Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I shot Earl Campbell in 1971 high school football game


In 1971, I was loaned an expensive camera from my friend, he was a freelance photographer shooting at a high school football game in Tyler, Texas (my hometown) John Tyler high school was playing and they were on the 40 yard line. I was on the goal line. They gave the ball to a halfback and he ran it directly toward me before dragging two tacklers several yards and ending up on the 6 yard line. Jeez. This guy was good. I had retreated to the end of the end zone. I snapped the photo and it made the local newspaper (I did not know it made the paper until weeks later and at that time Campbell was not famous, so I didn't get a copy of the picture). It was Earl Campbell and he had two brothers on the team as well. He went on to play for UT Austin, then went pro with the Houston Oilers and the New Orleans Saints. A year or two before I had been shooting with a late 50s graphflex bellows type camera and using a darkroom to blow up the black and white poster size pictures of portraits and drag racing cars. After that experience I decided to buy my own SLR film camera. Back then light meters were not available in cameras, but you could buy one separately which I did. I have owned over a dozen film cameras. The next year I shot my first wedding.

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