Kate Upton. Photo by Walter Iooss for Sports Illustrated.

“That’s true,” Walter told me by email. “It was our 2nd shot at a beach named Narrabeen, north of Sydney. She was on a boardwalk, and I was below ground level when we shot her, in a suit that almost doesn’t exist. The first shot we did that day is the opener to the Oz story, with  her sitting on the boardwalk. It was probably the best afternoon of the trip. She is a star.”

The 2012 Swimsuit Issue has already got some big-name fans. Here’s a clip of David Letterman‘s “Top 10 Reasons This Year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Is the Best One Ever” from his show Monday night:

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Click on the screenshot below to view a gallery of Walter’s photos of Kate at SI.com. There are 50 images in all…

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Click above to view gallery.

A still from of a giant billboard of the cover being revealed in New York, as seen on "The Late Show."

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And to watch a behind-the-scenes video of their shoots, click on the image below:

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Click image to go behind the scenes.

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An archival photo of Walter Iooss at work.

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In its recent Sportsman/Sportswoman issue, Sports Illustrated published a huge feature—something like 12 pages—that explores “The Education of Walter Iooss Jr.” The piece is chock full of candid recollections and observations from the famed SI photog. Below are some highlights. You can read the story in its entirety here.

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I won’t do negative stories on athletes I know. Get someone else. It would destroy all trust. I want to make athletes look strong and heroic, like comic-book superheroes. Sometimes I’m the opposite of a writer, who tries to humanize them.

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Truly, being with Michael [Jordan] was like traveling with Jesus. All the rules went out the window. Whatever I wanted, I could shoot. I’d go to some spot I knew no photographer should be, and someone would say, “Hey! You can’t stand here.”
I’d say, “I’m with Michael.”

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Sports were like therapy for me when I was young. My parents got divorced when I was four, and it was really acrimonious. My dad was a jazz musician who played with Benny Goodman, and I wasn’t allowed to see him for four years. Even after that, when I saw him on weekends, it was horrible for me. Every time he would leave on Sunday, I was despondent.

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I modeled my life as a photographer on the way athletes play their games. I don’t like sitting in a stadium for two hours chitchatting and smiling. What do I have to look at? I know what I’m going to shoot. I’ve arrived at events just as the national anthem was ending. It used to piss off the other photographers. They’re there three hours, four hours before the game. Boring.

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Though his SI work has made him a legend, Walter shoots for many other magazines and for ad clients as well—photos that have also earned him a measure of acclaim. In fact, Advertising Age has just released its picks for the “10 Best Magazine Covers of 2011,” and Walter’s cover for The New York Times Magazine, featuring Andy Samberg as both Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, made the list. Congratulations, Walter!

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From Advertising Age's "10 Best Magazine Covers of 2011."

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Click on the image to watch the video, and make sure you stay tuned till the end to hear Walter answer the reporter’s question about what differentiates the “everyday photographer” with his or her camera phone from “the pro’s pro.”

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Walter Iooss and Cole Hamels. Click to access video.

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Walter Iooss, age 16, at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, 1961.

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Got an email from Walter Iooss yesterday. It came in too late to post, so I saved it for today. Here it is:

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“50 years ago today I had my first paid assignment from Sports Illustrated. I was driven by my father to Groton, CT, from East Orange, N.J., to photograph an 83-your-old sailor named Archie Chester, who built a sailboat without plans, and sailed to Florida and back. This was for the weekly ‘Pat on the Back’ photo that ran on the last page of the magazine.

To say I was nervous was an understatement, but possibly not as much as Archie, seeing a wide-eyed teenager being sent to do a man’s job. I shot two rolls of Tri-X on my Asahi Pentax, and I was done. I could never have imagined what the future held for me in the decades that followed, but it was the beginning of a great adventure with Sports Illustrated and photography.”

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A little bit after I got that email, Walter wrote me again and included this photo:

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Photo by Walter Iooss.

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“I tried to find a picture tonight in Montauk, wanting to take something on this once-in-a-lifetime day. Weather not obliging. So I took out the 4×5″ camera and some Polaroid 55 film from the fridge, and took three frames, trying to make the past come to life… Lake Montauk, from Old West Lake Drive.”

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On a dreary, rain-soaked Manhattan day near the end of a loooong winter, one’s mind drifts to thoughts of tropical climates where the sun is constant and there’s not a shred of wool to be found. Places like you see in the current Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, the cover of which was shot not by the usual suspect—veteran Swimsuit Issue photographer Walter Iooss—but by his son Bjorn Iooss. The model: Irina Shayk.

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Irina Shayk, as photographed by Bjorn Iooss.

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Bjorn Iooss and Walter Iooss.

As Bjorn explained to The New York Times last month, landing the cover was the furthest thing from his mind when he photographed Shayk in Maui, as he’d been commissioned to shoot “a few supplemental pictures” for a Swimsuit Issue advertorial. But there he was at dawn one day last November, photographing the Russian supermodel, and something just, you know, clicked.

“It was beautiful. The light had just come up,” Bjorn told the Times‘ Stephen Heyman, who writes that “a few frames in,” Bjorn and his editors knew they had a cover contender. “The crazy thing about it,” noted Bjorn, who also photographed Julie Henderson, “was that it was the first morning, the first girl, the first look, and it was perfect.”

Bjorn’s dad, I mean Walter, also contributed to this year’s Swimsuit Issue, photographing Alyssa Miller, Genevieve Morton, and Anne V in Fuji. Here’s a look:

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Alyssa Miller. Photo by Walter Iooss for Sports Illustrated. Click to see more.

Genevieve Morton. Photo by Walter Iooss for Sports Illustrated. Click to see more.

Anne V. Photo by Walter Iooss for Sports Illustrated. Click to see more.

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Last year, when Walter’s Swimsuit Issue–inspired book Heaven came out, Vanity Fair produced a video and slideshow in which Walter hosts a look back at his Swimsuit shots from over the past three decades. He talks about his photos of models such as Cheryl Tiegs, Veronika Varecova, Petra Nemcova, Tyra Banks, Marisa Miller (“She does have the greatest body of any girl I’ve ever seen,” he comments), Paulina Porizkova, and Christie Brinkley.

The Swimsuit shoots are not “the orgy” that people think they are, Walter notes drily at one point, adding, “People look at you like, Who’s this ass with the hot girls?”

Click here to watch the slideshow “The Luckiest Photographer on Earth” at vanityfair.com and here to watch the video.

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“We shot in New Orleans, at an old football stadium under the stands,” Walter tells me. “Available light. Very old-school. Drew had just done two shoots before he got to me late in the afternoon—never a good thing. But he was a pro and focused, and did the job. He was hungry and tired but stood tall. I shot this photo May 19th, long before anyone thought he would be Sportsman.”

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