Photographing the Green Bay Packers

It has been a while since I have posted a book review. With football season ready to begin I think that it is time to crank the series back up again. What better way to do so than with a book by Vernon Biever. Vernon was the photographer for the Packers from 1941 until he retired in 2006. He was still making images until his death in 2010. His images have helped document the glory years of Packer football. His legacy continues as one of his sons works for Sports Illustrated, and the other photographs the Packers with his own son.

What you have to think about when you look through a book like this is that for almost all of the images Vernon was shooting film. You really had to know your stuff to do so. Combine that with the fact that many of those years also featured manual focusing lenses, and you have a unique skill set that was required to shoot sports. Now when a big play happens you just look at the back of your camera to see if you got the shot. Back then you had to wait until it came back from the developer. With that in mind you can really appreciate what a genius Vernon really was at his craft.

Below is a great video that shows some of the work of the Biever family with comments on the pieces by the men themselves.