Like most boys tend to, Walter Iooss picked up one of his old man’s hobbies—photography.

Not knowing how it’s going to change his life, Walter tagged along his dad at football games. His father, Walter Iooss Sr., who was a “big Brooklyn Dodger fan,” owned a lot of photography equipment back in the ‘50s. One football game was all it took, and Walter was hooked. His father let him photograph a football game one afternoon, processed the film they used (a black-and-white Kodak Tri-X film), and the rest, as they say, was history. Or in Walter’s words: “And it was epiphany.”

His father was quick to realize that Walter had a real knack for photography. Noticing that his son really enjoyed taking photos, he encouraged him, and before long, Walter went from taking photos of his friends playing baseball and football to photographing his sports heroes: Johnny Unitas (Baltimore Colts), Mickey Mantle (New York Yankees), and Raymond Berry (also from Baltimore Colts).

It was a wistful, nostalgic day for Walter when he finally met Johnny Unitas in 1999, when he was assigned to shoot him for a cover of Sports Illustrated (SI). “I photographed the great Johnny Unitas at 15 or 16, and finally met him years later—he was the last of my boyhood heroes,” he says.

A few years after he started being a shutterbug, Walter attained some formal education in photography: he attended the German School of Photography, which was located in New York City. Walter spent his summer break learning about accelerated photography fundamentals in this school.

His talent and his perseverance bore fruit early: at 17, Walter got his first professional assignment. He was sent by Sports Illustrated (SI) during the summer of that year to photograph an 80-year-old sailor, but his first major assignment from the magazine came in September, 1961. SI sent him to photograph Roger Maris’ 61st home run—a feat that broke Baby Ruth’s record at the Yankee Stadium.

Walter has since photographed many Sports heroes, including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, among some. His profession has taken him to various places around the world, like Thailand (for Fuji’s project) and Cuba (for a photo essay in SI). Walter believes that in photography, the person taking the shots needs to constantly push his limits, because “People are looking for something edgier all the time.”

Walter currently lives in New York with his wife Eva. And just like him, their sons Christian and Bjorn also picked up their father’s love for photography. Christian is a photo editor for Golf World and Bjorn is now a photography major in Rhode Islands School of Design.

Related Posts