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Capturing the Essence of an Athlete in Photographs

David Black is a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens

At one time or another, Dave Black's been asked, "Can you get this all the time?" And, "Is this your typical percentage of sharp shots?" And, "Who are you?"

The first question came from the editor of The Blood-Horse magazine when he saw one of Dave's photos of the Kentucky Derby. It was a close-up of Smarty Jones and jockey Stewart Elliott, the horse running full tilt and flat out. Somehow Dave got in tight for a sharp shot the likes of which the editor had never seen before. Because luck had nothing to do with it, Dave could answer that question, "Well, sure."

The second question was also asked by an editor, this one at Sports Illustrated, and it came some 20 years ago when Dave turned in his first assignment for the magazine. "This was back in the days of manual focus," Dave says. "I asked him, 'Is there something wrong?' I'd handed in the film and hadn't seen the pictures. And he said, 'No, nothing's wrong...it's just that every roll you turned in had 35 out of 36 pictures sharp, and typically we don't see that high a percentage." I told him, "Well, this was a typical shoot for me."

"Who are you?" was asked....well, we'll get to that in a moment.

The first thing you realize about Dave's photos is that someone with great graphic sense created them. Design, balance, use and placement of color, leading lines-these aren't happy accidents. "I had a double major in college—commercial graphics design and studio drawing," Dave says. "I thought I would be an illustrator." Then came a required black-and-white photo course and an instructor named Bob White. "He took an interest in me," Dave says, "and tried to convince me to change my major to photography." Dave passed on that idea, but after graduation he continued to take pictures. "I'd been a gymnast throughout high school and in college, and after graduation I began running a gymnastics school for kids." Then, in the early 1980s, his photography came to the attention of the U.S. gymnastics team, and he was asked to photograph the team's preparation for and participation in the 1984 Olympics.

His photographs of the team began to appear in magazines. "At that time there were pictures coming from three sources," Dave says. Two were agencies, and the third was this guy, Dave Black. People started calling, asking "Who are you?"