Legendary sports photographer Neil Leifer still remembers the moment he captured one of the most iconic images in boxing history with vivid clarity. As Muhammad Ali stood triumphantly over a defeated Sonny Liston in May 1965, Leifer's camera captured the perfect shot from his unique overhead position. However, despite the visual perfection of the moment, the photographer's mind immediately raced to a more practical concern. "I thought: Damn. What are they going to say about these pictures in the lab?" Leifer recalled decades later, his worry stemming from the challenging lighting conditions and exposure settings he had to employ during the championship bout.
The photograph in question, taken during the heavyweight championship rematch in Lewiston, Maine, has become the definitive image of Ali's dominance and charisma. Leifer, then just 22 years old, had secured a rare overhead shooting position by agreeing to photograph the event for the British Broadcasting Corporation. While other photographers captured the scene at eye level, Leifer's elevated vantage point provided an unprecedented perspective that would immortalize the moment. The image shows Ali screaming at Liston to get up, his right fist cocked and ready, creating a composition that perfectly captured the boxer's confidence and theatrical personality.
What many don't realize is that Leifer's immediate concern about the lab's reaction was rooted in the technical limitations of 1960s photography. Shooting in the dimly lit St. Dominic's Arena required pushing his film to the absolute limits of its capabilities. The young photographer had deliberately overexposed his shots, knowing that the darkroom technicians would need to pull the images back during development. This risky technique, while common among experienced photographers, often drew criticism from lab technicians who preferred properly exposed negatives that required less manipulation and produced more predictable results.
Leifer's career extended far beyond that singular Ali moment, spanning over five decades and covering more than 200 Sports Illustrated covers. His work documented not just sports history, but American cultural history, capturing everything from Olympic triumphs to presidential golf outings. The photographer's signature style combined meticulous preparation with an uncanny ability to anticipate decisive moments, whether he was shooting from a cherry picker above a boxing ring or submerged in a pool for underwater swimming shots. His dedication to getting the perfect angle often meant arriving hours before events and studying his subjects' movements and habits with scientific precision.
The legacy of Leifer's work continues to influence modern sports photography in profound ways. Today's digital photographers may not worry about film development, but they still face the same fundamental challenge of capturing fleeting moments that define athletic competition. Many contemporary photographers cite Leifer's Ali photo as their inspiration for pursuing sports journalism, and his techniques for positioning and timing remain taught in photography programs across the country. The image itself has been reproduced countless times, appearing on everything from postage stamps to museum walls, cementing its status as a cultural touchstone that transcends sports.
Reflecting on his career, Leifer maintains that his success came from treating every assignment with equal importance, whether shooting a high school basketball game or the Super Bowl. He believes that the best sports photographs tell stories that transcend the game itself, revealing character, emotion, and human drama. While the technical aspects of photography have evolved dramatically since that night in Lewiston, the fundamental goal remains unchanged: to freeze moments that would otherwise be lost to time. For Leifer, that anxiety about the lab's reaction was just part of the creative process, a small price to pay for creating an image that would define both his career and an entire era of American sports history.
