Photography has taken John Todd to World Cups, Olympics and the White House. You’ve seen his photos in Soccer America for more than two decades, and they’ve appeared in Time Magazine, The New York Times and Sports Illustrated, and many more publications. His work has been displayed at the Smithsonian Institution.
Todd started shooting soccer when MLS arrived in San Jose in 1996. That led to free-lancing for ISI Photos, which Brett Whitesell founded in 1992. Todd covered the 2002 World Cup in South Korea for ISI. In 2004, Whitesell sold ISI to Todd and his wife, Annette Shelby. They created an unprecedented soccer-dedicated database that now holds 500,000-plus American soccer images dating back to the early 1990s.
Reconnecting with soccer at the 1994 World Cup. Todd played soccer until his high school freshman year, when he switched to American football. “But I still loved the game,” he says. After serving as a staff photographer for the Westport News in Connecticut, he returned to his hometown of Palo Alto in Northern California in 1990. While a newspaper free-lance photographer, Todd failed to get credentialed for the 1994 World Cup. He did, however, get World Cup-related work with Brazilian beer company Brahma.
“Happenstance,” he says. “I was the ops guy from Brahma beer. They did a guerrilla marketing campaign and had a huge fan group. If you remember the tents across from Stanford University for the 94 World Cup or fan section with huge USA and Brazil flags— that was my group. I was their Guy Friday. I coordinated tents, the beer trucks, sold T-shirts, drove down to Pasadena for the final. I was the one American with 100 Brazilians. I had a fan experience, which was incredible.”
After its World Cup final triumph over Italy at the Rose Bowl, Brazil celebrated at a Fullerton brewery.
“Watching them celebrate with fans, spraying champagne on the crowd from the stage … Those kind of moments are special,” Todd says.
His last task of the 1994 World Cup was at closing time: “The manager told the Brahma people they had to push everybody out. But Romario and Bebeto were sitting in a booth and didn’t want to leave. They told me, ‘Please go over there and tell Romario and Bebeto. We’re Brazilian and they won’t listen to us. They’ll listen to you because you’re American.’ So I told them the night was over. They said something in Portuguese and got up. What a night that was.”
Todd’s wife, Annette, who was a varsity tennis player at Stanford, became a soccer fan during that World Cup. And Todd soon took a big leap in his soccer photography career — when MLS arrived in San Jose.
MLS in the neighborhood. Todd worked as a stringer for the Associated Press, racing to developing news when his beeper sounded and covering sports events. He shot corporate material, advertising and fine arts, while maintaining a special affinity for sports photography.
“I shot Stanford basketball for Associated Press, and I’m walking down the street on University Avenue,” Todd says, “and I see a San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, and there’s my picture on the front page of Chronicle. That was an amazing moment.” As was when Time Magazine published a spread of his Tiger Woods‘ Pebble Beach Pro-Am photos.
But his unique job at the 1994 World Cup fueled Todd’s appetite for shooting soccer. The timing worked perfectly for Palo Alto neighbor David Ficklin. A founding San Jose Clash front-office member, Ficklin needed promotional photos while preparing for MLS’s 1996 kickoff. Todd’s work impressed enough that he was hired as team photographer — a position he still holds.
National teams and much more: ISI is especially famous for its U.S. national team coverage, including youth national teams, but its photographers cover the wide spectrum of American soccer — pros and college, men and women. (ISI also covers various others sports.)
It’s resource not only for the current action of MLS and the 14-year-old NWSL, but also remains a resource for images from women’s leagues that didn’t last, the WUSA and WPS. For example, it has photos of the 2010 WPS champion Gold Pride that featured Marta, Ali Riley, Christine Sinclair, Tiffeny Milbrett, Kelley O’Hara, Rachel Buehler and Shannon Boxx.
History: “If it wasn’t for guys like Brett Whitesell or Tony Quinn paving the way, we wouldn’t have the hundreds of thousands of images in the database for this storytelling history that we have,” Todd says.
The business: “Annette is the bedrock of ISI,” Todd says. “She’s our managing director. She has a Stanford MBA, has an incredible business vision and has really kept us on track. She’s also really photographer friendly, and works with photographers on various issues. ISI would not be anywhere near what it is without her.”
Up close: When for more than two decades ISI served U.S. Soccer as official partnering team photographer and image manager, Todd, John Dorton and Brad Smith embedded with the men’s and women’s national teams. That included covering off-field events such as a 2010 White House visit, and taking promotional and studio shots.
Predicting the action: “It took me a few years to get the rhythm down and to really understand the game and what the players would do in certain situations,” Todd says. “You’ve got to think about, what does this player do when he gets the ball? Cut right? Cut left? Where does she like to celebrate after the goals? You try to think about those shots that are going to tell the story of the game and put yourself in the right position. You can only sit on one side of the field, in one position, and so it’s a one in four chance that celebrations come your way.”
Looking through the lens: “What it does for you, is it allows you to interact with whatever subject you’re photographing in a way you can’t do if you’re just observing,” Todd says. “You’re seeing things you would not see without that camera. It’s about curiosity. It’s exploring visually the subject matter and interacting with it. For a soccer photographer, you see things that nobody else sees because you’ve got this lens trained on these players. You’re seeing movements and emotions that nobody else sees.”
That is, until the photos are published.
📷 John Todd Galleries |Photo Journal | ISI Photos | ISI Showcase
• ISI photographers (current and past): Jason Allen, Tracy Allen, Robin Alam, Jose Argueta, Ray Bahner, Bill Barrett, Daniel Bartel, Greg Bartram, Aric Becker, David Bernal, Stephen Brashear, Eric Brown, Jr, Joe Buvid, Bryan Byerly, Al Chang, Erin Chang, Jenny Chuang, Shaun Clark, Andrew Clark, James Patrick Cooper, Blake Dahlin, Trent Davol, Steve Dinberg, John Dorton, Bob Drebin, David Elkinson, Don Feria, Harry Figiel, Jonathan Goodman, Jack Goras, Carlos Gonzalez, Scott Gould, Seth Greenberg, Maciek Gudrymowicz, Adam Hagy, John Matthew Harrison, Karen Hickey, David Hickey, Alex Ho, Eakin Howard, Fausto Ibarra, AJ Johnson, Michael Janosz, Carl Kafka, Andrew Katsampes, Lee Klafczynski, Cory Knowlton, Amy Kontras, Elizabeth Kreutz, Supriya Lamiye, Mike Lawrence, Fernando Leon, Steven Limentani, John Lozano, Trinity Machan, Perry McIntyre, John McGloughlin, Andrew Mead, Melinda Meijer, Roy Miller, Michael Miller, Craig Mitchelldyer, Robert Mora, Jose Moreno, Christopher Morris, Fred & Susan Mullane, Stephen Nadler, Ben Nichols, Gregory Ng, Jeremy Olson, Celso Onofre, Emma Ottosen, Brooks Parkenridge, Eston Parker, Michael Pimentel, Chris Putman, Tony Quinn, Lyndsay Radnedge, Mike Rasay, Jeremy Reper, Joe Robbins, Richard Rodriguez, Liza Rosales, Trevor Ruszkowski, Albert Sermeno, Elysia Su, Howard Smith, Brad Smith, Mark Smith, Edwin So, Talia Sprague, Stephen Spillman, Jordan Teller, Wilf Thorne, Mark Thorstenson, John Todd, Thien-An Truong, Casey Valentine, Peter van den Berg, Brandon Vallance, Andrea Vilchez, Andrew Villa, John Wilkinson, Roger Wimmer, Doug Zimmerman.
