In this video, we sit down with David Cannon, golf photographer and author of the new book 'Seve: His Life Through The Lens', to go through 8 incredible photos he has captured of Seve during his career and the story behind them all. David shares some great insight into what Seve was like to photograph and the relationship he had with the great man. We also learn about the new book and what it was like to go through the process of making this book, including getting access to some never-before-seen photos of Seve's family life away from the course.
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00:00Yeah, number eight. So, you know at Augusta, you're not allowed to run. I was in my usual
00:10afternoon studio, which is from behind the second shot into 13, because the light's beautiful
00:16on that hole and it's a lovely sunny afternoon. And I saw Seve hit the shot. You know, sometimes
00:23you look at a player and you see the body action afterwards and I thought, hmm, there's
00:27a chance that's gone into the water. And that year, they let the water run fairly shallow,
00:33but some years it's deep. And this year it was particularly shallow, so there was a chance
00:38of people playing out of the water. And I just thought, there's just a chance that he's
00:42got in this water. So, you know, doing my Olympic walk, as I call it, and I was lucky
00:47enough to get across the crossing on 14, because that's the other thing, we're outside the
00:51ropes at Augusta, you can't go inside the ropes. So you can often get caught at spectator
00:56crossings because players coming through. But luckily, right in, got up the back of
01:01the grandstands, we have a, you know, you can get to the back of the bleachers, as they
01:06call them in America, through access at the back for media. Got there at the top, absolutely
01:13out of breath, sweating like a pig. And, you know, to see Seve sitting on the bank getting
01:18his shoes and socks off, just, you couldn't have written it really. You look at that very,
01:23very closely at that sequence. Hawkeyes will notice that near the end of it, you'll just
01:28see the ball descending, rather look, it's not coming out, but it didn't go forward.
01:33It went up, but not forward, sadly. So it came back at his feet and I think he had to
01:38drop the next one out. What a guy to watch, because he'll take these shots on. Probably
01:44this book would not happen without COVID and lockdown, because I wouldn't have had the
01:49time to devote to it, to get it done in such a short period of time. And, you know,
01:57obviously I've remained friends with Carmen, his ex-wife, but she's always been a really
02:03good friend. And Javier, because he plays golf, he's met my son, they got on quite well.
02:09And yeah, we've kept in touch all the time. You know, I've often had lunches in London
02:15and stuff like this. And, you know, 10th anniversary was coming up of his passing.
02:22And I just saw a chance, an opportunity just to do a book that would celebrate his career
02:30in pictures, basically. And I would not have got this project off the ground without the
02:37publishers getting interested. Most of all, without the R&A and then the European tour
02:43backing me. So it's been done in three months. And I spent hours going through archives. And
02:50the Getty Archive has been incredible, because we have got so many collections on there. We've
02:55got Phil Sheldon's collections on there, Peter Daisley, all the guys who were shooting in the
03:0070s and early 80s. But I've got pictures that I've used in the book. And I've tried to use
03:08pictures from other photographers as much, you know, because I think the book is about
03:12great images of Seve. So we've dug into some other archives and having the help of the R&A
03:18and then the European tour, it's meant that we've been able to afford to buy pictures in from
03:23outside. And so hopefully, it's going to give people a full and lovely view into his life.
03:30Another thing, of course, is the family have given us access to some beautiful family shots.
03:35I always said that Seve's smile was the most magnetic smile I've ever seen in a subject.
03:41And if you see these, when you see these family pictures, which no one's seen other than the
03:45family up till now, they shine, they literally light up the pages. And yeah, what an amazing
03:55treat it is to be able to use those pictures. I've tried to do what I call a moment in time
04:00in each chapter. But they're basically my stories behind pictures, which are quite fun, I hope,
04:07to make it interesting. And then Robert's essays as well. So there's some good reading in it as
04:11well. It's not just pictures. People loved him. Bottom line, that's the way I'd put it.
