I shot this years ago, and have written about it, a bit. It was part of a huge Sports Illustrated project about defensive magicians on the baseball diamond. And of course, at that time, if you talked defense, you talked about Ozzie. The Wizard of Oz! The shortstop who looked like he played the position from at least five different starting places at once.
My answer was to use mirrors, and simply reflect him around the infield. Coming up with this notion was certainly easier than shooting it.
So much so, that the estimable Syl Arena, a speed light magician himself, showed the picture to his class (I believe it’s a high school class) and none of them believed it did not involve Photoshop. He reassured them it was a straight up film shot, but alas, he sent me an email saying “they remained skeptics.”
The man in the middle above is Howard Simmons, who after his assisting stint went on to a wonderfully successful career as a staffer at the NY Daily News. Perched atop the Gitzo tripod is a Mamiya RZ Pro II medium format film camera, a great system I let go of a long time ago. The key to the whole deal was that high flying Speedotron head dangling off of a movie style boom arrangement. I had to get that light above the sight line of my frame, hence the thirty or so feet of speed rail angled up into the heavens. It’s a quad head, if you notice the multiple power packs plugged into it. It produced a slow moving wallop of photons. But, it was cool. Flash duration wasn’t the issue here. Ozzie, atypically, was just standing there.
I shot it several ways, with Ozzie physically in the picture, and with just his reflection. I was looking to the east, dealing with darkness in the background, as the sun dropped like a stone behind me. That flying backlight, which defined the whole set and rimmed out Ozzie’s form for his reflection to stand out clearly in the blackness, became crucial. (Remember, the mirrors are angled in such a way as they are facing into complete darkness, so my subject, the gentlemanly Wizard of the Infield, had to literally pop with contrast.)
For the same reason, the Norman 200B units, gelled warm, sitting behind each mirror, needed to pop pretty hard, to separate those glassy slivers of silver from the encroaching darkness.
All of the above produced, well, a limited return at the magazine.
The picture’s gotta go somewhere, even it means cropping out the largest of the meticulously crafted Ozzie reflections. It’s cool. Hey, it ain’t my magazine, and my favorite shot was the one up top, that had nothing but reflections, and that’s never been published.
It was a lot of effort. We crisscrossed Florida in a crew van, with an eighteen wheeler of a movie grip truck tailing along. Lit up whole ballparks for simulated action pix. What a privilege to work this way! We had a 650 amp genny onboard the truck, so I didn’t even have to snag electricity from the spring training stadiums.
All of this had to be set up. There’s a guy off to camera right, throwing a baseball up near the wall, and Eric Davis gamely leaps for it. When you punch the shutter on this type of pic, and you know you have it, done, etched in film forever, an isolated split second, electrified and petrified by the power of 30-40,000 watts seconds of light, well, dang, you’re at the ballpark, so give yourself an attaboy and have a coke and a dog.
Likewise when I got Keith Hernandez of the Mets to dig one out for me at first base.
And Mike LaValliere, nicknamed Spanky, who wore the tools of ignorance, quite ably, for the Pirates.
The pix all ran as a feature, and chewed up quite a few pages in the baseball issue. Not something SI will ever do again, as this was quite a high ticket budget item, marshaling all these resources.
But it was a thrill to shoot it. Click of the shutter. Done deal.
And there it is, on a light table, a bunch of moments from quite a while ago. More tk….
art meripol says
I’ve known photogs who were technical wizards and photogs who were ‘idea’ people. But nobody puts great ideas and great technique together better than you. And as a Cards fan I loved seeing Ozzie shot so well. Great shoot, great story. Thanks for sharing.
Patrick Farrington says
Great photos and story as always Joe.
The last photo is the one that got me though. There was just something about opening that little box of 35mm slides, unrolling the roll medium format or laying the 4×5’s out on a light table that just can’t be duplicated by digital, no matter how big and bright our monitors get.
JerseyStyle Photography says
“Electrified and petrified”! Clyde Frazier would be proud. These are all great shots, not sure which is my favorite. Would have been neat to have some dust or chalk snapping out of Keith’s glove. The LaValliere shot is great too. All pretty clean, too. Not like that Lou Pinella shot from ’78…enough grain to drive a truck through. 🙂
Ozzie was The Wizard. You’re McNally the Magician. Magic of photography indeed. (well, along with planning, testing, trying, moving, budgeting, setting up, breaking down and all that.)
~ Mark
oscar says
Thanks for sharing Joe! The images are fantastic and better yet the stories behind them. All these players I remember from my childhood.
Eric Reichbaum says
Amazing story, amazing photos. I love seeing those big chromes! Spanky LaValliere was a Pittsburgh legend when I was growing up, great shot!
Joe Ethridge says
Two of my favorite interests. Baseball and photography. And Ozzie Smith. And spring training in sunny Florida. And Joe McNally’s Blog. Wait, is that more than two?
Nasir says
Chromes on a lightbox, for me, is the true meaning of straight from camera. There’s no hiding from bad exposures or ‘fixing’ things with shadow or highlight recovery sliders. As they say, it’s what sorts out the men from the boys and when you nail the exposure there’s nothing like it.
Jim Donahue says
I remember reading about this shoot in Your book “The Moment it Clicks” a few years back. That whole book and the “Hot Shoe Diaries” have some really great stories and lessons to be learned.
Nikolay London photographer says
Love to read abut photo shoot you did in the past Joe. In these times when photoshop wasn’t in existence yet and everything needed to be done, so precisely, on the field. This is one of my favorite images of yours.
spydeer says
I love the light setthings
Alex Pletcher says
Bravo!