“He’s looking up Ali’s butt, there’s no way he’s gonna get a great picture…” Why I keep coming back to this Neil Leifer interview

Photographer Neil Leifer poses next to his photography at "Sport: Iooss and Leifer" Exhibit Opening at The Annenberg Space For Photography on November 13, 2009 in Century City, California. (Photo by Brian To/FilmMagic).

I often listen to Jared Polin (aka FroKnowsPhoto)’s RAWtalk podcast of an evening, while smashing a few laps on F1 23 – Stephen FTW – and while I was browsing through some old podcast episodes the other night, I came across Fro’s interview with sports photographer, Neil Leifer, which originally aired on his YouTube channel.

I’m a bit of a boxing fan, so I might be a tad biased, but I think Leifer’s 1965 photograph of an enraged Muhammad Ali, standing over Sonny Liston, is not just the most famous sporting photograph of all time, but one of the most famous photographs of all time, period.