Behind the lens: Walter Iooss Jr. talks Super Bowl

Every great career can be traced back to a single moment. It is often unremarkable, some seemingly inconsequential experience that shapes a life.

Walter Iooss Jr. had his moment more than 57 years ago in the Bronx, at East 161st street and River Avenue. It was a football game between two teams that were opposites in every way. One was going to its third NFL Championship Game in four years. The other was toiling as a second-rate team in a two-team town, and would relocate only a few months later.

Iooss Jr. packed up his Asahi Pentax camera with a 300 millimeter Takumar lens and went to Yankee Stadium.

“My father was a musician in New York and it was a hobby of his,” Iooss said. “He bought season tickets to the New York Football Giants. He lived in Brooklyn and I lived in East Orange, New Jersey. My parents were divorced. I saw him on Sundays so we went to the Giants game against the Chicago Cardinals. November 8, 1959. That was when I took my first picture. … A year and a half later, July 1961, I had my first assignment for Sports Illustrated.”

Iooss’ photograph from 1959 Giants-Cardinals game

That assignment — covering Archie Chester, an 83-year-old sailor — began a career which ranks among the most impressive in photography history. You name the major sporting event, chances are Iooss was there. He has captured everything from Roger Maris making history in 1961 to Dwight Clark’s “The Catch.”

Iooss has an uncanny ability to recall the smallest of details from decades ago, perhaps a window into why his photos are so nuanced. When talking about the Super Bowl, the 73-year-old remembers a particular halftime show in January 1972. While the Miami Dolphins were trying to figure out the Dallas Cowboys (they never did, and lost 24-3), a man lit himself on fire as part of the act. This is likely not in the plans for Super Bowl LI.

That’s as clear an indication as any of how wildly the sport’s greatest stage has changed through the years, and Iooss has witnessed that change first-hand. He has been to every Super Bowl ever played, one of only three photographers who can make that claim.

Iooss on his first Sports Illustrated assignment with Archie Chester (1961)

In January 1967, the first Super Bowl (or the AFL-NFL Championship Game, as it was) was held in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum between the Kansas City Chiefs and Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers. For many, the contest was intriguing yet anticlimactic. Iooss remembers it for another reason.

“The first Super Bowl to me was a disappointment in so many ways,” Iooss said. “They went from games in Cleveland and Green Bay, not that I wanted to be frozen, but it felt sterile in a neutral site. I think it worked out well, but Sports Illustrated that day had two charter jets to get film back to New York. The most important part of shooting for Sports Illustrated in the 1960s and ’70s was getting the film to New York. Nobody was better than SI photographers at leaving (the game). … One plane left at halftime and one at the end of the game. Neil Leifer, Jim Drake and I went from Los Angeles to Grand Island, Nebraska to refuel, and then to New York City.”

Things are a little different now. The Super Bowl has become the largest commercial event in America, while images can now be sent across the globe faster than the blink of an eye. The game itself has undergone changes both on the field and in the board room, with one of the biggest shifts taking place in the mid-1970s.

In 1974, the NFL planned to host the first ever indoor Super Bowl, with the Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers to play in the newly-constructed Louisiana Superdome. The stadium wasn’t completed in time, however, forcing the game outdoors into Tulane Stadium.

Three years later, the league finally got its indoor Super Bowl. On television, the game had a different look. For Iooss, trying to photograph the game was a complete mess. While his opinion of that afternoon, and of domes in general, is largely negative, time has softened his feelings.

“To go from Pasadena to the Superdome was a shock,” Iooss said. “Everyone was chainsmoking and it was a terrible arena. They set off fireworks and in the second half, you couldn’t see the other end zone. It was like Beijing. Now, I’ve gotten lazy. I don’t even want a game outdoors. Weather should be removed from the Super Bowl. Who gives a shit? It’s like the Grammy’s now. Let’s keep it indoors and not worry about it.”

These days, Iooss has a less demanding schedule, albeit a consistent one. Once a whirlwind of activity, shooting photo essays with the likes of Michael Jordan and Joe Montana, he is taking on new assignments of a less famous breed. A little more than a month ago, he picked up his camera and shot a Pop Warner football game for The Players Tribune.

The Super Bowl this weekend will be his annual assignment for Sports Illustrated, the magazine he has sent all of his Super Bowl photos to over the years. Iooss has been providing sports fans with iconic images for decades, but most could not recognize his name He has remained largely on the margins, just as he will on Super Sunday.

“Any photographer should be happy to have one image people remember,” Iooss said. “You think beyond sport, the most memorable is Joe Rosenthal at Iwo Jima. That’s it. … Most photographers have nothing.”

When pressed on his favorite Super Bowl photo, Iooss hesitates. After a moment, he chooses a shot from January 1969, when Joe Namath engineered the greatest upset in NFL history, guiding the New York Jets to a 16-7 win over the Baltimore Colts. The shot was of Namath running off the Orange Bowl turf, right index finger extended high above his head. Iooss, whose favorite player was the defeated Johnny Unitas, ended up with a blurry, iconic photograph.

It is the imperfect, perfect picture.

Iooss would snap between 700 and 1,000 pictures at a given game, hoping for a few that might make print. His contemporaries will shoot around twice as many on Sunday — just one of the ways the digital camera has changed the profession. Iooss, who was heavily influenced by NFL Films throughout his career, believes the best photos often depend on what isn’t in the shot.

“Life looks better when you don’t see everything.”

Iooss plans to continue attending Super Bowls, even though he isn’t looking forward to braving the cold in Minneapolis next year. He looks forward to seeing old friends and the national anthem, one of his favorites parts of the entire experience. One of Iooss’ favorite memories is of Whitney Houston belting out the Star Spangled Banner in Tampa Stadium before Super Bowl XXV, a rendition that has over 9.7 million views on YouTube.

Iooss will travel from his home in Miami to Houston on Saturday, before getting his credential and heading to the game. He has little time for anything other than a little schmoozing with friends before kickoff. Then he will grab his gear and head to NRG Stadium, continuing a tradition that has lasted since the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. There is no pregame routine outside of being mindful of liquid intake, for fear of a restroom call during halftime.

For Iooss, there is no reason to go through a time-consuming process. After almost 56 years in the frenzied waters, he is comfortable. He has been for quite some time.

As the anthem is sung and the masses rise with hand over heart, Iooss will have a clear mind. There is nothing else to think of, except a day that’s only worth remembering for a black and white photograph.

“I always think of my father before the game,” Iooss said. “That was big for him that I went to the Super bowl. From the game at Yankee Stadium to the Super Bowl.”