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Over the years, Atlanta-based photographer Chris Hamilton has shot many iconic time-lapse photographs of significant sporting events and famous athletes. For his 60th birthday, he created a book of sixty of his most famous and prized photos he has shot over the years called “Sixty at 60 Timing is Everything”.
Chris started his photography career shooting architecture. He loved being a photographer but wanted to shoot things that were more interesting to him, so after 10 years in that field, he made the switch to shooting sports and fitness photography.
During the beginning of his sports and fitness photography career, Chris was shooting for the NBA. This is where he experimented with the time lapse photos. After showing the photos to Sports Illustrated, the beloved publication was extremely impressed by the images and sent Chris to cover the 1991 NBA Finals where the Chicago Bulls went up against the Los Angeles Lakers. Infamous NBA players Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson went head-to-head during this matchup where Chris had the chance to capture time-lapse photos of the competing athletes. Sports Illustrated loved the images and later purchased them from Chris. Kept a bit in the dark, Chris did not learn which photos were used until the article came out.
Sports Illustrated published five double page spreads, plus the contents page, so 12 pages in total of my time-lapse photos covering the NBA Finals. So, at that point, I was still more an architecture photographer, shooting a bit for the Paralympics, but still wanted to get more into sports. But, interestingly enough, the same day the article hit my door step, was the same day that Magic Johnson came out with his press conference stating that he was HIV positive. So, once that came out, it was basically like me paying for 12 pages of advertising in Sports Illustrated. The phone rang off the hook seeing if I could do this [time-lapse style] for tennis and a bunch of different types of sports. This got me to switch to sports full time.
Now, Chris shoots a wide range of specialties, but for 10 years Chris shot only sports and fitness photography. During that time, he had been a photographer for the Atlanta Braves, the Paralympics, and had covered a wide range of important sporting events. Many of these events he shot time-lapse photographs, not knowing that in the future he would be creating a book highlighting such awesome photos. While creating this book, the biggest challenge has been deciding which ones to include. Some of the photos, such as the ones from NBA Finals, and some of the images he shot during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics are a must for the book. After making his final selects for the book, he utilized Adobe Lightroom to help him determine the layout for the book.
Peter Jacobson Sports recently hired Chris to shoot a golf tournament for Lexus, and in turn, Chris was asked to create a book with the photos. While working on this project, Chris was thrilled to have the chance to learn how to assemble a book, with the help of a website called Blurb. After becoming acquainted with the site, it put Chris one step closer to making his own book a reality. Composing and building the book was a fun and enjoyable process for Chris, and he is excited to share it with the world. The book is available for purchase here.
See more of Chris at hamphoto.com!