, he took my camera, dropped the towel and did what many athletes do: He flaunted his manhood. He held his privates with one hand and the camera with the other. And then he pressed the shutter release.
DER SPIEGEL: Unthinkable today.
Leifer: The camera had an auto-winder and I heard it go "click, click, click, click, click.” I thought: Oh shit. What will they say about the pictures in the lab?
DER SPIEGEL: Back then, photography labs were primarily staffed by women.
Leifer: I rewound the film seven or eight frames in the camera, pointed the camera at the sky and took a couple of pictures. The double exposure, I hoped, would destroy the photos that O.J. had made. When I got back to New York, I learned that one frame survived.
DER SPIEGEL: Sports was still a purely male world back then?
Leifer: Definitely. In the 1950s, you didn't see a woman photographer anywhere, not in football and not in baseball.
DER SPIEGEL: In 1968, at the Olympic Games in Mexico, you were there as a photographer when two Black athletes on the podium raised their fists in the Black Power salute.
Leifer: I had already worked with them before for a cover shoot. They made no secret of the fact that they had come up with something for the games in Mexico.
"Once you had Castro, he was fantastic."
Neil Leifer
DER SPIEGEL: Is your picture with the clenched fists an iconic image?
Leifer: There are two types of iconic images. The photo of Ali in the Astrodome is certainly iconic: It's so good that nobody cares about the fight, just the image. The picture of the Black Power salute is in my opinion not an outstanding photo. There are many other photos of this event that are better than mine. But it captures a very historic moment in sports.
DER SPIEGEL: Four years later, you were at the Olympic Games in Munich when Palestinian terrorists broke into the Israeli team's accommodation.
Leifer: It all happened at night. I was asleep. I had an assistant in Munich whose husband worked as a producer at ABC, the station that was broadcasting the games to America. At 5 a.m., maybe it was 6 a.m., she called me. Something had happened in the Olympic Village. No journalist knew anything about the attack. My assistant had only heard about it because ABC was trying to get its people into the village to be as close as possible.
DER SPIEGEL: How did you react?
Leifer: I went back to sleep. She then called a second time, but when I got to the entrance of the Olympic Village, everything had already been cordoned off. The pictures that I and other photographers then took from outside were better than the pictures from inside the village: police officers with submachine guns disguised in tracksuits so that they looked like athletes; the masked terrorist on the balcony.
DER SPIEGEL: Were you shocked that the games went ahead?
Leifer: No. I thought it was the right decision. You can't give in to terrorists. If you let them decide whether the Games take place or not, who would want to risk organizing the Olympic Games?
DER SPIEGEL: In 1983 and 84, in preparation for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, you spent a year traveling around the world for a year, for Time Magazine. What was the idea?
Leifer: Very simple: take athletes from all over the world and photograph them in front of iconic landmarks in their country. We took one picture in front of the Parthenon temple in Athens with a javelin thrower, and another with a boxer in front of the Colosseum in Rome. I photographed the runner Sebastian Coe in front of Windsor Castle.
DER SPIEGEL: How did you take the picture of the Japanese gymnast who appears to be floating in front of Mount Fuji?
Leifer: We used a crane to help us. None of these pictures are photoshopped. Everything you see is real.
![Japanese gymnast Koji Gushiken in front of Mt. Fuji: "Everything you see is real."](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/113ad8b2-146e-4b71-9063-fa0c7d2df1a6_w520_r1.4946507237256137_fpx52.85_fpy48.99.jpg "Japanese gymnast Koji Gushiken in front of Mt. Fuji: "Everything you see is real."")
Japanese gymnast Koji Gushiken in front of Mt. Fuji: "Everything you see is real."
Foto:
Neil Leifer / Sports Illustrated
"Ali was God's gift to every writer, to every journalist."
Neil Leifer
DER SPIEGEL: How did you get to know Fidel Castro during this project?
Leifer: The U.S. didn't have diplomatic relations with Cuba at the time, but the Cubans had an office in Washington D.C., a special interest section. I contacted them and showed them the photos of the Parthenon and the Colosseum, of the Great Wall in China and of Mt. Fuji in Japan. And then I said: I want to use Fidel Castro as the iconic image for Cuba.
DER SPIEGEL: How did the photo of the two of you come about?
Leifer: I wanted a picture of him with a big cigar, and I wanted a picture of the two of us. I never smoked, so I had a hard time lighting it up. Castro almost burned his fingers trying to light my cigar.
DER SPIEGEL: It looks like he really enjoyed it all.
Leifer: Once you had Castro, he was fantastic. Similar to Ali. He loved the camera.
DER SPIEGEL: Is it true that you saw 35 of Ali´s fights?
Leifer: I photographed 35 of his fights. And I also did about 35 photo sessions with him. I photographed him on his 50th birthday and on his 70th birthday at his home. I was in Zaire when he defeated George Foreman and in Manila when he fought Joe Frazier. I photographed him at his home after his jaw was broken at the first Ken Norton fight.
DER SPIEGEL: He trusted you?
Leifer: Over the years, a friendship developed between us. I visited him at home many times to photograph him.
DER SPIEGEL: You visited Ali one last time a week before he died. Did you realize that this would be a farewell?
Leifer: Well, he had already been diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1984. My girlfriend at the time really wanted to meet him. And when we were about to fly to Los Angeles, I called Lonnie, Ali's wife, and asked if it would be okay if we stopped over in Phoenix and I could take them out to dinner. And she said: Sure, come over, he'll be delighted.
DER SPIEGEL: And then?
Leifer: He wasn’t able to go out. He wasn't feeling well. We had dinner with his wife, but Ali didn't show up. Maybe, she said, he'd feel better the next day. We then flew on to Los Angeles, and two or three days later I was sitting at dinner when we heard that Ali had died.
DER SPIEGEL: Is there anything the world doesn't know about Muhammad Ali?
Leifer: I don't think so. He was a public figure. If you interviewed him, he would answer all your questions. The only time he was sensitive was if you criticized his religion.
DER SPIEGEL: What made him so endearing?
Leifer: It was just fun to be with him. When we had finished the "GOAT” book about him, Benedikt Taschen invited me to the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was to be presented to the public there right at the beginning of the fair.
DER SPIEGEL: You flew first class in a Boeing 747.
Leifer: Ali was already having difficulties walking back then. And problems with articulation. But when the plane was in the air, he walked up the aisle, stopped every five rows and performed a magic trick. He liked performing magic tricks. Then the people clapped and Ali continued walking the other aisle backwards. Until the captain called over the speaker system, very politely: If he would mind getting back to his seat, please. The stewardesses couldn't serve the food. Ali was God's gift to every writer, to every journalist. People loved him. I sure did.
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Leifer, thank you for this interview.