Tag Archives: PHOTOGRAPHY

Yuri Foreman

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

There is no doubt in my mind I am one of the luckiest photographers in the world; for that matter, I am probably one of the luckiest people in the world. As a contributing photographer for Sports Illustrated for several decades, I’ve had an opportunity to photograph Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, and my god the list just goes on and on and on. Four years ago I started to fulfill a dream of doing a full-length boxing documentary. The name of that documentary is “In This Corner.” It features five protagonists. The main protagonist is Yuri Foreman.Foreman was born in Belle rousse, moved to Israel, and he now resides in Brooklyn. All of the boxers, plus hundreds more that I did not name, are all great in their own right. Yuri Foreman out of all of them is the hardest working; most dedicated human being I have ever met. He has fought his way from absolute poverty to last Saturday night, doing something that very few people believed he could actually do. He won the WBA Junior Middle Weight Championship of the world (154). All the odds were against him. Many of the definitive experts believed that he had no chance, but in spite of the odds, in spite of the nay-sayers, he prevailed. They now call him, “the lion from Zion.” I emailed Yuri congratulations. He was gracious enough to email me back “Joe we did it!” I wrote him back and said, “No, Yuri. You did it. You did it alone. It takes an extremely special person to step through those ropes and put it all on the line. Very few have the courage to do it and fewer yet become champion of the world.” I am proud to be called a friend of Yuri Foreman.

Post Script: Like all great Hollywood movies, we always want to see the good guy win, live happily ever after, and ride off into the sunset. But unfortunately, in the real world, sometimes it just doesn’t happen that way. Yuri Foreman lost his title in Yankee stadium on 2010-06-05. He re-injured his meniscus. On his next fight, he lost again to Pawel Wolak. Certainly not the way we wanted to remember Yuri Foreman. But as we all know, sometimes life is just not fair. So to all the ships at sea, keep both hands up and your eye on the prize and never give up.
All Photos ©Joe DiMaggio.

The Soul of Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

Every person’s life is marked with milestones. One of my milestones at age 18 was photographing a folk group by the name of Peter, Paul, and Mary. It was one of their early performances. I was totally blown away by the music and mesmerized by Mary Travers. She was a blonde with a beautiful frame, beautiful hair, and a great voice. It just doesn’t get better than that at age 18. On September 16, 2009 the world lost one of the most beautiful people that God put on this planet. I loved her then, and I love her today. All of my original negatives are somewhere in photo limbo. I have been looking for them for a long time. Eventually, I will find them. I am posting this particular photo, which was an original black and white and then made into an orthochromatic print on a textured matt paper which I painted over a very long time ago. The original black and white hung over Mary’s couch for many years. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, I will do another tribute to Mary when I find my original negatives.

© Joe DiMaggio

Queue the Rapids!

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

I was contracted by the Canadian Olympic Association to photograph basketball, boxing, soccer, track and field, and kayaking. I fell in love with kayaking and proceeded to kayak for the next 20 years and moved to ocean kayaking. One of the things that I used kayaking for was eye-hand coordination and remote photography. Will try to dig out some of the film- Yes, Alice, there was film in those days! I’ll see if I can show you a few examples. But, in the interim, every once and a while I like to take the rust off and go photograph kayaking. Here are a few frames. Hope you enjoy them. Shutter speed ranged between a 500 and 1000, ISO 200. 80 to 200 mm lens. Pick a number- f4.5.

20 Years Ahead of the Curve

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

 ©Joe DiMaggio

There is an old adage when all else fails tell the truth. It’s something I genuinely believe in.  The new word today is “transparency” – tough to stay up with the brave new world!  About 20 years ago I had a conversation with one of the most powerful women in the world of photography.  She took a $50,000 corporation and turned it into the second largest agency in the world and sold it for upwards of thirty-million dollars.  I said to Sally, I guess I’m 20 years behind the time and she said that it was the exact opposite and that I was way ahead of my time.  It was a wonderful compliment but I’m not sure if I actually believed it.  When the technology came for the motor drives, I did not embrace it. The next big leap was auto programming and I did not embrace this. Shortly afterwards, autofocusing came out and I did an interview and was quoted as saying my clients want me to focus the camera – I’m not a grandfather yet!  Need I say, I did not embrace that technology either? I’ve been making photographs on film for 5 decades. When digital came out I did not embrace it.  Is it possible that one man could be wrong about so many things? I’m afraid the answer is yes.

Of course, in 2011, I utilize all this new technology. There is no doubt that when you use these tools properly you’ll be rewarded. Wiebetech has given me an opportunity to not be 20 years behind the times but actually to be 20 years ahead of the time. The combination of the big three – The Double Barreled Derringer (ToughTech Duo), The Little Gun (RTX220-QR) and the Big Gun (RTX800-IR) give me a tremendous advantage in filing, storing and retrieving all of my photographs and films.  It is definitively the best technology today and to be honest, probably for a long time to come. Wiebetech has allowed me for the first time in a long time, to be ahead of the curve. I strongly recommend that every advanced photographer and filmmaker incorporates this technology to protect their life’s work. We all travel different roads and have different motivations and needs but with your solutions we will have choices. Thanks so much.  Keep up the great work.

Joe DiMaggio