David Liam Kyle's: Story Behind the Shot - "Steamed"

"Steamed"

I have photographed numerous sports assignments over my thirty plus years as a photojournalist and have been slowly going through some of my old images. This photo still seems to get the most attention for one of my most unusual feature sports photographs. I was on assignment for Sports Illustrated shooting the NFL Philadelphia Eagles at Cleveland Browns Stadium in the early nineties.   It was a cold but sunny day when I noticed steam coming off the head of Philadelphia Eagles football player Antone Davis after he removed his helmet as he left the playing field. Nothing really uncommon from a heated lineman under the right conditions in Cleveland. The light and positioning at that moment was not conducive to a good photograph so I waited until the next time Davis came off the field and positioned myself so the light would be back lit with the dark shadows of Cleveland Stadium as a clean backdrop. As luck would have it Antone Davis actually walked toward me and looked up at the scoreboard. I photographed this image with my Nikon F3 film camera and manual focus Nikkor 400mm f/2.8 lens wide open at 1/500^th shutter speed on Fujichrome Provia 100 pushed one stop.  During the nineties my NFL game equipment was usually four Nikon F3 camera bodies with 50mm, 300mm f/2.8, 400mm f/2.8 and 600mm f/4 Nikkor lenses.  Technology has obviously changed over the years.  Zoom lenses have replaced the need for numerous lenses and camera bodies and my Lexar compact flash cards have replaced the need for numerous bags of film...but at the end of the assignment you still have to see pictures and capture moments.

David Liam Kyle