04:18People love watching Seve and they love the way he played the game of golf. They love this passion.
04:23They love everything about what he gave to the game of golf. And for me, that's the thing that
04:30shines so much. That actually, we lost the 1993 Ryder Cup, but this was on Saturday morning.
04:39And Seve hadn't been playing very well that year as a whole. But again, he's teamed up with Ollie
04:46and I think they won the two matches on the Friday. And this was the Saturday morning.
04:51And they won again. And for some reason, Gallagher thought his back wasn't holding up or Seve had said
04:59to him, you know, he's really struggling with his back and he didn't play him in the afternoon.
05:04And, you know, we lost by one point. What can you take from that? But the world will never know.
05:12But that picture, I just love that picture because the people in the background, you know,
05:16behold the birdie at that moment. And yeah, that was Seve. That was the reaction you always got.
05:22Yeah, the whole story is pretty amazing because that tournament, put it into context,
05:27he had just birdied, I think it was six holes in a row. Well, certainly from the 13th. So 13, 14,
05:3215, 16, five holes he'd birdied in a row. And he'd got to within one shot of the lead.
05:39And he stands on the 18th tee, which is to a slope that is really slopey fairway. It's a
05:45really tough tee shot to stay on the fairway anyway. And sure enough, off to the right. And
05:54I mean, I thought I thought it was going to be out of bounds, but it wasn't. It was
05:59six foot from a concrete wall, which surrounds the swimming pool in Crom. And
06:07there was, I went with him. A lot of people just ignored it. Even the TV crews didn't ignored it
06:13because they thought he's only going to chip this out. And if you notice, there's not a TV camera
06:17inside. There's no video of this shot ever. The only video of it is the ball landing just short
06:23of the green. But then he gets on his knees, he's snorting, he's kicking the ground. Yes, he does,
06:31you know, pointing to a gap like that. And Billy Foster, his caddy, he told me, he tells the story
06:40probably better than I do. But there's a great little YouTube video of what Billy said at the
06:46time. And, you know, he reckoned it was the size of a dinner plate, the hole that Seve was aiming
06:52for. And literally, he's almost almost on his knees. He's down there, he's crouching. Billy
06:58walks by me. He's got his bag. It's been sent off. I'm going for this, you know. Billy's been trying
07:04to persuade him to chip out for the last five minutes. And sure enough, there's a big explosion
07:10of pine needles and everything. No, no, I was waiting for the ball to hit the concrete wall
07:14and come towards me. Because the geometry that was, I thought I could be in quite a bit of danger
07:18here because the angles are, so I was at a right angle to him. And just waiting is that six seconds
07:25or whatever. One of the things I learned from TV cameramen is that the ball is in the air for six
07:29seconds. They hit a full shot, basically a tee shot, whatever shot it is. Roughly six seconds,
07:35the ball is in the air. You could count there's a little pause and then a big roar. You know,
07:41obviously he's got close to the green or even on the green. So I run around and you see the ball's
07:46just short of the green. And unfortunately, I didn't get quite far enough around the green
07:51before he's playing his third shot. So I was playing catch up basically. And, you know,
07:56he chipped the damn thing in for a birdie. Unfortunately, Barry Lane spoilt the story
08:01by birding 17 and 18, 16 and 17. And, you know, he didn't win, he lost by a shot. But it's one of the
08:09most incredible golf shots I've ever seen. You know, he was always fine with me. You know, I had
08:14occasions when he'd let me lie down behind him and shoo all the other photographers off, literally.
08:20So, you know, I had a very, very good relationship with him. Not by pushing myself at him, but I
08:27was just mutual trust and, you know, because I was around a lot following him. But I was still
08:33doing football at the time. So, you know, I actually, when you look, I didn't do that many
08:39tournaments that Seve played in. I did the majors and the bigger ones, but all the sort of regular
08:45European tour events, I was usually being sent off to do football at that stage of my career.
