Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present

From the creator/editor of Who Shot Rock & Roll: the first book to show the range, cultural importance, and aesthetics of sports photography through the work of 165 extraordinary photographers - most of them heralded, most of their names unknown.

Here in almost 300 spectacular images - more than 120 in full colour - are great action photographs; portraits of athletes, famous and unknown; behind the scenes, athletes off the field; athletes practicing, working out, the daily relentless effort of training and achieving, physical perfection.

Here are photographs by Al Bello, Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Georges Demeny, Toni Frissell, Ernst Haas, Danny Lyon, Annie Leibovitz, Stanley Kubrick, and 142 more, names not necessarily known to the public but their photgraphic work considered iconic.

Here are photographs of Willie Mays, Rocky Graziano, Carl Lewis, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Satchel Paige, Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams, Bobby Orr, Jesse Owens, Mark Spitz, Secretariat, and more.

Gail Buckland’s text, interwoven throughout and written with a grasp and a profound understanding of the history of photography, makes clear the importance and groundbreaking nature of this work and writes of the photographers and their technical and artistic advancements that, against all odds, captured the instant of the sport.

Here are the classic images that capture the uncapturable, that allow us to experience the ‘kinetic beauty’, that give us the essence and meaning - the transcendent power - of sports.