I have always loved Annie Leibovitz’s photobook, Olympic Portraits. The book is a collection of images she captured of the US olympians leading up to the 1996 games in Atlanta. What’s most striking about her approach is that she chose to photograph all of the athletes in black and white. Most sports imagery is traditionally very straight forward and captured only in color. Annie’s black and white portraits, however, provided a grace and intrigue to these sports that is often lacking.

Leibovitz inspired me to approach the sports I photographed for Altamont in a similar fashion. While most of my images are more documentary than portrait, I’m very pleased with the intrigue created by the black and white medium.

Below are three spreads from Olympic Portraits, followed by my Altamont images.

All of my images were captured on a Rolleiflex.