In this last installment of our four part series on Neil Leifer, we will look at Neil’s legacy in his five decades as a sports photographer. Neil does not engage in sports photography anymore these days. He now spends his time directing and producing films. The only photographs that he takes these days are those of his family. But Neil’s place in the history of sports photography is secure. Nothing can detract from his achievements in a field that considers him as one of the best ever.

We consider Neil’s legacy to be the honest inside look that he has given us into the lives of our finest athletes in the past five decades. Our athletes have showcased humanity’s indomitable spirit. Our athletes’ triumphs have been our triumphs. What is it that our athletes are thinking? What are the stirrings inside them? What drives them to push themselves beyond barriers to reach new heights? Neil’s sports photography helps…

In this third installment of our four part series on Neil Leifer, we will feature an exhibit at the Annenberg Foundation in Los Angeles, California. Neil shares the limelight with a colleague. The exhibit honours and showcases the achievements of probably the two best sports photographers of all time, Neil Leifer and Walter Iooss, Jr. The name of the exhibit is ‘Sport: Iooss and Leifer.’ It runs from 12 November 2009 to 7 March 2010.

Being honoured is not something new to Neil. Honour comes with being good at what he does and for having done it for so long. It must be wonderful for one to love doing what one is so good at. Such a combination can only lead to greatness. We can only wonder if Neil knew that he was on to something when he started in sports photography as a teenager. Neil must have realized that people were responding positively to his images. But…

In this second installment of our four part series on Neil Leifer, we will explore the factors that have contributed to Neil’s success as a photographer. It is hardly ever just one thing. It is almost always a combination of things. The rules are hardly ever hard and fast. We can only try our best to capture as much of the reason for Neil’s success as we can. If we had to sum it all up in two things, it could very well be these two:

1. Being at the right place at the right time.

We know it only too well. Timing is everything for a sports photographer. It is the stuff of which great sports photography is made. Timing is something that Neil had going for him all those decades. Neil had to be at the perfect place to take his photograph. He had to be there at the perfect time. There and then, he had to be ready…

We have the honour to feature a legendary sports photographer in a four part series on his life and photography. We are talking about no other than Neil Leifer. His photographs have graced the covers of Sports Illustrated magazine, Time magazine, Life magazine and People magazine. He has devoted no less than five decades of his life to his photography that has largely been sports photography. On the list of top sports photographers of all time, Neil figures at nothing less than the apex along with his colleague Walter Iooss, Jr. whom we have covered quite a bit on our blog.

We have charted Neil’s journey as a photographer. Neil started his extraordinarily distinguished career as a professional photographer in his teens during the 1960s. Neil began as a freelancer and eventually became a staff photographer of Sports Illustrated magazine and then Time magazine as well as a contributing photographer of Life magazine. Neil presently holds the record as…