08:50I remember those World Match plays so fondly. Anyway, just, you know, I actually got a lovely
08:58picture of him on the tee, on the par five, par three fifth. And he put it in the bunker just
09:05left of the green. And that bunker shot, you know, bunker shots can be ordinary, but
09:12it's very difficult to get what I call nicely framed bunker shots, you know, where the player's
09:19in the right, the ball's up to the other side. And so it fills the frame nicely. Background's
09:25lovely. I'm always very keen on backgrounds to try and get as much out of focus. So you really
09:31isolate the subject. Golf, I keep on saying to people, you know, golf is one of the best spectator
09:37sports because you can get close to your heroes. You know, you can be eight feet from Tiger Woods
09:44playing a golf shot. Name any other sport you can get so up close in person with the great stars.
09:51You can't really. So even though you've got to walk a long way and you've got to, you know,
09:55be clever where you wait, this sort of thing. I think golf's the best sport. It's the greatest
10:01partnership in Ryder Cup history. No one will get close to what they, what is it, 12 points out of
10:0815 or whatever it is. I think they've got in it in all their matches. No one will touch that.
10:14And if you actually look at Seve, he won three points out of four with Manuel Pinero
10:20when he played with him in 85. So Seve and fellow Spanish players, we have incredibly strong
10:28chemistry, basically. And, you know, from the word go, the chemistry with 87 when
10:33Olazabal first played and things like Oli holding that putt on a Saturday morning, I think it was
10:38in 87 and Seve knocked it four and a half feet past, you know, and then Oli hold it again. And
10:44he just saw the sort of the chemistry between them on the 18th screen. And it was like,
10:50you know, and that picture was so lucky that jumping on the shoulders, because the Americans
10:57were playing at the same, you know, around about the same moment that that happened. And
11:03they did it once. I thought, damn, it's a bit of a messy picture because the caddy was standing
11:07right behind him. And the caddies sort of started walking on, they were still standing in the same
11:12spot. And then Oli did the same thing again. And I've got this lovely, clean background.
11:17So it was a much nicer picture. But Seve hit his second shot. If you look at it,
11:21Oli's got a putter and Seve's got his 9-iron or whatever it was, 8-iron. And
11:27Keir Ireland's got these really slopey greens. Yeah. And you can't actually see the ball on the
11:32green sometimes. And he just see over the top. And if he stood on his shoulders, he could see
11:36where the ball was and it was on the green, you know. So that's all he was looking for. I'd always,
11:41I said to Robert Green and Richard Simmons, I said, look, the only way to do these Seve
11:47instructions is to try and do it at home. Yeah. And he was happy to have us come to his home.
11:53So I think we had three articles to do on the instruction. And, you know, Seve gave us the
11:58morning basically to do it. And it all went really well. We had a good time doing it because I tried
12:04to make it, you know, challenging. I always thought the best way to do the instruction was
12:08to try and give him challenging shots, bunker shots, try and hold this or try and hit one that
12:14lands, you know, with a 9-iron, try and play with a 9-iron low at this sort of stuff. And he was
12:19great. And once you got him doing that, he was electric. He'd just show off basically. And so
12:26then we're having lunch in the clubhouse and he's just chatting away. And I said, Seve, you know,
12:31one of the things I'd love to do is go to the beach to see where you hit balls as a youngster,
12:36you know, that, you know, you want to go? We go, it's afternoon, you know. And it was like
12:42as easy as that. It wasn't planned at all. It was literally. And, you know, five minutes later,
12:47he comes out of the kitchen with a soup can in the golf club. He grabs a napkin from the table.
12:53He said, go on, off we go into his Range Rover, drive down to Somo Beach, which is a beautiful
12:59beach. And, you know, we were lucky in every sense because we got onto the beach and it was low
13:04tide. So the tide's out. So it's perfect, basically. And it's blowing 30 miles an hour, freezing cold
13:10wind. It's February. So it's early February. So it's pretty cold in northern Spain at that time
13:15of year. But he was like a kid, literally. And, you know, he went off into the bushes where he
13:22parked his car and came out with a stick. And then he gets on his hands and knees and he
13:28cuts the hole out with his soup can, sticks the stick in, ties the napkin to the top.
