Mostly True

Getting It on Paper

2012-01-15T10:29:43-07:00

Here's a quick trailer for my new book.

Technically, it's a sports book. I photographed the last ten games of this football team's final season in a conference they'd been in for over 100 years. Lot's of history there, which is now gone forever.

Realistically, it's more of a documentary book.

When it was annouced that Nebraska would leave the Big 12, I went looking for historical images. Photographs that would show me what the stadium looked like, how the people dressed, something which would give me an idea of what it was like to witness or play the game back then.

Sadly, there wasn't much out there to find. Virtually nothing from before the 1960's, and not much from even twenty years ago.

So you could classify the book as a timecapsule too. That was my goal anyway. To capture this unique point in history that would become priceless to viewers in the future.

As a photographer, it wasn't an easy task. Still, I know how to make pictures (more or less), and I enjoyed every moment on the sidelines. That was the easy part.

Logistically, driving about 20,000 miles, flying, lodging, credentials, also plenty doable. As an agency photographer I learned early how to do this kind of stuff on my own, but more importantly do it cheaply.

Editing the 20,000 or so images (hmm... a picture for every mile), I enjoyed too. I think I did an OK job. I could have, and probably should have dropped this task on one of the great photoeditors I've worked with over the years, but that would have been a little much to ask.

The other seven or eight jobs, normally stuff a publisher would handle, were a tad tougher. I learned a lot, and got through it, though I'm nowhere near having mastered any of them.

Overall it's been a great learning experience and I think publishing the follow-up book on the Husker's first season in the Big Ten will teach me even more. Yeah, I shot the second book at the same time I was publishing the first one. Something I don't recommend to anyone!

It had to be a book, this body of work. The digital age hadn't helped my in my quest to find the images from twenty, fifty or a hundred years ago. I suppose the newspapers in Nebraska might get around to archiving their historical images on film, but that's a big and unlikely "might". So 5000 copies, printed on paper, in the hands of that many people, still seems like the best solution when it comes to documentary photography.

The book is available on Amazon here.

You can also get a copy directly from me.

Enjoy!

Friends of Anton Hammerl

2011-09-13T14:03:41-06:00

Anton Hammerl was killed while covering the civil war in Libya. He left behind his wife Penny and three young children, 11 year-old Aurora, Neo,7, and baby Hiro, 6 months.

This benefit, designed to raise funds for his children's education was organized by Reporters Without Borders, Photoshelter, and Emphasis.

Please do what you can.

Anton Hammerl, 1969-2011

On April 5th, 2011 South African photographer Anton Hammerl went missing after coming under fire from Gaddafi loyalists near the oil port of Brega in Libya.

Photo: Saturday Star

For six weeks the world was led to believe by the Libyan regime that he was being detained and was still alive. On May 19th Anton's family learnt from eyewitnesses that his injuries were such that he could not have survived without medical attention.

Anton, 41, was a former pictures editor and chief photographer for The Saturday Star in Johannesburg, South Africa. He moved to London in 2006 where he became a freelance photographer, shooting both news and corporate work. He had gone to cover the fighting in Libya in late March as a freelancer.

Talking Football and Photography

2011-09-05T12:00:29-06:00

A nice video with legendary Nebraska sportscaster Dave Webber interviewing me about my new book.

Click here to order the book.

We're taking orders until Oct. 1, then only printing that many copies (collector's item alert). The book ships around Nov. 25, so it will arrive in time for the holidays.