A Sports Illustrated employee once asked Heinz Kluetmeier to name the most memorable Olympic photo he had taken.
That employee was me.
The famous sports photographer did not hesitate.
“I would have to say the Olympic hockey picture from Lake Placid,” he said. “This is the only cover we’ve ever published without cover language. It didn’t need it.”
That picture landed on me SI cover, March 3, 1980the definitive image of the defining sporting moment for Americans in the 20th century—the celebration of the U.S. hockey team after its unexpected victory over the Soviet Union at the Olympics in Lake Placid.
One of Kluetmeyer’s photos of celebrating Americans. (Photo: Heinz Kluetmeier/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
Kluetmeyer, born in Berlin but educated in the United States, was hired by Time Inc. in 1969 to work as a photographer for Life and Sports Illustrated magazine. His career included photographing more than 100 covers for Sports Illustrated, including memorable images of Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps.
He died earlier Tuesday at the age of 82 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease and stroke. SI’s John Wertheim Craft a beautiful obituarySaying that Kluetmeyer “didn’t take pictures, he gave pictures.”
“Heinz Kluetmeier was one of the greatest photographers of our time,” his former SI colleague Robert Beck said in an Instagram post. “He was technically years ahead of his peers, but he also understood that it was the emotions of his subjects that made his photographs truly special.
“If you ever set up a remote camera, you owe it to Heinz. If you set up a camera in a swimming pool at the Olympics (or anywhere else), you owe it to Heinz. If you look for different angles, you owe it to Heinz.” I could go on. He wanted to see great pictures from you, but he also appreciated a strong work ethic.
Kluetmeyer could shoot anything, but he was truly an Olympic fan. He pioneered and took photographs of underwater sports photography Stunning images of Phelps swimming underwater, frame by frameat the 2008 Beijing Games.
“I’ve always been interested in underwater photography, and the magazine has a history of trying something different and getting ahead of the curve,” Kloetmeier said in 2008. In the year a whole bunch of people saw it in the magazine and said, “Let’s try that.” The first time I got permission to put an underwater camera was in Barcelona after months of negotiation. The camera had sneaked underwater the previous year at the World Swimming Championships.
“One of the technical committee members said I could put it in the pool, and if nobody liked it, he would pull it out before the race. The guy standing next to me who was going to help me get it out of the pool in Perth, Australia, was Mel Stewart, then world champion and holder The record in the 200m butterfly. So, in his honor, I threw a camera into the pool for his race in Barcelona. We had a fisheye lens and the water was so smooth during the first lap of his swim, you could read the scoreboard through the water On top of him when we were putting the camera, I remember an armed guard said, “You can’t put this camera. It could be a bomb.’ Finally I said to the pool manager, ‘I will wear a bathing suit to the pool, and if there is a problem I will jump in and get it out.’ There was no problem and it was published in the magazine.
“Today, more and more people want to do it, so you almost have to ration the space at the bottom of the pool. It’s very valuable real estate but guys want to get nice shots and pictures.
(Photo: Heinz Kluetmeyer/Sports Illustrated via Getty Image)
