A column contributed by Ryan Tyler
When it comes to the greatest baseball photos, our attention is often focused on what’s in the image. We tend to scrutinize every detail, like who’s pitching, who’s batting, who’s running after the ball, the emotions of the players, the audience, and so forth. But when you look at the most iconic baseball photos of all time, have you wondered who is behind the camera?
Probably not, but we’re here to change that. As writer John Gehrig pointed out, baseball and photography were made for each other, as both came to prominence in 1839. So, it’s only right that the spotlight is given to the people who immortalized the best baseball photos we cherish up to this day. Without further ado, here are some of the greatest baseball photographers of all time:
Charles M. Conlon
Charles M. Conlon was a famous baseball photographer who got his start working as a proofreader at the New York Telegram. It was during his time there that he began shooting pictures as a hobby. In the 1900s, he frequented baseball stadiums with his Graflex camera and filled the pages of the Telegram, as well as The Sporting News and the Spalding Guide, with his striking portraits. You can still view some of his best work in such published collections as Baseball’s Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles M. Conlon and The Big Show: Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age Baseball Photographs.
[Editor’s Note: You can hear my conversation with Neal McCabe, one of the collaborators of these books, here.]
Joe DiMaggio
Who knew that one of the best living sports photographers also happens to be named after Joltin’ Joe, an MBL Hall of Famer? A globally renowned photographer, DiMaggio has been making award-winning photographs for four decades. His work has appeared in the world’s biggest publications, including Life, Sports Illustrated, and Time Magazine. One of his Sports Illustrated covers was even selected by Time Magazine as “Picture of the Year.” In an exclusive feature for Adorama, Joe shared how he convinced the AAA league to allow him to use a GoPro Hero3 to capture never-before-seen shots of a game.
Joe continues to work with new technology to create both traditional and digital art. In 2017, he released an autobiography called Fill the Frame, in which he goes on a journey “recalling [his] adventures from the Golden Age to the Digital Age of photography.”
Hy Peskin
Another household name in the sports photography world is Hy Peskin, who is seen as one of the best talents in sports photojournalism of the 20th century. Icons like Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, and John Elway have all been photographed by him. As one of the finest photographers of his time, he was hired as Sports Illustrated‘s first staff photographer. During his peak, Peskin helped document the breaking of the color barrier in baseball. One of his iconic photos was of Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, which is still in circulation to this day. You can read all about his impact on sports photography in his book A Life In The Shadows: The Sports Photography Of Hy Peskin.
Brad Mangin
As for the baseball photographers of our time, one of the best in the business is Brad Mangin. He’s a San Francisco-based freelance sports photographer whose list of clients includes Sports Illustrated. Over the course of his career, he has photographed Super Bowls, the World Series, and several NBA Finals. In his book Instant Baseball: The Baseball Instagrams of Brad Mangin, you can see how he documented the 2012 MLB season from Spring Training all the way through the World Series with just his iPhone.
[Editor’s Note: You can listen to a Bookshelf Conversation with Brad Mangin here.]
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