13:34This is my hole. I learned to putt for Augusta on this green, you know, because it's so fast,
13:42rock hard sand. And it was like billiard table, basically. So he did a few putts and then he
13:48started hitting shots down 9-iron and then a 3-iron down the beach. Amazing, basically.
13:54We couldn't believe our luck and he just let him hit shots, basically. I mean, the day was,
13:58without a doubt, the best, most memorable day of my life, basically, in golf photography.
14:03The final putt, yeah. I mean, what can I say about that? You have to be lucky in this game.
14:12There's no question you have to be lucky. And I actually, you know, he got that amazing par,
14:19beautiful par on 17. He was still one shot behind going up 18. Basically, he knew he had to birdie
14:2618. And the second shot he left 15 feet short of the hole. And if you look at the video, it's
14:34amazing how long that putt took to roll into that hole because it literally, it was missing and it
14:40just hovered on the edge and then it fell in. And of course, when you're photographing, all you've
14:47got is just Seve in the camera. You don't know if that ball's going in the hole. So the only
14:51thing that's going to give you the clue that that might be going in the hole is the crowd
14:55or the player reacting. And, you know, he reacted in a massive way. And luckily enough, I'd had a
15:02premonition or whatever it was, you know, roll of film, 36 pictures is all it was in those days.
15:08You think you can shoot a thousand pictures on something like that now with digital cameras.
15:13We had 36 pictures to deal with a camera that runs at five, six frames a second.
15:19You got about six seconds of ammunition, basically. Luckily, I had a fresh roll because,
15:25you know, the best picture, the really nice picture, the fist pump picture was very, very
15:30near the end of the sequence. If you look at it on the, you know, it was very close to the end.
15:36And I think just after that, I ran out of film. So I didn't actually manage to get any pictures
15:40of him hugging his caddy, walking off the thing because I've literally run out of film. So I'd say
15:451984 was, you know, I don't like to think I peaked then, but it was, I had two pictures that year.
15:53There was that picture. And then two weeks later at the Olympics in Los Angeles, I got my famous
15:58picture of Carl Lewis, the pan shot of him running, which those two pictures, I mean, I can't,
16:06you can't quantify how much, how many times they've been used and what they've done for my
16:11career, really. But certainly for me, that St. Andrews moment was, that got me going as a golf
16:20photographer, well and truly. I, you know, I couldn't decide. I like this one as a golfer.
16:25Yeah. Because I think this is it. This is a golf picture. You know, this is a chap, a player,
16:32absolute peak of his swing. The light's lovely. The fact he's just on an upslope makes his body
16:38go into that wonderful shape and the sun and the hair. And this is where I'm going to come to,
16:45what I think is one of the most significant things about photographing in the 80s,
16:50was that a lot of golfers did not wear hats. And if you look at a picture, the first thing you're
16:57drawn to is the eyes of the subject. I learned this very early in my sports photography, you
17:03know, career that you had to get the eyes in focus. If you don't get the eyes in focus,
17:09the picture doesn't work. When these golfers are wearing big visors and big shadows under
17:14their eyes, you don't see them. You don't see the subject. And, you know, I had that,
17:19those lovely pictures of Seve, Jack Nicklaus in 86, no hat. The only person who got away with
17:26wearing a hat was Greg Norman with the big straw hat, which was, you know, used to be kind of light
17:32and it was part of his character. But the Navy jumper, there's something about the Navy jumper,
17:37isn't it? It's like iconic. And that, you know, that logo, the Schlesinger Panther logo is iconic
17:44logo. And yeah, so that's been great. I mean, it's fantastic, fun photographing him, basically.