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or the past 60 years, critically acclaimed sports photojournalist Michael Zagaris has been taking his camera behind the scenes of the NFL, capturing moments that define America’s game. With his unrivaled credentials — 42 Super Bowls, 49 seasons as the team photographer for the San Francisco 49ers, and an all-access passport to the rest of the league — Zagaris loves to aim his lens beyond the field, focusing on the locker room and the bench, the practices and the training camps.
Documenting his ongoing search for the essence of the game, Zagaris’s authentic and intimate portraits convey the nerves, the speed, the tension, the pain and the passion of football as seen through the eyes of the men who play it. His new book, Field of Play: 60 Years of NFL Photography, from publisher Cameron + Company, includes insights from Pro Football Hall of Famers Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott and Fred Biletnikoff, as well as contributions from renowned sportswriter Steve Cassady and sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards. Field of Play not only highlights Zagaris’s storied career, but also showcases the irresistible lure of football and celebrates its enduring relevance.
The Unseen NFL
PHOTOS BY Michael Zagaris
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I never thought about the lasting impact of Michael’s work behind the camera at the time. Obviously, he did. That’s what photographers do. They think about that. Photographers like Michael are forever preserving a second in time. I just remember always having a good time and being in the moment anytime I was with him. I used to mess with Michael all the time, too.
He always had at least two cameras hanging off of him. I would wait until he had his back turned or he was trying to take pictures of somebody else, and I’d go over there. He had a motor-drive shutter, so if you held the button down, it ripped off fifteen pictures in a second. I’d reach over and press the button as long as I could, no matter where it was pointing. He says he has a whole library of stuff I took.
Ultimately, Michael contributed as much to the 49ers and our team of the ’80s as anyone. All the things that took place, the shots that he got, are an important part of the puzzle that we all had a hand in assembling.
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PHOTOS BY CLARA MOKRI/The Players' Tribune
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The Only Way Is Through
By Anthony Joshua
We’d tailgate after games and show up at crab feeds or spaghetti feeds. We didn’t have social media in those days—good for us, bad for people wanting to know what we were up to, because we were wild. But mostly, we won games and built up the legends around the Raiders mystique. We didn’t have free agency, but that was okay, because none of us wanted to be anywhere else. We hung out with the A’s, with Sal Bando, Vida Blue, and Reggie Jackson, and with the Warriors, with Rick Barry and Nate Thurmond—impact players that made a difference.
It was a great era for Bay Area sports and a great time to be an Oakland Raider. If I could relive those times, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Michael Zagaris’s photos and the stories in Field of Play might be the next best thing. They bring it back like it was yesterday.
The history of this game is filled with moments that have changed the lives of individuals who played it or watched or listened or followed the game in other ways.
There are moments that Michael Zagaris has captured through his camera lens that recorded the emotions of the game. This book preserves the joy, love, pain, and accomplishments of greatness of the men who gave their all on the field for American football.
A more accurate portrait of NFL football is painted most truly by still photography, akin to what one finds in the work of the photographer who, throughout several generations of jazz music, has given the world more poignant and profound insights into the genre and the artists who create it than all of the concert and album reviews ever written and all the carefully managed film footage that could ever be assembled.
The NFL team photographer with unfettered team access is the gatekeeper of the legacies of NFL football. Words are inadequate. Only a camera in the hands of an artist who understands the power of the still photo—the light, the scene, the faces, the eyes, the unguarded truth— can reveal the unpretentious honesty of the football mo - ment, fleeting and short-lived.
Contact sheet, 49ers vs. Bears, NFC Championship Game,
Candlestick Park, San Francisco, January 1985
Marv Hubbard, Fred Biletnikoff, and Kenny Stabler, Steelers vs. Raiders preseason game, Memorial Stadium, 1975
(Left) Patriots' Russ Francis after loss to the Raiders, 1976
(Right) Tom Flores Super Bowl XV, 1981
Dick “Night Train” Lane in front of Tiger Stadium in Detroit, 1983
Bill Walsh lying down pregame Super Bowl XIX, the 49ers went
on to defeat the Dolphins, 38–16, Stanford Stadium, 1985
(Left) Bill Romanowski getting a pregame injection 1990
(Right) Head athletic trainer Lindsy McLean taping Bubba Paris
in the locker room before the game, 49ers vs. Broncos,
Mile High Stadium, Denver, 1985
Cards on 49ers team plane on the way to Super Bowl XXIV against the Broncos in New Orleans, 1990
Joe Montana listening to his Walkman before leading the 49ers to victory over the Lions, Silverdome, Pontiac, Michigan, 1984
Dwaine Board and Lawrence Pillers do pregame stretching, 49ers vs. Lions, Silverdome, Pontiac, Michigan, 1984
Houston players getting taped up before the game, 49ers vs. Oilers, Candlestick Park, San Francisco, 1975
Ronnie Lott, Joe Montana, PR director Jerry Walker, and Jerry Rice before the game, 49ers vs. Dolphins, American Bowl,
Wembley Stadium, London, 1988
(Left) Joe Montana after leading the 49ers to a 37–21 win
over the Redskins, in 1988
(Right) Montana in the locker room before the Hall of Fame Game, Fawcett Stadium, Canton, Ohio, 1987
Walter Payton and Michael Zagaris, Raiders vs. Bears,
Oakland Coliseum, 1977
F
Fred Biletnikoff
“
Joe Montana
“
Ronnie Lott
“
Dr. Harry Edwards
“
For more on info, preordering, and to find events connected to Field of Play: 60 Years of NFL Photography,
CLICK HERE
I never thought about the lasting impact of Michael’s work behind the camera at the time. Obviously, he did. That’s what photographers do. They think about that. Photographers like Michael are forever preserving a second in time. I just remember always having a good time and being in the moment anytime I was with him. I used to mess with Michael all the time, too.
He always had at least two cameras hanging off of him. I would wait until he had his back turned or he was trying to take pictures of somebody else, and I’d go over there. He had a motor-drive shutter, so if you held the button down, it ripped off fifteen pictures in a second. I’d reach over and press the button as long as I could, no matter where it was pointing. He says he has a whole library of stuff I took.
Ultimately, Michael contributed as much to the 49ers and our team of the ’80s as anyone. All the things that took place, the shots that he got, are an important part of the puzzle that we all had a hand in assembling.
or the past 60 years, critically acclaimed sports photojournalist Michael Zagaris has been taking his camera behind the scenes of the NFL, capturing moments that define America’s game. With his unrivaled credentials — 42 Super Bowls, 49 seasons as the team photographer for the San Francisco 49ers, and an all-access passport to the rest of the league — Zagaris loves to aim his lens beyond the field, focusing on the locker room and the bench, the practices and the training camps.
Documenting his ongoing search for the essence of the game, Zagaris’s authentic and intimate portraits convey the nerves, the speed, the tension, the pain and the passion of football as seen through the eyes of the men who play it. His new book, Field of Play: 60 Years of NFL Photography, from publisher Cameron + Company, includes insights from Pro Football Hall of Famers Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott and Fred Biletnikoff, as well as contributions from renowned sportswriter Steve Cassady and sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards. Field of Play not only highlights Zagaris’s storied career, but also showcases the irresistible lure of football and celebrates its enduring relevance.